Stellaris Dev Diary #160 - Origins Full Reveal

[mysticdueler]

If you build the habitat over a mineral deposit (where you would normally build a mining station) you gain access to mining districts.

 

[Tonausfall]

I thought that every special start civic would be an origin now.

What about

Inward Perfection,
Devouring Swarm ,
Barbaric Despoilers,
Determined Exterminator,
Driven Assimilator,
Rogue Servito,
Criminal Heritage

are they deleted?

 

[Ixalmaris]

But how do void-dwellers generate minerals outside of mining stations? Do they just not?

The districts you can build in a habitat depend on the resource bonus of the planet below.
Put it in an Orbit over something with a mineral bonus and you can build mining districts.

 

[LeSingeAffame]

I thought that every special start civic would be an origin now.

What about

Inward Perfection,
Devouring Swarm ,
Barbaric Despoilers,
Determined Exterminator,
Driven Assimilator,
Rogue Servito,
Criminal Heritage

are they deleted?

They stay as civics.
Putting them in origins would restrict some flavorful combinations, like Life-Seeded Inward Perfection, Doomsday Fanatical Purifiers, Tree of Life Devouring Swarms, ...

 

[Ixalmaris]

What void dwellers might lack are strategic resources. I don't think you get access to resource depots of the planet below.
Although unless you limit yourself on purpose by the time they become important you usually have conquered a planetbound species already.

 

[Olterin]

What void dwellers might lack are strategic resources. I don't think you get access to resource depots of the planet below.
Although unless you limit yourself on purpose by the time they become important you usually have conquered a planetbound species already.

Oh but you do get them, unless you mean the deposits that are planetary features of habitable worlds. Space deposits get transformed into a habitat feature, if I recall correctly one that lets you build the appropriate number of extraction buildings. If anything, Void Dwellers will be less limited by strategic resources due to their rather massive 15% resource bonus... not that it's even possible to be limited by strategic resources past the early midgame (but that's a topic for another time)

 

[stilgarpl]

Tree of Life Devouring Swarms

You can't pick Devouring Swarm if you have Tree of Life.

 

[Tonausfall]

They stay as civics.
Putting them in origins would restrict some flavorful combinations, like Life-Seeded Inward Perfection, Doomsday Fanatical Purifiers, Tree of Life Devouring Swarms, ...

Sounds weird, a systhem that should clean up the civic system, doesen't clean up the civic system from special game mechanics. Maybe they should bild a two level origin system.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

And if we use federal/hygemon origins, the other two nations will be of our original species, too?

AFAIK your Federation buddies are randomized, but guaranteed to share one of your Ethics. So, no, probably not the same species.

 

[Hugh Mann]

All that developer quoting and not one sentence devoted to those of us clamoring for better performance or a coherent mid-late game? How about DLC that works together...or works at all (Hello, War in Heaven)? I'm not even going to get into the problems with the Scourge or the Contingency.

If silence is the answer than I am hoping that Paradox has something up their sleeves for this roll out or we are looking at another Megacorp type release right before Christmas with a large break where the game will be in a TODO state while we are celebrating the Holidays.

Paradox, I like you. I want you to have my money...I really do. The problem is I don't trust you after the last few attempts at DLC and I am being more cautious this time with how I spend my money.

Whenever they make claims like that, people accuse them of making empty promises, point out that they've lied about this in the past, or use it as ammunition when those changes aren't made.

 

[G S Palmer]

Thanks for the update to the OP, devs. Good to see more details about Void Dwellers. Also that Tree of Life is Utopia, not Federations.

Also, it looks like you've tweaked Galactic Doorstep:

Galactic Doorstep: Start with a dormant Gateway in your home system, which can be investigated and reactivated. (Available to everyone)

indicating that the gateway can be activated before you get the gateway tech.

 

[sortulv]

But how do void-dwellers generate minerals outside of mining stations? Do they just not?

