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Stellaris Dev Diary #199: Become the Crisis

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with another exciting dev diary to talk about a new feature in the upcoming Nemesis expansion for Stellaris.


For far too long has the galaxy remained safe from player hands. In fact, more often than not, the player has needed to be the defender of said galaxy. No more! Finally has your time come to become the crisis!
Becoming the Crisis
Your first step towards becoming the biggest threat to the continued existence of the galaxy is to pick the associated ascension perk. You need to have 2 other Ascension Perks unlocked before you can select Become the Crisis. The Ascension Perk is available to most types of empires, but xenophiles, pacifists and rogue servitors are unable to have the color purple as their favorite.

There is no limit to the number of players that can pick it, but the AI will be less likely to do so if there is another empire that already has it.

1612458261643.png

Donning the purple, the Stellaris way.

Upon picking the Ascension Perk, your path of destruction has begun. You will forfeit other opportunities to focus on your newfound goals.

Becoming more menacing
As soon as you have chosen to Become the Crisis, you get access to a new UI tab where you can see your current crisis perks, and menace objectives.

1612458285034.png

Work in progress. Names or descriptions may not be final.

As you perform certain evil deeds, you’ll be rewarded with Menace. Some of these are rewarded upon reaching an objective, while others are rewarded over time while certain conditions are met (such as having a vassal).

To reach the next Crisis Level you will need a certain amount of Menace, and you will also need to finish a special project to take you to the next level. You will need to repeat the process of gaining more Menace and finishing a special project 4 times before you can reach the final Crisis Level.

1612458304746.png

Finishing the 1st special project, which takes you to Crisis Level 2.

Crisis Perks
Each Crisis Level unlocks certain Crisis Perks, which can unlock bonuses or new types of ships. As you become more menacing, you’ll also become more powerful through these perks.

1612458323896.png

A crisis needs to keep its options open.

1612458343466.png

Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?

You can unlock the following ships:
  • Menacing Corvette
  • Menacing Destroyer
  • Asteroid Cruiser
  • Star-Eater
The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become.

Existential Crisis
The final level for the crisis is no mere label, as you will be able to threaten the very existence of the galaxy.

1612458399163.png

As the final level is unlocked, an Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system. The frame requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and upgrading is something that you definitely want to do. Other empires may be less happy about the outcome.

1612458421790.png

Getting such a large amount of dark matter is no easy task, so a special gathering device has to be used – let us present the Star-Eater. Star-Eaters do exactly what it sounds like – they eat stars.

1612458440792.png

Behold! A large dark matter deposit.

Your new goal as a crisis is now to gather as much dark matter as you can, so that you can upgrade your Aetherophasic Engine. The stars are now your fuel towards a different future.

Should you succeed, everyone else will lose.

The galactic community will also get their own tools to try to stop you, which is something we’ll dive deeper into next week.
 
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You people forget that there's also the option for the galactic custodian, which was NOT shown. I expect it to have a similar tab with options and/or mechanics.
Fair point that actually would explain the title nemesis both of these empires have completely opposite goals. Really excited to see what the custodia brings to the table.
 
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I'm gonna be blunt, this seems stupid and lazy to me. Stupid because if an empire is homicidal enough to want to destroy the galaxy their neighbors should dynamically recognize that fact and work to contain them through emergent diplomacy, not through them taking a perk that signals to everyone they're crazy bastards. Lazy because it feels like the devs are outsourcing the crisis AI to the players now instead of taking the time and effort to fix it.

Just like with so many other things, if the devs really want this to be a fun and engaging endgame route, they'd better make darn sure the game balance and AI are improved enough that the AI empires are capable of posing a threat to the player past the early game phase.
 
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Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with another exciting dev diary to talk about a new feature in the upcoming Nemesis expansion for Stellaris.


For far too long has the galaxy remained safe from player hands. In fact, more often than not, the player has needed to be the defender of said galaxy. No more! Finally has your time come to become the crisis!
Becoming the Crisis
Your first step towards becoming the biggest threat to the continued existence of the galaxy is to pick the associated ascension perk. You need to have 2 other Ascension Perks unlocked before you can select Become the Crisis. The Ascension Perk is available to most types of empires, but xenophiles, pacifists and rogue servitors are unable to have the color purple as their favorite.

