• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Stellaris Dev Diary #187 - Post-mortem

Zaztl’s time had come. The Ritual of Elevation was soon to begin, and as she was inching ever closer to her own final destiny, she wondered “Is this perhaps the start of a new life?”. She couldn’t help but to latch on to hope in her moment of dread, but she also knew the futility of the question.

No Jeferian would ever know the answer to that question.

Shumon ins-Beth was born, the newest individual to join the Pasharti species.


---------------

1602149714895.png


The result of dark experimentation by the Jeferians - the former owners of the planet Taralon - the Pashartians are the ultimate parasites. Originally a semi-sapient creature dwelling in the depths of Taralon's mountains, the Jeferians uplifted and augmented them to act as a subservient slave race. However, their uplifting was rather too effective, and they unleashed a monster. Horrified at the capabilities of their creation - which included the ability to absorb other sentient species and turn them into Pashartians - the Jeferians tried to shut down the experiment. However, a small group of uplifted Pashartians escaped.

Over the years, they bided their time, managing not only to evade capture, but also gradually increase their numbers and develop a technological base to rival the Jeferians. Eventually, the Jeferians noticed that something was amiss, but by then they were powerless to resist.

Soon the Pashartians had seized control of the planet, unleashing violent pogroms on their erstwhile oppressors - all the while further increasing their numbers. Now poised to take to the stars, the Pashartians stand ready to pursue what they see as their solemn duty - the conversion of all lesser life forms to their likeness.


---------------

Hello everyone!

Two weeks ago we announced the Necroids Species Pack, and today we’ll be giving you more information about the gameplay aspects. But first, I’ll take the opportunity to link the trailer once again, in case you missed it.


For Necroids we wanted to add some new gameplay that would be available to many more different types of empires and species. Unlike Lithoids, these Civics and Origins will not require you to use a Necroid portrait. For Lithoids we felt like it made sense, but in this case we didn’t want to impose any limitations on your imagination and creativity.

Necroids gameplay includes:
  • Necrophage (Origin)
  • Memorialist (Civic)
  • Death Cult (Civic)
  • Reanimated Armies (Civic)

1602149745689.png

Necrophage is a new Origin that means that your primary species has a very hard time to procreate by themselves, but is instead dependent on transforming other Pops into themselves.

1602149789054.png

Necrophage Trait - live long and consume

1602149798241.png

Chamber of Elevation - when regular Uplifting isn’t enough

1602149808856.png

Necrophytes - Hey, what does the necro part of my job title stand for anyway?

---

In addition, there is also the Reanimated Armies civic that we showed in DD #185. This civic replaces the Military Academy with a Dread Encampment, and can recruit Undead Armies that are unaffected by morale.

1602149830251.png

Reanimated Armies - the ultimate in recycling.

1602149838710.png

Dread Encampment Building - wouldn’t want to get caught dead here

1602149846240.png

Undead Army - it’s not wight how they work them to the bone, but they don’t complain

1602149857376.png

Necromancer job - some say it’s a dead end job, but they’ve made a grave mistake
(Note: Above image includes the bonus from Ground Defense Planning)

This civic has a few restrictions - no pacifists, and it conflicts with Citizen Service since it replaces the Military Academy. Some subtle differences exist between Soldiers granted by Military Academies and the Necromancers from Dread Encampments - they’re Specialist tier and provide more defense armies, provide some research benefits, and will summon additional defense armies under Martial Law instead of increasing Stability.

---

That is all for this week! Next week we’ll take a look at the art process and all the effort that goes into creating the Necroid portraits!

We’ll be eagerly reading your responses, and remember that...
1602149867977.png

Jeff sees all
 
  • 154Like
  • 145
  • 16
  • 7
  • 4Love
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
It would seem some people have lost all sense of good manners.
It's funny that this happens at a moment when the game is going in the right direction (aka novel interactions and flavor developpemment) and is not even remotely close to the performance hell it used to belong.
This post is not even dedicated to performance and people go and start creating unrest where they should not.

Kinda disappointing.
 
  • 34
  • 6
  • 1Like
Reactions:
The goa'uld killed most of their own young to keep the goa'uld population low and kept most of the Unnas around as labourers. Also technically goa'uld hosts can reproduce as members of their own species though it is forbidden.
Not to mention it is implied in the extended universe material that the goa'uld were more like the tok'ra, and were symbiotic rather than parasitic, until they encountered the first sarcophagi which didn't happen until after they ventured out into space.

Oh and the Goa'uld don't need hosts to procreate, they can do that fine in the shallow waters of their homeworld.
Are you sure? Because the only breeding queens we encounter (Hathor and Egeria) have human hosts.
 