Build habitats over mineral worlds (gives you a number of mining districts equal to the normal mineral income from said world).
That, and send some robots/slaves to planets to mine planets...

 

[The Founder]

Let's see wich Empires I always wanted to play I can come up with:

Prosperous Unification: Start with 4 additional Pops and 2 additional Districts. (Available to everyone)

Personally I think Prosperous Unification is the default Origin. But a lot of people seem to consider "Galactic Doorstep" as a generic one without early-midgame bonus.
Given how much tech you need to unlock it.

Galactic Doorstep: Start with a dormant Gateway in your home system, which can be investigated and reactivated. (Available to everyone)

While no early to midgame bonus, you would have a guaranteed, restoreable gateway in your home System. With the usualy option to restore it for Ethics and Trade Collection reasons.
I also wonder if having a Gateway Connection to/from your Capitol will have an impact on Empire Sprawl or Bureaucrats output.

As for starts, I am thinking about Earth 2160. Humanity ends up on an alien planet, using Ancient Gateways.

Remnants: Start on a Relic World. (Federations)

While Tombworld might seem a obvious choice for this, Relic World might be a better start for the Fallout game.

Shattered Ring: Start on a Shattered Ring World. Your empire lives on the only intact section of the ancient megastructure, and it is possible to repair most of the other sections. (Federations)

Everything about the Gaia World challenge and Gateway applies to this, except it is even later (and never fully) that you can retore the righworld.
I never understood why people wanted such a start.

Void Dwellers: Start on a Habitat above your destroyed, former homeworld, and with 2 more habitats in your home system. Completely adapted to living in habitats, and start with the technology to build new ones, but also suffers a penalty to living on regular planets. (Federations)

Vodjanni from Endless Legends comes to mind.
As would be the Voth from Star Trek.

In the original those both have city ships, but it is close enough.

Mechanist: Start with 8 Pops being robots, and the ability to build more. (Utopia)

If this finally allows me to pick Mechanicst a Megacorp, that means:
"Omni Consumer Products", from the Robocop universe.

Scion: Start as the vassal of a Fallen Empire. (Federations)

Depends on how much Diplomacy you can have and how easy it is to get out of that special Vassal State.

Tree of Life: Only for Hive Minds. Start with a powerful Tree of Life on your homeworld. Disastrous if you would somehow lose control of it. Colony ships also plant a sapling on new colonies. (Utopia)

I would prefer it as a general Origin, rather then hivemind only.
Both the Talans from the Outcast series and the Kai's from Dragonball could have a similar mechanic. But I always could make those with a Gaia world start too.

On the Shoulder of Giants: Investigate a series of Archaeological Sites related to a mysterious benefactor. (Federations)

This chain I want to explore. Does depend a bit on how much randomness there is to the chain.

Calamitous Birth: Lithoid Only. Start with a Massive Crater on your Homeworld. You are also able to build Meteorite Colony Ships, which colonize planets in a more dramatic fashion. (Lithoids)

I wish that was more generally avalible, because then I could make Warhamemr 40k Orcs!

Resource Consolidation: Machines only. Start with a Machine World as your homeworld. (Synthetic Dawn)

Between this and prosperous Unification, it would be a very interesting choice of start bonuses. I guess it depends on your Starting Pop build speed wich would be better.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I never understood why people wanted such a start.

Because it's cool.

 

[The Founder]

Whenever they make claims like that, people accuse them of making empty promises, point out that they've lied about this in the past, or use it as ammunition when those changes aren't made.

They already gave a answer:
"We are always working on Performance and AI".

It points out how dumb the question was, to begin with (because of course they do). Without making any specific promises about any specific issue. I have to check if somebody found a reply other then "but I wanna have a specific thing fixed!"

Sounds weird, a systhem that should clean up the civic system, doesen't clean up the civic system from special game mechanics. Maybe they should bild a two level origin system.