There is no limit to the number of players that can pick it, but the AI will be less likely to do so if there is another empire that already has it.

View attachment 677811
Donning the purple, the Stellaris way.

Upon picking the Ascension Perk, your path of destruction has begun. You will forfeit other opportunities to focus on your newfound goals.

Becoming more menacing
As soon as you have chosen to Become the Crisis, you get access to a new UI tab where you can see your current crisis perks, and menace objectives.

View attachment 677812
Work in progress. Names or descriptions may not be final.

As you perform certain evil deeds, you’ll be rewarded with Menace. Some of these are rewarded upon reaching an objective, while others are rewarded over time while certain conditions are met (such as having a vassal).

To reach the next Crisis Level you will need a certain amount of Menace, and you will also need to finish a special project to take you to the next level. You will need to repeat the process of gaining more Menace and finishing a special project 4 times before you can reach the final Crisis Level.

View attachment 677813
Finishing the 1st special project, which takes you to Crisis Level 2.

Crisis Perks
Each Crisis Level unlocks certain Crisis Perks, which can unlock bonuses or new types of ships. As you become more menacing, you’ll also become more powerful through these perks.

View attachment 677814
A crisis needs to keep its options open.

View attachment 677815
Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?

You can unlock the following ships:
  • Menacing Corvette
  • Menacing Destroyer
  • Asteroid Cruiser
  • Star-Eater
The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become.

Existential Crisis
The final level for the crisis is no mere label, as you will be able to threaten the very existence of the galaxy.

As the final level is unlocked, an Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system. The frame requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and upgrading is something that you definitely want to do. Other empires may be less happy about the outcome.


Getting such a large amount of dark matter is no easy task, so a special gathering device has to be used – let us present the Star-Eater. Star-Eaters do exactly what it sounds like – they eat stars.

View attachment 677818
Behold! A large dark matter deposit.

Your new goal as a crisis is now to gather as much dark matter as you can, so that you can upgrade your Aetherophasic Engine. The stars are now your fuel towards a different future.

Should you succeed, everyone else will lose.

The galactic community will also get their own tools to try to stop you, which is something we’ll dive deeper into next week.
How will this feature integrate with all the expansion and DLC presently ? E.G:

1612458343466.png

Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?
You can unlock the following ships:
  • Menacing Corvette
  • Menacing Destroyer
  • Asteroid Cruiser
  • Star-Eater
The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become
Will they have variant for several type of empires such as devouring swarm, driven assimilator, Convenent of the end of cycle, etc ? Will they have a rework for the ascension perks where biological empires will be able to use bio-ships for example ?
 
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Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with another exciting dev diary to talk about a new feature in the upcoming Nemesis expansion for Stellaris.


For far too long has the galaxy remained safe from player hands. In fact, more often than not, the player has needed to be the defender of said galaxy. No more! Finally has your time come to become the crisis!
Becoming the Crisis
Your first step towards becoming the biggest threat to the continued existence of the galaxy is to pick the associated ascension perk. You need to have 2 other Ascension Perks unlocked before you can select Become the Crisis. The Ascension Perk is available to most types of empires, but xenophiles, pacifists and rogue servitors are unable to have the color purple as their favorite.

There is no limit to the number of players that can pick it, but the AI will be less likely to do so if there is another empire that already has it.

View attachment 677811
Donning the purple, the Stellaris way.

Upon picking the Ascension Perk, your path of destruction has begun. You will forfeit other opportunities to focus on your newfound goals.

Becoming more menacing
As soon as you have chosen to Become the Crisis, you get access to a new UI tab where you can see your current crisis perks, and menace objectives.

View attachment 677812
Work in progress. Names or descriptions may not be final.

As you perform certain evil deeds, you’ll be rewarded with Menace. Some of these are rewarded upon reaching an objective, while others are rewarded over time while certain conditions are met (such as having a vassal).