It would seem some people have lost all sense of good manners.
It's funny that this happens at a moment when the game is going in the right direction (aka novel interactions and flavor developpemment) and is not even remotely close to the performance hell it used to belong.
This post is not even dedicated to performance and people go and start creating unrest where they should not.

Kinda disappointing.

I'm not sure if this is a parody post.

Bad manners is taking someone's money for a product that's none functional then instead of engaging in a dialogue you use the profits to buy a megaphone and begin to drown out the ripped off customers complaints with shouts of how your product is now available in blue.
 
  • 31
  • 1Like
Reactions:
It would seem some people have lost all sense of good manners.
It's funny that this happens at a moment when the game is going in the right direction (aka novel interactions and flavor developpemment) and is not even remotely close to the performance hell it used to belong.
This post is not even dedicated to performance and people go and start creating unrest where they should not.

Kinda disappointing.

Because there is no where else where the devs listen? Where else are people meant to vent their concerns with the game's state? The devs have been ignoring posts for the past 8 months.
 
  • 14
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Are you sure? Because the only breeding queens we encounter (Hathor and Egeria) have human hosts.

Yeah, this is true.


I'll.. uh, see myself out. :)
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Won't Necrophytes lead to excessively annoying micro in many cases?

Convert a few pops then restrict the jobs in order to wait a few decades for new ones to grow (you don't want to use up all the non-converted pops, you want to breed them), add new ones to the jobs, convert, restrict job, wait, rinse/repeat...across multiple planets.

The game gives priority to making new pops of species with fewer pops, so any minority species is going to be given growth priority over your primary species. And with the basic growth rate of 0.03 pops per month you can expect to grow 3.6 pops in 10 years before accounting for growth modifiers. If you build the building on planets with 10+ pops everything should take care of itself automatically.

Dev diaries these days...

I'm still hoping PDX uses species packs as a way to keep the artists and content creators busy generating revenue while the programmers deal with AI and performance.
 
  • 5
  • 2Like
  • 2Haha
Reactions:
I feel like the devs were inspired by this thread:
 
  • 1
Reactions:
I have to wonder what is the point of undead armies if land-based warfare is as pointless as Luxembourg's membership in Nato and as dead as the Panama military? Like far too much in this game, this add-on is being built upon foundations of sand; fix the mechanics of the game, and then we will talk about buying new ones.
 
  • 26
  • 3Like
Reactions:
This DLC is like 90% for flavor. It's like spice. But I'm not sure if adding some spice to shi-.... a turd will really make it any more palatable...
As the saying goes, a gilded turd is still a turd in the end.
 
  • 16
  • 1Like
Reactions:
"undead armies"

"necromancers"

you fo real dudes.... you say fish people (as much as people want them, why tho) cant be in stellaris because they dont make sense in a sci fi setting,.... but you do.... NECK ROMANCERS?
 
  • 12
  • 5Haha
  • 2Like
Reactions:
Also, from an RP perspective; I still don't understand what Necroids are supposed to be; are they Space Necromancers? A Zombie apocalypse? Others TM?
It seems to me that Paradox isn't exaclty sure what they are and that instead of a clear new form of gameplay we are getting a mash of minor options.
In other words, this DLC seems to be all about apperances but as empty of substance as these necroids are presumably empty of their souls.

P.S I am glad Paradox went with Dread Encampment over Death Camps; saves me the effort making that kind of joke.
 
  • 18
  • 1Like
  • 1Haha
Reactions:
I have to wonder what is the point of undead armies if land-based warfare is as pointless as Luxembourg's membership in Nato and as dead as the Panama military? Like far too much in this game, this add-on is being built upon foundations of sand; fix the mechanics of the game, and then we will talk about buying new ones.

You can say this about almost everything they've added to the game. Lots of great ideas and concepts with the most terrible execution possible.

"Look! You can have undead armies which aren't affected by morale! If only the planet invasion mechanics had more depth than piling people into the planet and waiting a year for the slog to be over!"

"Look! you can buy and sell slaves on the galactic market! It's a shame the AI never buys slaves and only tries to sell species with a randomly chosen assortment of traits."
 
  • 15
  • 2Like
  • 2Haha
Reactions:
Also, from an RP perspective; I still don't understand what Necroids are supposed to be; are they Space Necromancers? A Zombie apocalypse? Others TM?
It seems to me that Paradox isn't exaclty sure what they are and that instead of a clear new form of gameplay we are getting a mash of minor options.
In other words, this DLC seems to be all about apperances but as empty of substance as these necroids are presumably empty of their souls.

