Stellaris Dev Diary #75: Fallen Machine Empire

[Wizzington]

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary will be about changes and new additions for Fallen Empires in the 1.8 'Čapek' update and its accompanying (unannounced) Story Pack, about which we cannot currently provide any information except what's in this dev diary (there will be info about other features in the pack coming in later dev diaries). We also cannot currently provide say anything about the release date for the update other than to say that it's not coming out anytime soon. After what happened with 1.6, we want to take our time with this one and make sure we get it to you in a good shape.

Ancient Caretakers (Story Pack)
Those with the Story Pack will be able to encounter a brand new Fallen Empire - the Ancient Caretakers. The Ancient Caretakers is a fallen synthetic civilization that appears to be the remnant of some great conflict in the distant past. From what they tell you, they appear to have been part of something called the 'Custodian Project', an initiative to construct and maintain a number of ringworlds as a refuge for biological sapients fleeing some unknown menace. Their erratic behavior and speech, however, suggests that something may be very wrong indeed with this Fallen Machine Empire.

The Ancient Caretakers have a new attitude called 'Enigmatic' and an obscured opinion score to represent their bizarre and unpredictable nature. They may help you with gifts of ships of technology, request your assistance with tasks that may make little apparent sense, or even make demands of your empire that you would be unwise to ignore. They do not awaken like a regular Fallen Empire, but instead have a particular 'triggering event' that, if it happens during the course of the game, will automatically awaken them... though they will not always awaken in the same way. All in all, they behave quite differently from the other Fallen and Awakened Empires, and have their own backstory to explore, as well as unique interactions when dealing with other synthetic civilizations.

Fallen Empire Tweaks & Changes (Čapek Update)
In addition to the Ancient Caretakers, there are also some changes coming to the current batch of Fallen Empires. First of all, because the Ancient Caretakers also make use of ringworlds, we decided that you'd end up with just a few too many ringworlds to conquer and restore kicking around. Thus, for those with the Story Pack, we made a new initializer for the Keepers of Knowledge with a more traditional Fallen Empire setup of Gaia Worlds and outlying colonies, including some unique features and buildings to suit their archivarian ways. The old initializer with its three ringworlds still exists, however, and will spawn for those that do not have the Story Pack, so those without do not have their Fallen Empire ringworlds taken away.

Other than that, the following changes were done to the existing Fallen Empires:
- Keepers of Knowledge were changed to have their behavior (Hatred of AI) no longer directly conflict with their ethos (Materialist). Both their Fallen and Awakened variants no longer hold a grudge against AI, but instead have doubled down on their obsession with collecting and hoarding knowledge. Satellites of Awakened Keepers of Knowledge are no longer required to ban AI, but will have to contribute a major share of their research to their overlord.
- Holy Guardians were changed to be a bit more interactive, and are now able to offer tasks and give gifts to the younger races, though they will mostly only deign to do so to fellow Spiritualists. They have also taken over some of the Keepers of Knowledge's hatred of AI, and you can expect their Awakened variant to offer no quarter to synthetic civilizations.
- Militant Isolationists and Enigmatic Observers have mostly been left unchanged, asides from some updates to their initializers and ship designs, such as removing the Synths previously used by the Militant Isolationists and giving them to the Keepers of Knowledge instead. They will now also start with more trait points for their species than the other Fallen Empires, to represent their focus on the biological.

Finally, a change was done to the way you establish contact with Fallen Empires. Previously, unless you had done something to anger them (for example colonize a Holy World) FEs would open communications only when you directly entered their space. This has been changed so that Fallen Empires will now instead contact you when your ships enter any system adjacent to their space. This should make it harder to accidentally colonize next to Militant Isolationists and also make it so that your exploring science ship isn't immediately hurled back to your capital just because it happened to take a wrong turn after Omicron Persei.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be discussing some changes coming to Hive Minds and Devouring Swarms, as well as the addition of Dynamic Tradition Swapping in 1.8 'Čapek'.

 

[Wizzington]

Does this mean that the Swedish summer sleep phase is delayed a bit, or you'll just lovingly crack on with Stellaris despite your respective vacations?

Most of us will be on vacation, but there will still be dev diaries posted throughout July.

 

[Wizzington]

Before Awakening, what will Keepers of Knowledge actually do? Like, what will anger them or please them? Researching too much?


Also, I assume you can't tell us anything about the new robotic portrait?

Similar to the Enigmatic Observers, they don't really have a 'berserk button' anymore, and will mostly only be angered if you refuse or flub their requests.

 

[Wizzington]

Interesting to note that this update seems to make synths much more benevolent (the ones you create at least) they no longer start trying to kill everything of their own accord and there is no fallen empire hatred of them (suggesting they weren't too bad in the past either), kind of odd given that the capek novel which popularised "robots" primarily concerns them rising up and that this update is called capek.

Keepers of Knowledge no longer hating synthetics isn't because we changed the lore to make them more benevolent, but rather because their personality simply clashed with their ethos (for example, in a War of Heaven between Materialist AE and Spiritualist AE, siding with *either* part would result in your robots being dismantled). That part of their personality was simply shifted to the Spiritualists instead, since Spiritualist ethos is explicitly anti-robot.

 

[Wizzington]

I hope those Fallen Empire changes include not declaring war against a Pacifist Player Faction with a 650 fleetpower, with their 140k fleetpower after 30 minutes of game.

Fallen Empires only ever attack if you did something to specifically anger them, and their war demands will never game over you. At most you'll lose a new colony or two.

 

[Wizzington]

Remmember that synth proliferation will boost the chances of Contingency invasion, so it is still a hazardous tech gamble.

Also, there will be a new form of AI uprising that's more of a mid-game event than an end-game crisis. More on that in a later DD though.

 

[Wizzington]

Eh, looks like an extra work for nothing. Why not make them the same in both cases?

Basically, having both of them spawn a bunch of ringworlds would mean any medium or larger galaxy would be virtually guaranteed to have a lot of ringworlds. We want to keep them somewhat rare and special, not have them be all over the galaxy.

 

[Wizzington]

I hope this doesnt mean that the reworked synthetic crisis is part of the story pack.

The Contingency is part of the free update.

 

[Wizzington]

I Know how much the holy guardian hate AI. But please don't try to humiliate us going cyborg before awakening. It penalizes our playstyle unless if you're strong enough .Which no one do at that point.

Non-Awakened Spiritualist FE will only go after you if you go biological -> full synth, at which point you should be far along enough to be able to take them on.

 

[Wizzington]

Thanks.
Is it possible that i the future all FEs become a bit more active like the Holy Guardians, each in their own way?

All the FEs have interactions in 1.8 with the exception of the Militant Isolationists, who are explicitly very much not supposed to want to have anything to do with other empires. It's their whole thing.

 

[Wizzington]

I honestly don't know why I even have to explain this but yes, there will be plenty of other content in the Story Pack besides Fallen Machine Empires. More info in future DDs.

 

[Wizzington]

Not trying to singling you out, but if you just add that one line regarding more content to the original post then you don't even need to wonder! I also wonder how many readers such as myself don't follow everything devs say on this forum and assume things are better left unsaid, than said.

Fair enough. I edited the OP with a line about future features.

 

[Wizzington]

There will be a way to assimilate Pops into a ascended Synthetic Empire in 1.8.

 

[Wizzington]

@Wiz I really wish you would address this, War In Heaven is not where it should be. The non-aligned league doesn't seem to work, the auto-purging after total victory, the wars aren't prosecuted by the AI, the war does not end after the Awakened Empires are defeated (their vassals keep fighting??).

There are fixes for WiH coming in 1.8, in regards to the issues with vassals, AI passivity and so on. That said, the wargoals auto-wiping the loser is WAD for now, a change on that will have to wait until we rework the wargoal system.

 

[Wizzington]

Well... should I supose that the next DD will be on 'doomstack fix' or on 'space UN - Federations'?

It says quite clearly in the OP what next week's dev diary will be about. Quit trolling for attention and start a new thread if you want to talk about doomstacks or galactic UN.