To reach the next Crisis Level you will need a certain amount of Menace, and you will also need to finish a special project to take you to the next level. You will need to repeat the process of gaining more Menace and finishing a special project 4 times before you can reach the final Crisis Level.

View attachment 677813
Finishing the 1st special project, which takes you to Crisis Level 2.

Crisis Perks
Each Crisis Level unlocks certain Crisis Perks, which can unlock bonuses or new types of ships. As you become more menacing, you’ll also become more powerful through these perks.

View attachment 677814
A crisis needs to keep its options open.

View attachment 677815
Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?

You can unlock the following ships:
  • Menacing Corvette
  • Menacing Destroyer
  • Asteroid Cruiser
  • Star-Eater
The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become.

Existential Crisis
The final level for the crisis is no mere label, as you will be able to threaten the very existence of the galaxy.

As the final level is unlocked, an Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system. The frame requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and upgrading is something that you definitely want to do. Other empires may be less happy about the outcome.


Getting such a large amount of dark matter is no easy task, so a special gathering device has to be used – let us present the Star-Eater. Star-Eaters do exactly what it sounds like – they eat stars.

View attachment 677818
Behold! A large dark matter deposit.

Your new goal as a crisis is now to gather as much dark matter as you can, so that you can upgrade your Aetherophasic Engine. The stars are now your fuel towards a different future.

Should you succeed, everyone else will lose.

The galactic community will also get their own tools to try to stop you, which is something we’ll dive deeper into next week.
This looks really fun but I'm wondering what's happening to the old crisises,
Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with another exciting dev diary to talk about a new feature in the upcoming Nemesis expansion for Stellaris.


For far too long has the galaxy remained safe from player hands. In fact, more often than not, the player has needed to be the defender of said galaxy. No more! Finally has your time come to become the crisis!
Becoming the Crisis
Your first step towards becoming the biggest threat to the continued existence of the galaxy is to pick the associated ascension perk. You need to have 2 other Ascension Perks unlocked before you can select Become the Crisis. The Ascension Perk is available to most types of empires, but xenophiles, pacifists and rogue servitors are unable to have the color purple as their favorite.

There is no limit to the number of players that can pick it, but the AI will be less likely to do so if there is another empire that already has it.

View attachment 677811
Donning the purple, the Stellaris way.

Upon picking the Ascension Perk, your path of destruction has begun. You will forfeit other opportunities to focus on your newfound goals.

Becoming more menacing
As soon as you have chosen to Become the Crisis, you get access to a new UI tab where you can see your current crisis perks, and menace objectives.

View attachment 677812
Work in progress. Names or descriptions may not be final.

As you perform certain evil deeds, you’ll be rewarded with Menace. Some of these are rewarded upon reaching an objective, while others are rewarded over time while certain conditions are met (such as having a vassal).

To reach the next Crisis Level you will need a certain amount of Menace, and you will also need to finish a special project to take you to the next level. You will need to repeat the process of gaining more Menace and finishing a special project 4 times before you can reach the final Crisis Level.

View attachment 677813
Finishing the 1st special project, which takes you to Crisis Level 2.

Crisis Perks
Each Crisis Level unlocks certain Crisis Perks, which can unlock bonuses or new types of ships. As you become more menacing, you’ll also become more powerful through these perks.

View attachment 677814
A crisis needs to keep its options open.

View attachment 677815
Some of these ships cost minerals to build. Crazy concept, isn’t it?

You can unlock the following ships:
  • Menacing Corvette
  • Menacing Destroyer
  • Asteroid Cruiser
  • Star-Eater
The further you progress, the more interesting things start to become.

Existential Crisis
The final level for the crisis is no mere label, as you will be able to threaten the very existence of the galaxy.

As the final level is unlocked, an Aetherophasic Engine Frame appears in your capital system. The frame requires a lot of dark matter to upgrade, and upgrading is something that you definitely want to do. Other empires may be less happy about the outcome.


