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Stellaris Dev Diary #229 - Aquatics Species Pack

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back to talk a little bit about the recent news that has no doubt sent ripples throughout the community by now, namely the newly announced Aquatics Species Pack!


The Aquatic Species Pack will include:
  • 15 new Aquatic Portraits
  • 1 aquatic-themed Robotic Portrait
  • Water themed Ship Set
  • Here Be Dragons Origin
  • Ocean Paradise Origin
  • Anglers Civic
  • Hydrocentric Ascension Perk
  • Aquatic Species Trait
  • Aquatic Advisor, inspired by high seas adventure fiction
  • 4 Aquatic Name Lists
Remember to w(f)ishlist it on Steam right now!

For many years now, I have been forced to play Stellaris without dolphinoids... but no more! I can proudly say that we’ve made the perhaps greatest additions to Stellaris yet!

Dolphinoids have finally been added to the game, and the future is looking brighter than ever before. Dolphinoids have been used in narrative examples during design meetings for many years, even prior to the release of Stellaris back in 2016, so I am particularly happy to see them finally becoming a reality. I hope you will enjoy playing them as much as I will!

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Tidal Wave of awesomeness.

I’m sure you’re all excited to take a look at the gameplay details, so let’s dive right in!

Anglers Civics
This new Civic will allow you to harvest the bounty of the ocean, by replacing your Farmer jobs with Anglers and Pearl Divers on your Agricultural Districts. The Anglers Civic is also available to empires with a Corporate Authority.

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Under the sea, there’s plenty of shinies to see!

Hydrocentric Ascension Perk
One of our first ideas related to the aquatic theme was to be able to mine ice and bring it back to your Ocean Worlds, to make them larger. The idea originally bounced between being a Civic or an Origin, but we realized it would make much more sense as an Ascension Perk. This is the first time we’re adding an Ascension Perk with a species pack, which in itself is also fun.

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If you live underwater, raising the sea level can be quite useful.

As you could see in the trailer, the Deluge Colossus Weapon can be unleashed to create a watery grave for your enemies! Ice Mining stations will increase mining station output in a system, as well as enable the Expand Planetary Sea decision, which will increase the planet size by 1.

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Aquatic Species Trait
We’re adding a new (zero point cost) Aquatic species trait. It doesn’t require you to have an Aquatic portrait, but it will require your species to start on an Ocean World. We hope that this covers those of you who want more freedom of choice for your species portraits, while still keeping the aquatic theme intact. The trait also gains additional bonuses whenever the Hydrocentric Ascension Perk has been selected.

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From the deep we come!

Ocean Paradise Origin
The ultimate watery start, Ocean Paradise allows you to start on a chonky size 30 planet filled with a plentiful bounty of resources. When combined with the Aquatics Species Trait, and the Hydrocentric Ascension Perk, the Ocean Paradise origin gives significant advantages to starting with an Aquatic species. You will want to keep your friends close, and your anemones closer.

You will also start in a nebula and with ice asteroids in your home system.

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Where there is water, there may be life. Where there is lots of water, there may be lots of life.

Here Be Dragons Origin
Perhaps the most unique Origin yet, Here Be Dragons starts you off in a unique symbiotic relationship with an Ether Drake. Without spoiling too much, the drake will essentially protect you while you keep it happy. The drake is not controlled by you, but can rather be seen as a guardian ally, as long as you keep it happy.

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Hostile neighbors? No problem, ol’ Hrozgar will scare them off (at least from your home system)! This unique ether drake features a unique aquatic-inspired appearance.

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That is it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the gameplay features. Next week we’ll submerge ourselves even deeper into the Aquatics Species Pack by taking a look at the art behind the aquatic ships and the unique model for the ether drake.

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Isn’t she a beauty? Come back next week to learn more about the art in the Aquatic Species Pack.
 
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Ok, that is much better than i expected :). Im really curious about the "There be dragons" origin. Does the dragon do more things than demand some things and protect your home system?

And in case of the ocean paradise orign i really love the part with starting in a nebula!
 
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Can we build Ice Mining Stations only in systems with frozen worlds and ice asteroids?

Or can we build them in systems without those frozen worlds and asteroids, making the expand planetary sea decision unavailable, but retaining the +15% mining output?
 
I was kind of hoping for the new Leviathan to be more unique and I would prefer for the trait to be tied to portraits. I am already annoyed at all the "underwater butterflies" AI empires that I will encounter.

Could we at least add a galaxy generation option "only Aquatic Aquatics"?

Overall though, this seems very nice. I think we are all wondering if the new Advisor will be a pirate.
I'd go further and say stuff like this cheapens the genetic path. If species had locked traits at start (e.g. aquatic for acquatics or lithoid for Lithoids) pursuing gene ascension could let you create a silicone human, or an aquatic blorg, and other weird combos - without them appearing randomly/nonsensically.
 
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Ok I love all of this, this is some great new stuff and I wanna try it so badly but Devs hear me out. I'm a lithoid main and a massive lithoid fan so what about an aquatic lithoid (since you guys have allowed necroid lithoids)? It could have a coral looking portrait picture!

