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Hi and welcome to another Stellaris dev diary. Today we’re going to talk about some of the things we’re adding in the upcoming Kennedy update.

The Extradimensionals didn't work quite as we had imagined them. Players were more or less forced to throw everything they had at their dimensional portal, but there was no way to slowly push them back. The mechanics through which they received reinforcements also felt a bit too arbitrary, so we decided to shake things up a bit.

As before, the Unbidden care little for planets (aside from harvesting their populations). They are an entirely space-based civilization, but now they will also build a new class of station: Dimensional Anchors. These Anchors increase the ability of the Unbidden to bring in reinforcements from their portal. The more Anchors they have constructed, the shorter the time between their reinforcement waves. In addition to that, they will also bring in a new fleet from their portal every time an Anchor finishes construction.

As long as an Anchor is active, the Dimensional Portal will be indestructible.

Anchor.jpg


Anchors are very large stations, and they take a long time for the Unbidden to build. They also function as Frontier Outposts, in that they generate borders. If you see one under construction, you may want to consider a preemptive strike before it comes online…

Overall these changes mean that the Extradimensionals can no longer simply be defeated with a single surgical strike once they have had time to establish themselves in the galaxy, but also that they don’t get unlimited and instant reinforcements, so you can wear them down in a war of attrition.

Our illustrious Art Department has not been idle while we worked on these changes. They have added new death animations for all Extradimensional ships and stations:

ed_effect'.jpg


Extradimensional Constructors have also been given a new effect when they are building stations:

ED_construction_effect.png


We have also revisited the Precursor anomalies. It was much too difficult (sometimes impossible) to collect all six artifacts needed to finish their chains. As you approach the mid-game now, there is a chance that you will get a new event that spawns an additional anomaly somewhere inside your space.

lrCyMQI.png


That’s all for today! Next week we’ll be talking about new Achievements coming in the Kennedy update.
 
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So if say I have 3 artefacts then will the event generate 3 anomalies or will it fire 3 times (one after each artefact is recovered)?

It should fire three times, or less if you stumble upon another artifact in meantime. I don't see why anyone would think that it would generate multiple anomalies.
 
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I apologize for being ignorant, but I'm afraid I don't see, from what's written in the devdiary, how this actually changes up the Unbidden?
The anchors bring in reinforcements from the portal - so throwing everything at the portal is still the only sensible answer?
Have you changed up the guardians of the portal? Have you slowed down reinforcement waves so that only by constructing X number of anchors will the Unbidden be able to overwhelm the galaxy? What has actually changed, apart from the Unbidden being given a new way to spawn in extra help? D:
 
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New midgame anomalies in discovered space sounds like a really neat change. One of my biggest disappointments with exploration is because of the way it works, I stop finding new anomalies after the early game. More stuff that happens on my colonies or on other planets within my space sounds like a really great addition to the mid-game.
 
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Have you changed up the guardians of the portal? Have you slowed down reinforcement waves so that only by constructing X number of anchors will the Unbidden be able to overwhelm the galaxy? What has actually changed, apart from the Unbidden being given a new way to spawn in extra help? D:

The fact that they now have anchors would probably mean that original intervals for reinforcements are longer. If not, the quantity of reinforcements may have changed.
 
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The fact that they now have anchors would probably mean that original intervals for reinforcements are longer. If not, the quantity of reinforcements may have changed.

I'd certainly hope so. But it doesn't actually say that in the diary. I'd just like some clarity, and the certainty that I'm not reading it wrong. For all I know, the devs think that the Unbidden are too weak and need a buff. I certainly don't think so, but some do, and though there was a big nerf to their escort evasion stats recently, I'm honestly not sure where the devs stand on this issue. And the diary doesn't explicitly state it either way, as far as I can tell.
 
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Hi, thanks for the DD.
I would like some clarification :
Does the presence of anchors forbid the player from surgically destroying the portal ? if not then this is still the best strategy.
 
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i can finally finish the precursor chain...please paradox, just take my wallet
Kennedy will be a free update, if I am not mistaken. No call to bring out the wallets just yet...
 
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It would be neat if the research of new sensor tech would have a (small) chance to spawn new anomalies on planets that never had any before (new sensors would find stuff the old ones did not).

Also another nice feature would be if colonized planets also could have a small chance to spawn an anomaly (people moving about and finding thing the intial survey did not).
 
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Looks really nice.

Is there a chance they'll show up even if no one has the drive in time? I'm rather tired of almost ever only seeing the Swarm.

On a related note, any chance there are plans to add more crises? Or at least make it so the AI rebellion can happen?
 
event it is very good. I really miss "empire events" what happened on planets after expolirng. events chains, that it - what really really need against boring midgame.

About invaders... well... i don't see how it change anything. It logical that if that "stations" cant prevent destruction of portal or cant spawn another lesser portal - all players continue attack only portal. There is no reason attack any of this stations unless they speed up reinforcements on 10 or 20 times. And if they do that - Invaders balance will be again just ruined=)
 
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I think the dev diary is not explicit enough on this.

But basically what they say is that unbidden will get much less reinforcements than now if the player fights them properly. Which means that a war of attrition will be possible instead of desperately rush the portal.

Rushing the portal will result in all fleets recalling for defense as it is now. However while currently this is the only desperate option (sniping isolated fleets is useless because they are replaced quicker than we can repair damage), in the future we will be able to surgically strike the outposts (or the outposts under construction) so that when we finally snipe an isolated fleet this is not immediately replaced. Which basically means we can win by attrition: we can progressively weaken them until we are strong enough to strike at the portal, instead of throw everything we got at the portal and hope it falls before the defending fleets thrash our navy.
 
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It would be neat if the research of new sensor tech would have a (small) chance to spawn new anomalies on planets that never had any before (new sensors would find stuff the old ones did not).

Also another nice feature would be if colonized planets also could have a small chance to spawn an anomaly (people moving about and finding thing the intial survey did not).

Or a repeatable tech to re-evaluate your old sensor data to search for anomalies that might have been missed the first time.
 
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We have also revisited the Precursor anomalies. It was much too difficult (sometimes impossible) to collect all six artifacts needed to finish their chains. As you approach the mid-game now, there is a chance that you will get a new event that spawns an additional anomaly somewhere inside your space.

I hope the pre-cursor event chains themselves will also be looked at. The one time I was ever actually able to find all six artifacts and located their home system the events bugged out and I was never able to finish the chain. (I think it was the one that was wiped out by some sort of disease)
 
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Nothing about the Swarm deciding to camp in 1 or 2 systems with a million worth of fleet strength in groups up to 30 fleets strong?
 
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