Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary will be about changes and new additions for Fallen Empires in the 1.8 'Čapek' update and its accompanying (unannounced) Story Pack, about which we cannot currently provide any information except what's in this dev diary (there will be info about other features in the pack coming in later dev diaries). We also cannot currently provide say anything about the release date for the update other than to say that it's not coming out anytime soon. After what happened with 1.6, we want to take our time with this one and make sure we get it to you in a good shape.

Ancient Caretakers (Story Pack)
Those with the Story Pack will be able to encounter a brand new Fallen Empire - the Ancient Caretakers. The Ancient Caretakers is a fallen synthetic civilization that appears to be the remnant of some great conflict in the distant past. From what they tell you, they appear to have been part of something called the 'Custodian Project', an initiative to construct and maintain a number of ringworlds as a refuge for biological sapients fleeing some unknown menace. Their erratic behavior and speech, however, suggests that something may be very wrong indeed with this Fallen Machine Empire.

The Ancient Caretakers have a new attitude called 'Enigmatic' and an obscured opinion score to represent their bizarre and unpredictable nature. They may help you with gifts of ships of technology, request your assistance with tasks that may make little apparent sense, or even make demands of your empire that you would be unwise to ignore. They do not awaken like a regular Fallen Empire, but instead have a particular 'triggering event' that, if it happens during the course of the game, will automatically awaken them... though they will not always awaken in the same way. All in all, they behave quite differently from the other Fallen and Awakened Empires, and have their own backstory to explore, as well as unique interactions when dealing with other synthetic civilizations.

Fallen Empire Tweaks & Changes (Čapek Update)
In addition to the Ancient Caretakers, there are also some changes coming to the current batch of Fallen Empires. First of all, because the Ancient Caretakers also make use of ringworlds, we decided that you'd end up with just a few too many ringworlds to conquer and restore kicking around. Thus, for those with the Story Pack, we made a new initializer for the Keepers of Knowledge with a more traditional Fallen Empire setup of Gaia Worlds and outlying colonies, including some unique features and buildings to suit their archivarian ways. The old initializer with its three ringworlds still exists, however, and will spawn for those that do not have the Story Pack, so those without do not have their Fallen Empire ringworlds taken away.

Other than that, the following changes were done to the existing Fallen Empires:
- Keepers of Knowledge were changed to have their behavior (Hatred of AI) no longer directly conflict with their ethos (Materialist). Both their Fallen and Awakened variants no longer hold a grudge against AI, but instead have doubled down on their obsession with collecting and hoarding knowledge. Satellites of Awakened Keepers of Knowledge are no longer required to ban AI, but will have to contribute a major share of their research to their overlord.
- Holy Guardians were changed to be a bit more interactive, and are now able to offer tasks and give gifts to the younger races, though they will mostly only deign to do so to fellow Spiritualists. They have also taken over some of the Keepers of Knowledge's hatred of AI, and you can expect their Awakened variant to offer no quarter to synthetic civilizations.
- Militant Isolationists and Enigmatic Observers have mostly been left unchanged, asides from some updates to their initializers and ship designs, such as removing the Synths previously used by the Militant Isolationists and giving them to the Keepers of Knowledge instead. They will now also start with more trait points for their species than the other Fallen Empires, to represent their focus on the biological.

Finally, a change was done to the way you establish contact with Fallen Empires. Previously, unless you had done something to anger them (for example colonize a Holy World) FEs would open communications only when you directly entered their space. This has been changed so that Fallen Empires will now instead contact you when your ships enter any system adjacent to their space. This should make it harder to accidentally colonize next to Militant Isolationists and also make it so that your exploring science ship isn't immediately hurled back to your capital just because it happened to take a wrong turn after Omicron Persei.

That's all for today! Next week we'll be discussing some changes coming to Hive Minds and Devouring Swarms, as well as the addition of Dynamic Tradition Swapping in 1.8 'Čapek'.

