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Stellaris Dev Diary #251 - All Roads Lead to Deneb IIb

Hello again!

Last week’s dev diary examined the Orbital Ring, Quantum Catapult, and Scholarium. Today we’re going to look at another construction that has a massive impact on the game, the Hyper Relay. After that we’ll look at some other changes coming in Cepheus and Overlord, and finish off with another origin that was revealed yesterday by Nivarias.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.

Hyper Relays​


Long ago, back in Dev Diary #243 we showed you some concept art of Hyper Relays, and told you they had greebles, and were game changing. Now it’s time to fully reveal them.

Hyper Relays are a rare Tier 2 technology that require the Hyperlane Breach Points technology and access to Rare Crystals to discover. Once you have observed a functional Hyper Relay in use by another empire, the technology will appear much more frequently, causing them to spread in a pleasing manner across the galaxy.

Hyper Relays technology

Hyper Relays can be built by your Construction Ships outside the gravity well of systems, just like Gateways. They’re useless on their own, but a chain of Hyper Relays built in adjacent systems dramatically speeds up travel, allowing you to jump from Relay to Relay after a short windup rather than having to travel across each system at sublight speed, as long as neither endpoint is controlled by a hostile empire.

Hyper Relay build button


Hyper Relay model

Once two Relays in adjacent systems have been linked, the hyperlane between those systems will become bolder, and ships traveling along them will show the route plotted in blue as they are using the bypass.

Hyper Relays can be built in your own space, or that of your subjects. For convenience, Relays can also be built directly from the Galaxy Map.

Galactic Map with Relays

If an Empire’s capital is attached to the Hyper Relay Network, additional effects can be projected through the network using several Network Edicts. These add strategic resource upkeep to your Hyper Relays and an effect on all of your colonies that are connected to your capital.

Networked Dominance
Networked Movement


Networked Amenities


Gestalts have a reflavored variant of Networked Amenities.

Specialist subjects each have a Network Effect available at Tier 1, which becomes active in the overlord’s Relay Network if a continuous chain connects their capitals.

Conjunction!


Bulwark Watch
Scholarium Tutelage
Prospectorium Supply

As one could imagine, an expansive Hyper Relay network makes travel much faster during the mid-game while you do not yet have a comprehensive Gateway system built, and since such travel is permitted in neutral empires that have open borders, navigating the galaxy and responding to distant threats is easier than ever before.

As a personal anecdote, after playing with these and the new subjugation mechanics internally, it was almost difficult to go back to 3.3 for the Dev Clash. Made me almost want to blow up the galaxy.

Selected Other Changes​


As with every update, there are a number of balance or quality of life changes and adjustments in Cepheus. Here’s a handful of interesting changes.
  • Successful Force Ideology wars with a corporate aggressor now result in the target (or created) empire having the Oligarchic authority and Merchant Guilds civic. This is also true for Status Quo resolutions of Establish Hegemony, Subjugation, and the Scion’s Bring into the Fold wargoals.
  • Corporate subjects can now open branch offices in subjects of their shared overlord, as long as their overlord is not also a MegaCorp.
  • AI Subjects of Player Empires now receive AI bonuses as if the difficulty level of the game were one level lower, rather than losing their bonuses entirely.
  • The Parliamentary System civic now allows factions to be generated much earlier in the game.
  • You can now nominate other empires to Custodianship, provided they meet the requirements.
  • The Unbidden can no longer spawn in pulsar systems (as the star will disable their Dimensional Portal's shields - Heavy Metal, Inc. sends its regards…)
  • Low Military Intel is now gained at 30 Intel instead of 40 and Medium Military Intel is now gained at 60 Intel instead of 70. The effects of Medium and High Military Intel have been swapped. Medium now allows you to view ship loadout. High now grants visibility of location of military fleets.
  • Gateways (and Hyper Relays) can now be built in vassal space.
  • The Grasp the Void Ascension Perk now grants increased draw weight for FTL travel techs.

Some improvements have been made to automated migration.

  • "Ideal" worlds such as ring worlds, gaia worlds, hive worlds and machine worlds now have a 50% higher score when pops are deciding where to automatically resettle to. So they are more likely to want to move to your newly-founded ring world, for instance. Capital world planet designations also have a +10% score, and freshly founded colonies have 25% from their designation.
  • Pops will now pick which planet to auto-migrate to based on which planet has the most free jobs, rather than the least. They also now take free housing into account better.
  • The Outliner will now differentiate between unemployed pops that are migrating and those that are not. A yellow briefcase will be shown for planets that have unemployed pops that are in the process of migrating to another planet. A red briefcase will be shown if your attention is required to resolve the unemployment. On the planet view, the tooltips will now show where the pops are most likely to move to, or explain why they are unable to move.