P.S I am glad Paradox went with Dread Encampment over Death Camps; saves me the effort making that kind of joke.
I think this is perfectly accurate. There's content for about 6 different civics all mushed together into one generic Origin and it disappoints anyone who hoped to be able to properly recreate any specific fantasy race (especially the mass of people who wanted parasitic hive-minds, they really got shafted). The RP doesn't fit with Xenomorphs, Zerg, Necrons... even the one that the Devs seem aware of and keep mentioning: Goa'uld

If we were trying to make the Goa'uld or Tok'ra we'd hit the following issues with our roleplay:
1. Can't keep host portraits (human, Unas, Asgard)
2. Can't keep host traits (like Unas regeneration)
3. Can't have rebellions (the jobs actually increase stability via amenities so reduce the chance of rebellion (already very low) - I like to imagine the population at 100% happiness watching 'The Thing' and 'Alien', now reality TV-shows, gleefully awaiting their own 5-mins of 'chest-burster' fame)
4. Can't have voluntary hosts (conversion occurs even with no food, stability, happiness, high planetary devastation - i.e. when the hosts are actively rebelling. No primitive observation post / Branch office mechanic to siphon-off willing hosts to nearby worlds)
5. Equally can't have involuntary hosts (e.g. modified criminal branch offices on other worlds converting the population, sleeper agents and seditious takeovers of enemy planets. Also an issue for all other races that spread like plagues: Zerg, Xenomorphs, The Thing etc.)

I also predict that the AI will not be able to play optimally or logically (thrall-worlds, maintaining the slave races) and instead kill-off the host race rather swiftly thanks to the following mechanical interactions:
1. Parasite race can be picked to be grow (if it can grow, it will. Every time it is growing it's effectively setting host growth to 0 for 4x as long as it normally takes to grow 1 pop thanks to the -75% penalty, while decline rate for the host is fixed and continues regardless)
2. Planetary growth controls (setting growth and immigration to 0, while decline continues thanks to job. The AI loves to do this and it'll probably kick-in at about 45 pops on the planet, long before the world is full)
3. Devastation (lowers growth and job output, but the conversion isn't a value that can decrease so only actually increases the effective conversion rate. Minor compared to the above issues, but could make it worse during wars)
4. Overcrowding (halts growth, does not stop the conversion job - the AI is more likely to have spent the influence before this, except when capturing enemy worlds or when building robotic pops at the same time)

Followed by stunted AI development as the only pop available cannot grow at full speed. Underpopulated planets. Death at the hands of rival empires.
(although I'm morbidly curious if it'll also manage to do the opposite and never have enough of the main race to fill planets thanks to never redeveloping buildings and not unlocking new build slots to actually start the conversion of host species and end up with few ruler jobs filled on any but the home planet, itself full of parasitic pops that never relocate thanks to no automatic migration).
I guess we will have to wait to find out
 
  • 7
  • 3Like
Reactions:
As a longtime contributor to the game's modding community (I've been modding Stellaris since it's release) and somewhat a proud owner of all DLC's, I believe I have a right to add my 5 cents.

The idea of this DLC is weak. So far it's the weakest of all of them. The "Death" theme itself is massive, and there is no chance you could capture it's deepness with this simple add-on. I am not even sure it can be captured in the current frame of Stellaris gameplay at all. And I fairly believe that from a pure sci-fi perspective, there are more relevant themes out there, than Undead, which you could at least try to implement.

And needless to say, that a major problem of the game is not a lack of content, but an outdated engine, which is the source of all those bugs, AI and performance issues, which people have been complaining about for years now.
 
Last edited:
  • 23
  • 1Like
Reactions:
So this origin was coded by the artists?
 
  • 6Haha
  • 3Like
  • 1
  • 1
Reactions:
"undead armies"

"necromancers"

you fo real dudes.... you say fish people (as much as people want them, why tho) cant be in stellaris because they dont make sense in a sci fi setting,.... but you do.... NECK ROMANCERS?
I just want a goldfish in a fishbowl on top of a robot.
 
  • 9Haha
  • 1Like
Reactions:
necromancers.. i hoped for flavor text that could be, at least interpreted in a sci fi nanobot, bio robot way... the text is a bit... meh... sci fy and sci fantasy is sometimes very fluid but more and more stellaris gets in one direction. I guess now Stellaris would drown rather than swim back to the sci fi beach
 
  • 3
  • 2Like
Reactions:
I like the idea of this new origin, but I have a feeling this will be a micromanagement hell. At least this shouldn't be matter since the current meta will be staying untouched and everyone will continue playing FMaterialist + Technocracy + Synthetic Ascension.
 
  • 4
  • 3Like
Reactions: