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Stellaris Dev Diary #229 - Aquatics Species Pack

Hello everyone!

Today we’re back to talk a little bit about the recent news that has no doubt sent ripples throughout the community by now, namely the newly announced Aquatics Species Pack!


The Aquatic Species Pack will include:
  • 15 new Aquatic Portraits
  • 1 aquatic-themed Robotic Portrait
  • Water themed Ship Set
  • Here Be Dragons Origin
  • Ocean Paradise Origin
  • Anglers Civic
  • Hydrocentric Ascension Perk
  • Aquatic Species Trait
  • Aquatic Advisor, inspired by high seas adventure fiction
  • 4 Aquatic Name Lists
Remember to w(f)ishlist it on Steam right now!

For many years now, I have been forced to play Stellaris without dolphinoids... but no more! I can proudly say that we’ve made the perhaps greatest additions to Stellaris yet!

Dolphinoids have finally been added to the game, and the future is looking brighter than ever before. Dolphinoids have been used in narrative examples during design meetings for many years, even prior to the release of Stellaris back in 2016, so I am particularly happy to see them finally becoming a reality. I hope you will enjoy playing them as much as I will!

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Tidal Wave of awesomeness.

I’m sure you’re all excited to take a look at the gameplay details, so let’s dive right in!

Anglers Civics
This new Civic will allow you to harvest the bounty of the ocean, by replacing your Farmer jobs with Anglers and Pearl Divers on your Agricultural Districts. The Anglers Civic is also available to empires with a Corporate Authority.

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Under the sea, there’s plenty of shinies to see!

Hydrocentric Ascension Perk
One of our first ideas related to the aquatic theme was to be able to mine ice and bring it back to your Ocean Worlds, to make them larger. The idea originally bounced between being a Civic or an Origin, but we realized it would make much more sense as an Ascension Perk. This is the first time we’re adding an Ascension Perk with a species pack, which in itself is also fun.

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If you live underwater, raising the sea level can be quite useful.

As you could see in the trailer, the Deluge Colossus Weapon can be unleashed to create a watery grave for your enemies! Ice Mining stations will increase mining station output in a system, as well as enable the Expand Planetary Sea decision, which will increase the planet size by 1.

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Aquatic Species Trait
We’re adding a new (zero point cost) Aquatic species trait. It doesn’t require you to have an Aquatic portrait, but it will require your species to start on an Ocean World. We hope that this covers those of you who want more freedom of choice for your species portraits, while still keeping the aquatic theme intact. The trait also gains additional bonuses whenever the Hydrocentric Ascension Perk has been selected.

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From the deep we come!

Ocean Paradise Origin
The ultimate watery start, Ocean Paradise allows you to start on a chonky size 30 planet filled with a plentiful bounty of resources. When combined with the Aquatics Species Trait, and the Hydrocentric Ascension Perk, the Ocean Paradise origin gives significant advantages to starting with an Aquatic species. You will want to keep your friends close, and your anemones closer.

You will also start in a nebula and with ice asteroids in your home system.

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Where there is water, there may be life. Where there is lots of water, there may be lots of life.

Here Be Dragons Origin
Perhaps the most unique Origin yet, Here Be Dragons starts you off in a unique symbiotic relationship with an Ether Drake. Without spoiling too much, the drake will essentially protect you while you keep it happy. The drake is not controlled by you, but can rather be seen as a guardian ally, as long as you keep it happy.

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Hostile neighbors? No problem, ol’ Hrozgar will scare them off (at least from your home system)! This unique ether drake features a unique aquatic-inspired appearance.

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That is it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the gameplay features. Next week we’ll submerge ourselves even deeper into the Aquatics Species Pack by taking a look at the art behind the aquatic ships and the unique model for the ether drake.

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Isn’t she a beauty? Come back next week to learn more about the art in the Aquatic Species Pack.
 
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1. Will Angler and Pearl diver jobs get production bonuses from technologies/planetary specialisation the way farmers do?
2. Are Artificial environments(ecumenopolis, habitats, ringworld) and Gaia worlds affected by being an aquatic species.
3. Will Angler civic be available for megacorps?
4. Will you be able to deluge your own planets?
5. Is the population growth bonus from ocean paradise sufficient to compensate for the loss of 2 planets?
 
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Is there an achievement for killing:
  • the space dragon,
  • a nanite dragon,
  • Shard,
  • the aquatic dragon.

All in one game?
 
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Coupled with the upcoming Custodians patch and my Toade obnoxious bureaucratic merchants will be an unstoppable force for red tape and excise taxes across the galaxy!
 
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To further iterate on why anglers are bad.


- hydroponics don't require a district slot. And they're arguably essential for farming worlds. Now you won't get any anglers fishing in your plant domes. (Why don't they get algae farms btw? Hydroponics make no sense for a species already living in the hydro part)

- You loose a farmer job. This is a big deal, because of the importance of district slots for housing etc. Building slots are less valuable. Districts are also needed for things like alloys, CG, minerals, EC, not just something you spam into one district type until the late game. And when you need 40% more farming districts to meet your food demands? That's a big yikes, even on food-focused planets.