 

[Red192]

good catch

 

[Garfazz Steamfang]

Basically, having both of them spawn a bunch of ringworlds would mean any medium or larger galaxy would be virtually guaranteed to have a lot of ringworlds. We want to keep them somewhat rare and special, not have them be all over the galaxy.

I understand the decision here but i admit i find this a bit strange. I mean materialist should be technologicaly the more advanced empire in the galaxy. They should have some megastructures at least or some uniques features...

On another hand i agree with the change for spiritualist empire but that dig up the problem we can have in Stellaris with the ascension perks. Spiritualist empires who can't proced to cybernetic augmentation (i understand that they are not going to change themselves to synthetics but some cybernetics implants don't seems wrong for me coz they just use technology for remplace a missing arm, leg etc...) or some materialist empire who can't have a basic psionism (like in mass effect with implant for amplify brain waves, or star wars where jedi can use force and have cybernetic augmentations...). I'm ok to let the second level (total psionism and synthetic transformation) specific for an ethos but cybernetism and latent psionism should be availible without an ethos restriction.




Edit: Speaking about ascension perks don't you think that Delicious or Nerve staple should be availible with the first level of genemodding for prevent xenophobe/slaver empires to have only the bio-ascension perk choice? That would make xeno food more usefull too (it's barelly useless without delicious trait). And, after that, you can put some new uniques traits to bio-ascension perk but not something that is "locked" to a playstyle and which can block the empire ascension choice.

 

[Wizzington]

I hope this doesnt mean that the reworked synthetic crisis is part of the story pack.

The Contingency is part of the free update.

 

[Eldrake]

While the Keepers of Knowledge no longer hate AI, my personal opinion is that they should still warn younger empires about use of them, even if it no longer induces a malus. The Keepers strikes me as being knowledgeable enough about AI to understand the dangers of it, and they would probably want to make sure that younger empires don't get too crazy about it before it's too late for the galaxy.

 

[yiome]

I agree, they shred everything easily with these weapons, not even their Xenophilic counter parts stand a chance.

That's not what I mean... Kinetic is very strong early to mid game but late game with everyone have shield capacitor and good armor it becomes less and less effective
Other AE has a balance between anti-shield and anti-armor weapon, only xenophobe only using Kinetic.

 

[Milten]

While the Keepers of Knowledge no longer hate AI, my personal opinion is that they should still warn younger empires about use of them, even if it no longer induces a malus. The Keepers strikes me as being knowledgeable enough about AI to understand the dangers of it, and they would probably want to make sure that younger empires don't get too crazy about it before it's too late for the galaxy.

I think it would be reasonable if they minded empires ruled by synths, judging by how they keep their own in shackles.

 

[Heretic Saint]

When I first read this DD, I felt a bit miffed, perceiving it as the Materialist FE being nerfed and unsuitably defanged to accommodate the future implementation of synthetic empires. However, after Wiz' explanation about the War in Heaven, I have to agree it's probably the best way, so thanks for taking the time to explain the reasoning.

I'm still somewhat saddened that the whole "we know how this stuff works and it's too dangerous for you" angle gets lost, but ultimately it's the lesser of two evils.

Spiritualist empires who can't proced to cybernetic augmentation (i understand that they are not going to change themselves to synthetics but some cybernetics implants don't seems wrong for me coz they just use technology for remplace a missing arm, leg etc...) or some materialist empire who can't have a basic psionism (like in mass effect with implant for amplify brain waves, or star wars where jedi can use force and have cybernetic augmentations...). I'm ok to let the second level (total psionism and synthetic transformation) specific for an ethos but cybernetism and latent psionism should be availible without an ethos restriction.

Yeah, the complete lock-out from even Tier 1 specialization continues to feel like a weird limitation for a game that otherwise prides itself on allowing players a great degree of customization when it comes to creating their own species/cultures. And it's super-weird when an obvious sci-fi reference like the Psi-Corps necessitates religious ties ("Pious Polity") that have nothing to do with the material that is being referenced.