Unemployment in Outliner and Planet


Can't Migrate Tooltip #1
Can't Migrate Tooltip #2

We have eleven new achievements in Overlord. Here are the icons, I’m curious what people think they are.

Cheevos!

Anniversary Additions​


Some eagle-eyed readers have noticed some flags that aren’t possible in 3.3. You’re correct! The art team has added some new colors to the flag palette…

A rainbow of fruit flavors

…over seventy flag emblems…

banner emblems

…and forty-five new flag backgrounds.

banner backgrounds

These will all be part of the Cepheus update as part of the May anniversary celebrations.

Slingshot to the Stars​


Yeet the fleet!

Bordergore? Bordergore.

Those born under the Slingshot to the Stars find their desires to explore fulfilled by a nearby Quantum Catapult, which replaces one of their Guaranteed Habitable Worlds. Their eagerness to explore into the unknown reduces the distance penalty for building starbases in remote systems by 75%.

Next Week​


Next week the totally human programmer @Narkerns will take over for an update on AI and automation improvements coming in Cepheus, and I’ll add a little bit about a fourth Origin at the end.

Video versions of these dev diaries are available at the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

In the meantime, keep your eyes on our social media channels. There'll be an announcement later today.
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And here it is...!
 
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If a subject and an overlord have a subject network, will they merge? Or will the overlord only take the bonus and leave the subject with it's own network without bonus?
 
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I love how you're implementing new ways to travel, like the quantum catapult and the hyper relay network! This is gonna add a whole new dimension of strategy and also reminds me of all the different modes of transport we used to have before hyperlanes. This is easily the most anticipated Stellaris DLC in a long time, and that's not even mentioning all the changes to subjects and the EU4 inspired disasters. Being able to nominate the custodian is also going to be so helpful for getting Sic Semper Tyrannis, which is the only achievement I haven't bothered getting becaude it's too tedious.
 
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Massive fan of the relay network! Super excited for the new achievements as well. We can now nominate other empires to be custodians, but is this feature extended to the galactic empire/other custodian resolutions as well?
 
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Hyper Relays can be built by your Construction Ships outside the gravity well of systems, just like Gateways. They’re useless on their own, but a chain of Hyper Relays built in adjacent systems dramatically speeds up travel, allowing you to jump from Relay to Relay after a short windup rather than having to travel across each system at sublight speed, as long as neither endpoint is controlled by a hostile empire.

Could you guys include a short gif to show how faster it is?
You can now nominate other empires to Custodianship, provided they meet the requirements.
Thank goodness, now the achievement will be controllable and reasonable. Thanks for the update.
 
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If the sushi achievement doesn't reference George Bush Sr's disastrous Japanese dinner I will consider it a missed opportunity.
 
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Massive fan of the relay network! Super excited for the new achievements as well. We can now nominate other empires to be custodians, but is this feature extended to the galactic empire/other custodian resolutions as well?
What could also be interesting here is getting an emperor into position, and then having hem declare you as the charter. It would be neat to have a way for the player to direct this sort of action (without the use of console commands.)
 
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As a personal anecdote, after playing with these and the new subjugation mechanics internally, it was almost difficult to go back to 3.3 for the Dev Clash. Made me almost want to blow up the galaxy.
Made you almost want to blow up the galaxy?
I'm pretty sure you wanted it alright, the "almost" had more to do with the succeeding part :D
 
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i assume the answer is yes, but networks on conquered enemy systems count as yours, right? do they also get that pesky upkeep increase from the edicts or do relays on occupied system not get said increase in upkeep? i assume vassal networks can also be used, but what about the ones in friendly empires, or just empires we have open borders with?
 
Bordergore? Bordergore.
Excellent Smithers. I never understood the aversion that some players have for it. I want my galactic map to look like someone knocked over my miniatures paint rack.
 
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Please tell me Gestalts can turn automatic resettlement off. Also, out of the 3 Network edicts to remove, how come you went for the Amenities one (really useful for getting an extra district out of Ring Worlds and everything else while using 30 pops less) rather than the automatic resettlement one, which often has me resettling pops back because the resettled pops have opened up jobs on the original planets?
 
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Sorry we need to blow up Sol III, as it is in the way of our new Hyper Relay network connecting several important capitals of the galaxy. You will be duely compensated, as long as you filed the 38 neccessary papers at the galactic community site gamma four galactic rotations in advance. Remain on the surface during "clearance" of the planetary body at your own risk. If no administrator is available you may simple make an appointment. The next free slot is available in two galactic rotations. There will be no compensation or special treatment for delayed forms. We all had enough time here, let's be honest.

(yes I am german :p)
 
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