To quote the dev diary "It doesn’t require you to have an Aquatic portrait", so hopefully that means not only aquatic lithoids but necrophage aquatic lithoids.
 
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This looks fun....although, what about an amphibian trait as well? Something like equal habitability for any wet world but far poorer habitability for any other?

To clarify, is the aquatic trait unlocked from portraits purely for people creating their own species? i.e. the AI will not be able to pick a humanoid fungus portrait as an aquatic species?
 
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With all these Traits, Civics, Origins, etc., favoring Wet worlds and Oceans specifically, there's been some discussions about this making those planets more valuable than Cold and Dry worlds. Now I doubt you'll be able to tease us with the possibility of future Desert-themed or Mountain-themed packs (but feel free to tease all the same), but has there a been any internal consideration on how this pack tweaks the desirability of certain planet types?

Can we get a look at the new portraits?
Seems like we'll get that next week.
 
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Sounds interesting. Some questions:

-> Do Gaia Worlds count as "wet climate" for the purpose of the Anglers effects?

-> Can an aquatic species also be necrophages at the same time? What about lithoids? Or all three of them?

-> Can Anglers be picked by Megacorps and Hives?
 
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Does the new origin (Ocean Paradise) make life seeded even more outdated?

What life seeded gives you is 1 planet of 25 and ocean Paradise gives you a planet of 30.
Also, you can still colonize wet planets with ocean paradise while life seeded species are stuck.

Can Lifeseeded get a little buff so it stays special rather than become Ocean paradise light (make the planet 30 or give the planet a habitable moon)
 
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I think it's a case of like Lithoids where the trait comes about because of the portrait, Lithoid Necroids is only possible because the Lithoid portrait supplies one trait and the Necroid origin supplies the other, so there would need to be one portrait in either Lithoid or Aquatics (most likely the latter) that supplied both traits. Then you could have the triple threat of undead coral... which sounds really cool.

What are you talking about? Aquatics is not bound by portrait, why are you talking about aquatic portraits. I literally quoted the section of the dev diary where they make it clear the aquatic trait is not bound to the aquatic portrait set.
 
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I probably know the based to that question, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Can you mix and match species specific traits? If I would like to play the species of sentient algae can I get both aquatic and botanic traits?
 
No cap for how many times the "Expand Planetary Sea" decision can be used?
Hydrocentric empires will harvest the galaxy for all its frozen water, eventually achieving three-digit planet sizes?

Have there been any discussions on a similar "Lithocentric" ascension perk for lithoids?
 
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I probably know the based to that question, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Can you mix and match species specific traits? If I would like to play the species of sentient algae can I get both aquatic and botanic traits?
Answered in the original post.
Aquatic Species Trait
We’re adding a new (zero point cost) Aquatic species trait. It doesn’t require you to have an Aquatic portrait, but it will require your species to start on an Ocean World.
The only requirement for the Aquatic trait is that the plantoids start on an ocean world.
 
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What are you talking about? Aquatics is not bound by portrait, why are you talking about aquatic portraits. I literally quoted the section of the dev diary where they make it clear the aquatic trait is not bound to the aquatic portrait set.
Ah, yeah I didn't read this well, sorry about that, my bad.

Anyways that could make coral boys a possibility and undead coral possible too, we'll need to wait for the portraits.
 
No cap for how many times the "Expand Planetary Sea" decision can be used?
Hydrocentric empires will harvest the galaxy for all its frozen water, eventually achieving three-digit planet sizes?

Have there been any discussions on a similar "Lithocentric" ascension perk for lithoids?
I would also like to know the answer to this! On the same note, will increasing a planet's size this way increase its size on the map?
 
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I probably know the based to that question, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Can you mix and match species specific traits? If I would like to play the species of sentient algae can I get both aquatic and botanic traits?
Looks like you'll be able to do this. The post mentions that the Aquatic trait isn't tied to Aquatic Portraits : " It doesn’t require you to have an Aquatic portrait" So you should be able to have Aquatic Photosynthetic Plantoids if you want.


No cap for how many times the "Expand Planetary Sea" decision can be used?
Initially I assumed that the Ice Mining Station unlocks the planetary decision for Ocean worlds in the same system, in which case the limit would be the number of mineable ice asteroids and frozen worlds within the system (with frozen worlds counting thrice). But re-reading the Ascension perk I'm not so sure about that. Perhaps you can pillage ice from other systems, which would make those Frozen worlds that the Ocean Paradise Origin gives you more valuable.

Have there been any discussions on a similar "Lithocentric" ascension perk for lithoids?
Even if it's not for Lithoids specifically, some Ascension perks and Civics for other planet types would be great additions to help re-balance the scales now that Oceans and Wet planets have the potential for specific benefits.
 
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I was kind of hoping for the new Leviathan to be more unique and I would prefer for the trait to be tied to portraits. I am already annoyed at all the "underwater butterflies" AI empires that I will encounter.

Could we at least add a galaxy generation option "only Aquatic Aquatics"?

Overall though, this seems very nice. I think we are all wondering if the new Advisor will be a pirate.
Yeah totally agree, there should be a restriction about aquatic species trait for AI, so that it didn't turn out in whole aquatic galaxy.
 
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