Getting such a large amount of dark matter is no easy task, so a special gathering device has to be used – let us present the Star-Eater. Star-Eaters do exactly what it sounds like – they eat stars.

View attachment 677818
Behold! A large dark matter deposit.

Your new goal as a crisis is now to gather as much dark matter as you can, so that you can upgrade your Aetherophasic Engine. The stars are now your fuel towards a different future.

Should you succeed, everyone else will lose.

The galactic community will also get their own tools to try to stop you, which is something we’ll dive deeper into next week.
This update looks really good, I'm just wondering now what's going to happen to the old crises (is that the plural of crisis?). I hope this doesn't remove them, if anything this is a perfect time to add a new one(s). Also, what happens to systems with no star, what happens when you finish your Aetherophasic Engine? These are all questions I hope get answered in the future. Again, this update looks huge and looks like a lot of fun! With espionage, the crisis and the crisis janitor thing, I am very hopeful for the future of this update and stellaris in general!
 
I feel like people are taking the "Should you succeed, everyone else will lose." line a bit too literally.

I don't think it literally means "once you complete it we'll flash the victory screen". It's more like... alien vs predator "whoever wins, we lose" - ie the Crisis player will have the ability to destroy the universe etc.
 
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Nah that would be grand for the first level or two but I'd say youd need to be purging half the galaxy to get to the last level
I've assimilated the whole 1000-star galaxy before with every habitable planet colonized. I won't get the super-pretty new end-game movie as the new AP will offer, but there's really little difference in end-state. I was the crisis.
 
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This update looks really good, I'm just wondering now what's going to happen to the old crises (is that the plural of crisis?). I hope this doesn't remove them, if anything this is a perfect time to add a new one(s). Also, what happens to systems with no star, what happens when you finish your Aetherophasic Engine? These are all questions I hope get answered in the future. Again, this update looks huge and looks like a lot of fun! With espionage, the crisis and the crisis janitor thing, I am very hopeful for the future of this update and stellaris in general!
 
is there only "one way" to be the crisis?
like the one described in the post or are there "more" ?
don't think it feels good to do the same as a machine empire on crisis mode in comparison to a hive mind ?!
Same hope there are variants based on the ascension and choices you take. Hope it will have an actually effect on the appearance of ships and such instead of just "lore".
 
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I feel like people are taking the "Should you succeed, everyone else will lose." line a bit too literally.

I don't think it literally means "once you complete it we'll flash the victory screen". It's more like... alien vs predator "whoever wins, we lose" - ie the Crisis player will have the ability to destroy the universe etc.
I sure do hope it won't mean that. This is basically what all my previous rants amount to.
 
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This update looks really good, I'm just wondering now what's going to happen to the old crises (is that the plural of crisis?). I hope this doesn't remove them, if anything this is a perfect time to add a new one(s). Also, what happens to systems with no star, what happens when you finish your Aetherophasic Engine? These are all questions I hope get answered in the future. Again, this update looks huge and looks like a lot of fun! With espionage, the crisis and the crisis janitor thing, I am very hopeful for the future of this update and stellaris in general!
My guess is since you are looking to harvest dark matter it turns the star into a black hole for you to harvest. My only question is how can the ship survive the blast? Does it have a set amount of time to get out? Will alll ships and structures die once the star dies like the exploding enigmatic fortress?
 
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I'm gonna be blunt, this seems stupid and lazy to me. Stupid because if an empire is homicidal enough to want to destroy the galaxy their neighbors should dynamically recognize that fact and work to contain them through emergent diplomacy, not through them taking a perk that signals to everyone they're crazy bastards. Lazy because it feels like the devs are outsourcing the crisis AI to the players now instead of taking the time and effort to fix it.

Just like with so many other things, if the devs really want this to be a fun and engaging endgame route, they'd better make darn sure the game balance and AI are improved enough that the AI empires are capable of posing a threat to the player past the early game phase.
Couldn't agree with this more
 
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I know that the forums are mostly populated by fanatical purifier players, but the data of average players that was presented some time ago indicated that the most popular ethics is Xenophiles.