Origins are only there for Origin Civics.
I tried to do this like like way back with modding. I realized that a "Origin Civic" that gave +1 Civic slot, would be around what we got now, with less work.
The only issue with modding it in was, that the Empire Creation UI did not account for a +1 Civic Slot from a Civic - only the ingame Civic counting did.

Stuff like Inward Perfect or Fanatic Purifiers? Those are "can not be added or removed" for unrelated game balance reasons. Not because they are very "Origin" Civic-aly

 

[Gaming Master Anthony]

What exactly are you basing this "theory" on?

My theory is that it does exactly what it says it does.

....Hope

 

[Fermi's_Solution]

Oh, hey, wasn't expecting an actual response. And an edited first post for better information.

Many origins have events and event chains associated with them.

Now we're talking. That's what I wanted to hear.

What a subject empire can do varies by vassalization type. Satrapies of the Great Khan, for instance, can expand freely. Scions similarly have a unique subject contract.

... because they use the AE subject types? Which would mean materialists can't into AI, IIRC.

Hm, interesting. Also nice to know these are the normal FEs.

Remnants: Your homeworld has decayed enough that all four basic district types are represented.

Ha hah, "reclaimed by nature." I get it. Though really, that just means the original builders didn't do their job right and missed a spot, because what kind of proper city world has vegetation to reclaim anything at all? Unless someone was growing daffodils on a windowsill or something...

Or, if the starting race was plantoids, and the vegetation reclaiming the city is a distant branch down their evolutionary tree. Second-degree cannibalism, twice removed!

While your homeworld is a relic world and a former Ecumenopolis covered in ruined arcologies, it does not have the same special features as, say, the Rubricator world.

We gotta talk about that Rubricator world sometime, though. Because seriously, getting that every game is bonkers.

Shattered Ring: One of the sections is permanently shattered. The celestial object responsible and the ring segment itself can be mined. (Note: Lithoids still have a really tough start here, since they'll eat most of the minerals, and they can't acquire minerals from their home section.)

"The celestial object responsible"
... did you just make backstory for your backstory? Doin' it right.

Saying Lithoids eat most of the minerals makes it sound like the minerals alone aren't enough to power a full ring world. Which, that's good, I don't wanna sit there playing solitaire with myself. Which I will if I can, because efficiency.

Void Dwellers: One of the habitats you start with is a mining habitat. Hydroponics for food.

This plus the edited OP makes it sound more interesting. Giving the habitat race that otherwise insane trait makes them actually worth something, which is nice.

Though, the idea of fanatic egalitarian meritocratic void dwellers on an ecumenopolis is frankly terrifying.

Meteorite colony ship.

... brb, replaying Metroid Prime. Some planets are gonna get Phaazed.

Ooh, Terravore Phazon! Perfect.

 

[G S Palmer]

Shattered Ring: One of the sections is permanently shattered. The celestial object responsible and the ring segment itself can be mined. (Note: Lithoids still have a really tough start here, since they'll eat most of the minerals, and they can't acquire minerals from their home section.)

Based on this, I'm guessing that you have an asteroid in your home system that has punched through one of the ring segments. If I might make a suggestion, at least for lithoids, maybe said asteroid/another asteroid should have crash landed on your home district, giving you a few miner jobs not dependent on districts? Because it's a little bit odd that you managed to make it into space without any of the minerals needed to make alloys. Or the minerals needed to eat, if you're a lithoid.

 

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

Prosperous unification. It seems like the "default" origin. Decent generic bonus. I would like to see a "unification by conquest" origin as another quite natural occurrence, but well, this will suffice I guess.

I skipped a lot of posts, so not sure this is relevant anymore, but: without reading the flavor text, I see no reason that "prosperous unification" can't mean "prosperous unification by conquest".

Prosperous doesn't mean peaceful

 

[Methone]

I skipped a lot of posts, so not sure this is relevant anymore, but: without reading the flavor text, I see no reason that "prosperous unification" can't mean "prosperous unification by conquest".

Prosperous doesn't mean peaceful

Sure, but you gotta admit it's just nonsense for Gestalts.