Hello again Console Edition Community!
We’re happy to be back with another Console Edition Dev Diary on the road to the Aquatics Species Pack! For those of you who missed it, the Aquatics Species Pack will release on August 25th!
As we talked about in Development Diary #41, the patch associated with the Aquatics Species Pack includes a ton of changes and added content to already-released DLC. The next update will be the 3.1 “Lem” and 3.2 “Herbert” updates rolled into one. This also gets us to the point where we get our first Custodian team patch to our Console Edition Community. For those of you who don’t know, the Custodian team (first announced here), is a separate development team from our expansion team. The Custodians’ primary focus is on bug fixes, quality of life improvements, performance, AI and micromanagement improvements, as well as adding content to our existing DLC.
Today, we’re here to talk about changes coming to the Necroids Species Pack in the next update.
Necrophage Origin
One of the big bits of feedback that we got when we first released the Necroids Species Pack, was that there were a lot of people who wanted to play Necrophage hiveminds. In the next version of Stellaris: Console Edition, this will now be possible!
Normally, hiveminds cannot have non-hiveminded pops living in their empire. This essentially defeats the purpose of a Necrophage, as they normally don’t grow, but instead convert the bodies of the living into their own visage. To get around this, Necrohives will allow you to keep non-hiveminded pops as livestock, and moreover, these livestock pops will be able to grow, and then be subsumed at the Chamber of Elevation and converted into your primary species.
Like normal Necrophages, Necrohives are also able to use the Necrophage Purge to speed things up. In a change that also applies to all other Hives as well, Necrohives can now purge Gestalt pops that are not of their primary species. Genocidal Hiveminds (Devouring Swarm, and Terravore) can also now choose the Necrophage Origin.
Necrohive livestock pops are also granted a special exception to be able to live on Hive worlds.
Death Cult Civic
With the pop growth changes in the previous version, Death Cults occupied a strange space, where when they were released, they were pretty powerful, with the galactic-wide reduction in overall number of pops, Death Cults became more of a liability, because pops became that much more valuable with the growth changes introduced in the last version.
As such, we have adjusted the values you receive when sacrificing pops as a Death Cult. Where previously you would get a fixed about, scaled by the number of pops, in the upcoming version the scaled portion will also increase based on the percentage of your overall pops you sacrifice. The higher the percentage of your population you sacrifice, the higher the bonuses you receive, especially in the early game when your overall population is low.
Reanimated Armies Civic
While the idea of getting access to Reanimated Armies was very thematic in Necroids, in practice using a Civic slot to unlock a new army type, that you then have to unlock a technology to build was very underwhelming.
We have changed the Reanimated Armies Civic, and it will now be referred to as Reanimators.
Reanimators
Reanimators start with the technology to build the Dread Encampment, and choosing the Reanimators Civic will start you with a Dread Encampment on your homeworld. Having a Dread Encampment on a world will replace the Defensive Armies on that planet with Undead Defense Armies, which are somewhat stronger than the regular defense armies.
Dread Encampments will also provide two Necromancer jobs, which will provide 6 society and physics research (up from 4).
When an organic army falls in battle with an Empire with the Reanimators Civic, the Reanimator Empire gets a 1 in 3 chance of resurrecting that army, and immediately spawning Undead (Offensive) army.
Finally, when an Empire with the Reanimators Civic defeats (most) organic Leviathans in battle, they will have a chance at getting a special project to resurrect that Leviathan, to fight alongside them in their own fleets.
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We hope that you are as excited as we are to get this new content out on Console Edition. Be sure to check in next Friday for our next Console Edition Development Diary, you’ll never know what will bloom!
We’re happy to be back with another Console Edition Dev Diary on the road to the Aquatics Species Pack! For those of you who missed it, the Aquatics Species Pack will release on August 25th!
As we talked about in Development Diary #41, the patch associated with the Aquatics Species Pack includes a ton of changes and added content to already-released DLC. The next update will be the 3.1 “Lem” and 3.2 “Herbert” updates rolled into one. This also gets us to the point where we get our first Custodian team patch to our Console Edition Community. For those of you who don’t know, the Custodian team (first announced here), is a separate development team from our expansion team. The Custodians’ primary focus is on bug fixes, quality of life improvements, performance, AI and micromanagement improvements, as well as adding content to our existing DLC.
Today, we’re here to talk about changes coming to the Necroids Species Pack in the next update.
Necrophage Origin
One of the big bits of feedback that we got when we first released the Necroids Species Pack, was that there were a lot of people who wanted to play Necrophage hiveminds. In the next version of Stellaris: Console Edition, this will now be possible!
Normally, hiveminds cannot have non-hiveminded pops living in their empire. This essentially defeats the purpose of a Necrophage, as they normally don’t grow, but instead convert the bodies of the living into their own visage. To get around this, Necrohives will allow you to keep non-hiveminded pops as livestock, and moreover, these livestock pops will be able to grow, and then be subsumed at the Chamber of Elevation and converted into your primary species.
Like normal Necrophages, Necrohives are also able to use the Necrophage Purge to speed things up. In a change that also applies to all other Hives as well, Necrohives can now purge Gestalt pops that are not of their primary species. Genocidal Hiveminds (Devouring Swarm, and Terravore) can also now choose the Necrophage Origin.
Necrohive livestock pops are also granted a special exception to be able to live on Hive worlds.
Death Cult Civic
With the pop growth changes in the previous version, Death Cults occupied a strange space, where when they were released, they were pretty powerful, with the galactic-wide reduction in overall number of pops, Death Cults became more of a liability, because pops became that much more valuable with the growth changes introduced in the last version.
As such, we have adjusted the values you receive when sacrificing pops as a Death Cult. Where previously you would get a fixed about, scaled by the number of pops, in the upcoming version the scaled portion will also increase based on the percentage of your overall pops you sacrifice. The higher the percentage of your population you sacrifice, the higher the bonuses you receive, especially in the early game when your overall population is low.
Reanimated Armies Civic
While the idea of getting access to Reanimated Armies was very thematic in Necroids, in practice using a Civic slot to unlock a new army type, that you then have to unlock a technology to build was very underwhelming.
We have changed the Reanimated Armies Civic, and it will now be referred to as Reanimators.
Reanimators
Reanimators start with the technology to build the Dread Encampment, and choosing the Reanimators Civic will start you with a Dread Encampment on your homeworld. Having a Dread Encampment on a world will replace the Defensive Armies on that planet with Undead Defense Armies, which are somewhat stronger than the regular defense armies.
Dread Encampments will also provide two Necromancer jobs, which will provide 6 society and physics research (up from 4).
When an organic army falls in battle with an Empire with the Reanimators Civic, the Reanimator Empire gets a 1 in 3 chance of resurrecting that army, and immediately spawning Undead (Offensive) army.
Finally, when an Empire with the Reanimators Civic defeats (most) organic Leviathans in battle, they will have a chance at getting a special project to resurrect that Leviathan, to fight alongside them in their own fleets.
----
We hope that you are as excited as we are to get this new content out on Console Edition. Be sure to check in next Friday for our next Console Edition Development Diary, you’ll never know what will bloom!