It's fortunately moddable, so we can still have our ME-style biotics, StarCraft Ghosts or B5 telepaths in Stellaris, but it would be helpful if a future update might relax these restrictions. I understand the original concern was to give the various Ethoses more diverse playstyles, but for Spiritualists in particular, I'd say a mechanic that actually ties into their agenda as referenced in their (traditional) Faction Demands or the descriptions of their Government Types, AI Dialogue and Ruler Titles would be a far better fit.

#petpeeve

 

[Dmitrius]

Will the AI ascendancy path effect relations or your ability to communicate with these guys?

EDIT: Synthetic ascendancy not AI.

EDIT: Just read the OP again and noticed this had already been confirmed. Too excited by another DD to pay attention to detail

 

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Wiz . Fallen machine empires sound cool, and that obscured opinion modifier is also very cool (I reckon a lot of potential there, if used in moderation).

Most of us will be on vacation, but there will still be dev diaries posted throughout July.

Aren't you (or whoever you've threatened with purging to write them) good. I hope you all get a chance for a good break .

 

[tanny]

I Know how much the holy guardian hate AI. But please don't try to humiliate us going cyborg before awakening. It penalizes our playstyle unless if you're strong enough .Which no one do at that point.

 

[Milten]

Speaking about ascension perks don't you think that Delicious or Nerve staple should be availible with the first level of genemodding for prevent xenophobe/slaver empires to have only the bio-ascension perk choice?

I wouldn't call nerve stapling that mandatory for slavers. Slave processing does the job just fine.
P.s. and Delicious trait only emphasizes how useless default livestock is.

 

[Wizzington]

I Know how much the holy guardian hate AI. But please don't try to humiliate us going cyborg before awakening. It penalizes our playstyle unless if you're strong enough .Which no one do at that point.

Non-Awakened Spiritualist FE will only go after you if you go biological -> full synth, at which point you should be far along enough to be able to take them on.

 

[tanny]

It appears to have a virus in a data block containing threat. If enough threat. They might try to analyze and virus will spread corrupting the whole empire. However that's not like the case and they seems to do nothing with that. If some event somehow happen in the game very early? Nightmare!

 

[runrun]

Also, there will be a new form of AI uprising that's more of a mid-game event than an end-game crisis. More on that in a later DD though.

Only the AI will revolt? Or all the people enslaved thus also the slaves

 

[Sloakz]

This looks very interesting indeed

 

[Ixal]

The Contingency is part of the free update.

Thanks.
Is it possible that i the future all FEs become a bit more active like the Holy Guardians, each in their own way?

And I like that the new FE is more unpredictable and enigmatic. Imo all FEs should be in a way. I hope it works out well in game.

 

[Wizzington]

Thanks.
Is it possible that i the future all FEs become a bit more active like the Holy Guardians, each in their own way?

All the FEs have interactions in 1.8 with the exception of the Militant Isolationists, who are explicitly very much not supposed to want to have anything to do with other empires. It's their whole thing.

 

[riadach]

Will only the synthetic FE get those portraits?

 

[Dmitrius]

As much as I'd like to enthuse about the idea of new content, I sincerely hope that there is significantly more content for Player-Ran Synthetic Empires, as it's honestly quite lacking and boring to play.

Absolutely, I'd love something at least comparable in scope to the shroud (though completely different in kind obviously).

Same goes for biological as well.

 

[yiome]

One question about Holy Guardian:
Since the Xenophile/Xenophobe are getting additional traits and Keeper of Knowledge getting synthetic. Are they going to have psionic? Otherwise they would be the only FE/AE without ascension. (And I think they cannot build psionic army currently because of this)

 

[luanmameili[LM]]

The Machine Empire is Hive Minded?
So is it possible for a Hive Mind to follow Synthetic Ascension Paths?