Anything for them in this DLC?
Well that's mainly because pop is king and being able to absorb new pops without penalties is very strong.
 
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My guess is since you are looking to harvest dark matter it turns the star into a black hole for you to harvest. My only question is how can the ship survive the blast? Does it have a set amount of time to get out? Will alll ships and structures die once the star dies like the exploding enigmatic fortress?
turn your star into a black hole?
if that is the goal of that building, than it will not be your normal black hole like they exist in some systems.
this is a crisis end goal that makes you WIN the game.
so if it gona be a black hole, it should be a "galaxy consuming" one that eradicate the whole galaxy upon finishing it.
 
Why xenophiles never receive dedicated content?
Every new big exclusive mechanic is almost never compatible with xenophile roleplay, yes, we have the galactic community and federations, xenophiles have a advantage in diplomacy here, etc, but every ethos can engage in galactic community and form federations and we have a few exclusive/special types of federations and none of these are based around xenophile ethos; we can engage in the galactic community to make the galaxy a better place but every ethos can engage too and try to make the galaxi a worst place.
Every mechanic that xenophiles can engage to make the galaxy a better place can be used effectively by non-xenophiles too or can be used to make the galaxy a worst place too, in each patch the game receive more and more content and almost none is compatible with a xenophile roleplay.

The few things dedicated to xenophile roleplay that exist in game are very small content and weak options that you never would consider picking in a min-max situation.
What xenophiles and players interested in roleplay true good guys have of exclusive mechanics? Pacify 2 types of spaceborn monsters and the meme xeno-compatibility perk.

The game have dozens of different forms of slavery and purge, a few forms to destroy planets, a entire economic system for slaver markets, almost every new feature is focused in war, slavery, purge, destruction, imperialism and discord.
Meanwhile we can't stole pops being purged, saving them from extinction, the niihilist acquisiton ascension perk is authoritarian and xenophobic focused; we can't ressurect extinct species with tech, if some evil empire purge one primitive planet or extinguish one pre-sapient specie this is irreversible; we can't coexist with gestalt consciousness pops inside of our empire, the only destiny for gestalt pops in our empire is purge or destruction of the hive mind trought genetic manipulation; there is no benefit in peacefully coexist with primitive civilizations the better option from a min-max viewpoint is always invade the planet when you have enough resources, there is no impactful mechanic or event chain or exclusive benefit when you are trying to be a good guy for primitive civilizations.

A spy themed dlc would be the perfect dlc to introduce a mechanic that enable xenophiles to save/abduct pops being purged or enslaved in hostile territory throught our spyweb but we don't have any mentions that this will be possible, meanwhile players interested in purge remans gaining more and more mechanics and not a small mechanic but a entire new and big mechanic with a new UI and entire new tech tree to become a crisis.

The game fells like a Warhammer 40K simulator sandbox and this becomes true more and more in each new patch and new dlc and I am not interested in this.
This was one of the 2 main reason that I quitted from Stellaris some time ago, occasionally, I return to the forum to read about new content and I am always disappointed because the game inexorably remains in this Warhammer grimdark direction and peoples more interested in building a perfect Star Trek utopia or more interested in a weird sci fi experience never receive dedicated attention. Maybe Stellaris just is not a game for me and I was delusional during the game release thinking that this would one day progress to become one.
 
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I think this all looks fantastic and simply isn't something I'd have thought they would implement in this game. To me it feels a bit CK3 (that's a compliment obviously!) where it's shunting more agency into the player's hands like how you can form you own religion and such. Mind's already racing with some possibilities.

Couple this with espionage and some other smaller things I think will work well like having alloys producible in districts sounds small but something I'm hoping will improve flow a bit and it all looks quite promising.

So very excited to see where this one heads! Also to qualify this post a bit; despite my many hours playing this game looking at the posts I think I might not be that good at the game which possibly colours what I want to see put in or worked on next (I think role playing is my main draw). I find the Captain difficulty which is my default a bit too easy but the Commodore difficulty is definitely too tough for me most of the time.
 
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