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Stellaris Dev Diary #46 - Enclaves

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. This development diary will cover Leviathans, the recently announced DLC that will be accompanying the 1.3 'Heinlein' update. As previously mentioned, Leviathans is not an expansion but rather something we call a 'Story Pack', a collection of mostly scripted content that is larger than an event pack but smaller than a full expansion. Originally, Heinlein was supposed to be an update accompanying a full-fledged expansion, but we chose instead to do a Story Pack so that the Stellaris programmers would be able to focus on bug fixing, UI improvements and improving/reworking features in the free update.

The Heinlein update has already been covered in several development diaries, but I still thought I should take the time to remind everyone of what it contains. Note that this is NOT an exhaustive list:
  • Awakened Fallen Empires
  • Fallen Empire quests, tasks and general improvements
  • Fleet Roles and new XL weapons
  • Weapon Balance rework
  • Federation Victory Condition
  • Strategic Resource Rework
  • Auto-Exploration
  • Rally Points
  • Expansion Planner
  • Habitability System Rework
  • Federation/Alliance Rework
  • Federation Association Status
  • Better control over sectors
  • 4 new portraits (NOT the 'cuties')
  • Major sound and graphics improvements
  • Space Creature rework, including new art and encounters
  • Loads of bug fixes, AI improvements and UI improvements
The Leviathans Story Pack, meanwhile, will contain the following. This IS an exhaustive list:
  • Guardians feature
  • Enclaves feature
  • War in Heaven feature
  • 5 new portraits ('cuties')
  • 20+ minutes of new music by Andreas Waldetoft

With that out of the way, on to today's topic! Today we'll be talking about Enclaves, one of the above listed paid features. Enclaves are a new type of precursors those with the Leviathans Story Pack will encounter while exploring the galaxy. Instead of living on planets and controlling an empire, they are neutral traders, artists and scholars who reside in ancient space stations and who will offer their services to anyone who is willing to pay.
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There are three types of Enclaves, each with their own range of interactions:
  • Traders allow you to exchange minerals for energy and vice versa.
  • Artists allow you to commission a piece of art that can be placed on one of your planets as a building, or become their patron to support more advanced works.
  • Curators allow you to purchase star charts, enlist their aid in furthering your research, or purchase information about the different Guardians and their weaknesses.
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In addition to these basic interactions, each type of Enclave also has an 'advanced' interaction. This interaction is not immediately available, but must be earned by building up that Enclave's opinion of your empire. This is done by utilizing their basic interactions, so for example a Trader Enclave's opinion of you will increase every time you trade minerals and energy with them. An Enclave that is located inside of your borders will also have its opinion of you slowly increase over time. The advanced interactions are as follows:
  • Traders will sell you a unique strategic resource accessible only to them.
  • Artists can be asked to organize a festival across your worlds, improving happiness across your entire empire.
  • Curators will allow you to recruit one of their researchers, who provides access to unique technologies not otherwise researchable.
DFMb1sw.png


Of course, if your empire leans more towards the Fanatical Purifier type of thinking, you can also choose to simply attack an Enclave. Their space stations are powerful, but not invincible, and you may just find valuable salvage and technologies among the wreckage.

That's all for today! Next time we'll be talking about the headline feature of the Leviathans Story Pack, the Guardians, so stay tuned! In the meanwhile, here's a little teaser of what to expect...
c3NyPko.png
 
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Father_Prometheus said:
Feels great and all, but with this new update, I'll feel like I'm missing a bunch out of the game. Not everyone has 20 or 30 bucks to throw at a game they already bought. I love the game, I seriously do, but all these paid DLCs are putting a hole in my pockets just so I can play my game with everyone else.
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Only the host in an MP game has to have the DLC.
 
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Wiz said:
Trading star charts with other empires does not block access to anomalies, as access to anomalies is blocked by another country surveying that star first.

We're looking into how to make anomalies also appear in midgame and prevent precursor chains from breaking.
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The lack of midgame anomalies and their impact on various quest chains (especially the precursors) is one of my pet peeves with Stellaris. I have never once completed a Precursor quest chain. I would greatly appreciate this being fixed. :)

Wiz said:
1) You can toggle your fleets so that the AI doesn't attach to them, they should also be smarter about who and when to attach to.
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I like this in general. Hopefully the AI will then do something useful with its forces instead of following you around when you have enough forces to take the enemy on your own. :)

I'm excited by Heinlein. It looks like it will resolve many of my outstanding complaints about Stellaris. I look forward to exploring Stellaris anew then.
 
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well done paradox. it seems like you were planning on releasing a more expensive expansion, but rising to make the base game itself better, for free, with a large update, is commendable! thank you! i will get the 'space dragon dlc' at a later date, and continue playing and enjoying the base game for now!
 
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Urgh. I need this. Holding off starting a new game because I want it. Hope we get a projected release date soon >:
 
Cheers for the DD Wiz :D. Enclaves sound great - even more detail on the texture that is the galaxy (and, I suspect, lots of potential hooks for more texture for PDS scripters and modders to boot) :). That said, in the DLC I'm probably most excited about:

Wiz said:
20+ minutes of new music by Andreas Waldetoft
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More music by Andreas is brilliant :D. But still keep the other stuff in there too ;).
 
This is the best game you guys have ever made. just saying. ive played alot of your stuff. and this is by far the best youve ever released.

thought you all should know.



Also i love that you listened to the musical feedback. 1 hour music soundtracks arnt enough for game being played this much. i love the 2 hour and 40 minute sound track. but honestly since you can play a single play through in the span of like 50 hours. MORE. PLEASE more music. Just make a 2 hour musical dlc.
 
blallo said:
There is a difference between cute and not serious, and another difference between not serious and immersion breaking.
funny immersion breaking is a poorly disguised reference to star wars.
funny not-immersion breaking is a race that tells you jokes about the fallen empire they just conquered.

They images they shown are not "funny" in the sense that they make you lough. They are cute in the sense that you would not think they can be an harmful specie, which is even better since they could spawn as hegemonists.
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Well, biologically speaking, what we call "cuteness" is a sum of physical traits typical of childhood, meant as a defense strategy to disarm aggression in other individuals. Adult animals develop other means to manage external aggression, so they tend to lose the "cute" features (which would make them look non-threatening, and thus incapable to scare away other animals without physically engaging them).

Honestly, I would find an alien species that look like puppies a little jarring, and can't really imagine how such a species could develop any concept of conquest or war or hierarchy in its evolutive history (if we assume that their "cuteness" is the same as ours and not just a fluke, that is). Ironically, I would say such a species would be forced into perpetual bloodshed, as it has no way to visually convey threats or submission. I think a way to disable certain portraits from appearing would be great.
 
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I agree that you should be able to enable/disable portraits. But I also think that if you disable the cute ones that you should get a despicable neutral trait ;)
 
Well, the gecko could legitimately have large eyes because nocturnal and just happens to have a short snout.

The butterfly/moth one isn't so much cute as 'deceptively harmless' because, well, butterflies. Their larvae are another matter entirely of course.
 
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Not sure what to think about those enclaves. They remind me a lot to Civ V Citystates... And I didn't like those. Feeled every time to much like a game mechanic thing and disturbed immersion for me. Guess Ill have to wait and see. On the other hand, there's the heaven's war and I'm really looking forward to that feature...
 
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