- Less job flexibility. Because you are forced to take on a pearl diver, you don't get to choose your economy as flexibly as before.

- Mining guilds benefit is better than minerals saved by divers in all likelyhood.

- Artificers severely out-compete divers.

- This civic can't be combined with other civics that focus on food like catalytic/idyll. Less food per district is so bad for the early game and catalytic gets worse by the mid game, so you can't opt for taking it later..

- Can't be taken after game start. Species can't learn how to fish, apparently.
 
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-> Can Anglers be picked by Megacorps and Hives?
I doubt it, because Anglers and Pearl Divers produce trade value and consumer goods, two things Hive Minds don't use, so except if they change massively the civic it won't appear (but if they change the civic massively, would it be still the Anglers civic?)
For Megacorp I don't see why they couldn't be Anglers.
 
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I love the aesthetic and the idea behind this but i ask me some things:

- Is ocean paradise the equivalent of gaia world or ecumenopolis for aquatics?

- Does we get a management of the depths of the planet? Right now we only see the surface of the ocean and we doesn't really have any management or view of the underwater cities, fauna and stuff.

- Will we get an underwater specie screen like the one with planetary diversity and aquatic worlds?
Ocean Paradise isn't quite the equivalent of an Ecumenopolis, but its certain good in its own right.

We looked into it, but there was no reasonable way to significantly change the appearance of the planet views or diplomatic screens to be dynamic and underwater.

Do you need Apocalypse and Aquatics to access the Deluge, or do people with only Aquatics only get access to the Colossus AP too?
The Colossus is unlocked by Apocalypse, thus you need Apocalypse to be able to use the Deluge.

Will there be a Megacorps variant of the Angler civic? Especially with the pearl diver job, it seems like it would be a good fit.
The Anglers Civic is available to megacorporations as well.
 
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- hydroponics don't require a district slot. And they're arguably essential for farming worlds. Now you won't get any anglers fishing in your plant domes. (Why don't they get algae farms btw? Hydroponics make no sense for a species already living in the hydro part)

Anglers replace farmers on wet worlds for agri districts, hydroponics and the food processing buildings.
 
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Anglers Civics
This new Civic will allow you to harvest the bounty of the ocean, by replacing your Farmer jobs with Anglers and Pearl Divers on your Agricultural Districts.

View attachment 766729
Under the sea, there’s plenty of shinies to see!
Noo I wanted to be agrarian fishermen :( otherwise this all looks really good! Maybe allow the aquatic trait for ringworld/void dwellers/tombworld/gaia world origins? Lot of oceans on a ringworld
 
Ocean Paradise isn't quite the equivalent of an Ecumenopolis, but its certain good in its own right.

We looked into it, but there was no reasonable way to significantly change the appearance of the planet views or diplomatic screens to be dynamic and underwater.
Hum it's a pity an underwater screen and some management of dephts via planetary decision would have been welcome for an aquatics species pack. Thanks for the reply
 
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I was kind of hoping for the new Leviathan to be more unique and I would prefer for the trait to be tied to portraits. I am already annoyed at all the "underwater butterflies" AI empires that I will encounter.

Could we at least add a galaxy generation option "only Aquatic Aquatics"?

Overall though, this seems very nice. I think we are all wondering if the new Advisor will be a pirate.
You’d miss out on the athropoid underwater portraits tho, as well as the molluscs and some birds
 
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How much is the fish?
 
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Anglers replace farmers on wet worlds for agri districts, hydroponics and the food processing buildings.
So the hydroponics building is a fish pond in the ocean? This is not a complaint.
Yeah totally agree, there should be a restriction about aquatic species trait for AI, so that it didn't turn out in whole aquatic galaxy.
Randomly generated aquatic empires being limited to molluscs and fishes is fine by me. Or at least heavily weighted. Maybe have a small chance for any waterworld empire to get the trait but suitably fishy or molluscy portraits get it automatically?

Suggestion: new Sol variant where earth is a waterworld full of dolphinoids and Kevin Costner
 
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So just to see if i got things right, let me ask this:


Basically the Ice Mining Station can use the ice from frozen planets and ice asteroids. the asteroids generate one charge while frozen planets generate three.


Then on your ocean worlds you can expend this charges to increase the planet size. Is that right? Sounds quite interesting. The aquatics will drown the galaxy and make it theirs :)
 
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If the portraits aren’t trait specific why not fit them in to current portrait categories? Unless they look like fish they’d most likely fit into mammalian, molluscoid or other animal kingdom inspired xenotypes. Maybe leave the fish portraits in aquatic and rename the category piscoid.

Looks really cool, can’t wait for the update.
 
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If the portraits aren’t trait specific why not fit them in to current portrait categories? Unless they look like fish they’d most likely fit into mammalian, molluscoid or other animal kingdom inspired xenotypes. Maybe leave the fish portraits in aquatic and rename the category piscoid.

Looks really cool, can’t wait for the update.
I'd rather figure out a way to optionally list portraits by either DLC or by "biology" sometime in the future. Ideally portraits could belong to multiple categories.
 
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