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Stellaris Dev Diary #47 - Guardians

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today we'll continue talking about the Leviathans Story Pack, specifically its headline feature: the Guardians.

The Guardians (Paid Feature)
The Guardians, or Leviathans as they're also known, are space-dwelling beings of immense power. They vary a great deal in biology and composition: Some are enormous space creatures, some are technological remnants of ancient civilizations, and some are something far different altogether. How you find them also varies - some you may encounter in their home systems, jealously guarding their territory, others may be unleashed on the galaxy by exploring the wrong planet or star.

The chance of a particular Guardian being present in your game will depend on the size of your galaxy - a tiny galaxy might only have one or two, while a Huge galaxy might contain nearly all or even all of them if you explore far enough. Defeating them, or in some cases, helping them, will unlock rewards in the form of resources, empire-wide modifiers and unique technologies. Guardians vary in power, but are meant to be a serious challenge for a mid-game empire, so don't expect to be able to bring them down in the first decades of the game.

Below I am going to talk a little about a few of the Guardians. These are just a sample and not nearly all of them, but we want to avoid showing off everything there is for a player to find in the Leviathans Story Pack for those who wish to explore and find out for themselves.
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The Space Dragon
The Space Dragon is a capricious being, jealously guarding its hoard. With this particular Guardian, there is no reasoning or dialogue... it wants to be left alone, and will attack any and all trespassers in its territory. If you wish to get at its hoard, you will have to slay it, and you had best be sure to bring a large enough fleet - anger it enough, and it will not settle for simply driving you off. Should you bring it down, however, the vast mineral riches of its hoard will be yours to claim... and who knows what you might find among the treasures. Technology, artifacts... perhaps even a dragon egg?
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The Infinity Machine
The Infinity Machine, a strange metal sphere, sits at the edge of a massive black hole, unmoving. It does not attack as you approach, does not communicate, does not even react. It seems to be waiting for something. Perhaps if you find a way to speak with it, you can find out what it wants. Perhaps you can even help it? Or, if you choose, you could simply order your fleet to attack... after all, how much of a threat could a mere metal sphere be?
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Stellarite
What can live inside a star?

What sort of being can withstand, and even thrive in, such immense heat and pressure?

What could be its purpose?

... what does it eat?
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That's all for today! Next week we'll be talking about changes to the graphics and sound of Stellaris coming in the Heinlein update, as well as a teaser on the more than 20 minutes of new music by Andreas Waldetoft included in the Leviathans Story Pack.
 
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I seriously hope they give us an option that allows you to force all guardians in your game. I'm also hoping for the same option with Fallen Empires still. Of course, settings could be limited depending on the size of the galaxy, but I've spent more time I care to admit trying to get galaxies that have all the neat little things available. I prefer to play massive, long games, and the #1 thing that crushes my enthusiasm is finding out I can never get a cool technology or unique system.

Basically, I prefer to play one massive game, with every little possible feature each patch, rather than a bunch of shorter games.
 
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The dragon - in the stream - had 75k hp and like 80% armor. It could also reliably hit (and, I think, kill in one hit) corvettes even if those are said to be the dodgiest of ships.

And a 7k strength maxed-out tech fleet barely scratched it (dragon went down to 71.5k hp)... You'll need a way bigger fleet to tackle that one down. At least it doesn't look like the dragon can leave its systems by itself...

P. S. Am I right and now there is some new armor/shield stuff that can be researched (probably through some rare-to-come-by debris)?
 
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Another reason why doomstacks will still be needed and used.

I sure hope the dragon stash has more than 30 energy and 30 minerals hidden. After all if it takes a fleet of say 45K to take it down we don't need energy or minerals by then. So it would be a waste if that was all you got.
 
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So we have Space Smaug, the thing from Destiny, and a C'tan.

Bitchin. I will be the first to raise a baby dragon and have it in my fleet!
 
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Surprisingly diverse. Not just a dragon, a kraken and something in between. I like. (and hope the unspoilered stuff is also different from them)
 
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Oh well I thought the course of the game would be a bit more realistic and stuff, but that's just my opinion, and I'm in no position to argue :p
 
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Another reason why doomstacks will still be needed and used.

I sure hope the dragon stash has more than 30 energy and 30 minerals hidden. After all if it takes a fleet of say 45K to take it down we don't need energy or minerals by then. So it would be a waste if that was all you got.

If you read Wiz post, you would have read this:

Should you bring it down, however, the vast mineral riches of its hoard will be yours to claim... and who knows what you might find among the treasures. Technology, artifacts... perhaps even a dragon egg?

Also, that is not a "stash" but a constant income source of 30 energy and minerals per month! Only for the cost of a mining station. In addition to the tiles on the actual planet (which I hope will be a 25 tile Gaia world).
 
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Another reason why doomstacks will still be needed and used.

I sure hope the dragon stash has more than 30 energy and 30 minerals hidden. After all if it takes a fleet of say 45K to take it down we don't need energy or minerals by then. So it would be a waste if that was all you got.
And I quote Wiz "Should you bring it down, however, the vast mineral riches of its hoard will be yours to claim... and who knows what you might find among the treasures. Technology, artifacts... perhaps even a dragon egg?" How 'bout a baby space dragon with which to raze your enemies' worlds to cinders? That good enough for ya? :p
 
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I can't wait!! I am on the final leg of my current play through and I really want this released before I start a new game. Who do I have to bribe at Paradox to get access to this now! I'm throwing money at the monitor but nothing is happening.
 
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If you read Wiz post, you would have read this:
And I quote Wiz "Should you bring it down, however, the vast mineral riches of its hoard will be yours to claim... and who knows what you might find among the treasures. Technology, artifacts... perhaps even a dragon egg?" How 'bout a baby space dragon with which to raze your enemies' worlds to cinders? That good enough for ya? :p

And if you read my post I'm saying that the "who knows what you might find" part is a must because just getting 30 energy and minerals per month by that time is next to meaningless.

And my doomstack fleet that killed that dragon is large enough to destroy all my enemies anyway. It's a nice role-playing thing but won't really have an impact on the game vs. the enemies I'm facing.

What would be 1000 times better is if the Curator had a secret way of defeating the dragon. Otherwise the dragon is so strong that even a 100K fleet has trouble. Now that baby dragon is OP to the max as your enemies must find the secret from the curator.

Otherwise it's if I have a large enough fleet to kill the dragon and my enemies don't then that means my fleet can already rule the galaxy.

What I hope is the end game crises is about 100 times harder where you need these special things to be a ble to defeat it. Make them useful.
 
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Will there be a cute robot portrait with the DLC? We lack robots. ;< Would buy robot pack instantly also. Robot events, robot ships and portraits, robot gameplay, robot roleplay, robot robot, take my money.
 
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Two of those seemed interesting but the sphere, pfft big deal anyone can park around a black hole in stellaris. Heck my ships have flown inside and then out of em before. *sarc end*
 
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