Stellaris Dev Diary #268 - Toxoids are Among Us, What's Next? (Plus a Transcript!)

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########################## VERSION 3.5.2 ###########################​

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Bugfix

• The Toxic Entity will no longer bless those unworthy. (You cannot select a Toxic God solar system initializer without the Knights of the Toxic God origin)
• Crisis will now destroy the starbases of the systems it invades, fixing an issue where the AI would sometimes not land their armies on colonies properly.
• You can no longer put the Toxic God's strike craft on your ships if you defeat the Prethoryn

Question by: Curious
How do Stellaris Staff view Hiveminds? Like a psionic connection, or more like ants and bees?
Answer:
We generally try to give you the freedom to decide on your own canon. There's definitely some sort of psionic link involved, but the specifics are deliberately left vague.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: LogicMage3
scrap mega structures when?
Answer:
When the Salvagers take over the galaxy
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Horus Ascended
are there any plans to expand on Primitives? they desperately need love
Answer:
There's a lot of interesting design space there. Perhaps someday.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: CrossFyre
when are we getting fully customizable keybindings?
Answer:
We're working with a much older version of the engine than I think most people realise, as such it's not such a simple thing to implement.

We're looking at adding better hotkey support but fully rebindable is unlikely to be in the cards. Sorry!
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Jeff, GigaCorp™ CEO
Are there any plans for megacorp exclusive origins, or anything like that?
Answer:
It's possible, if we have any ideas that are best suited as Megacorp-exclusive.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: azpineapple
will there be any updates for the people who can't afford new dlc? or just some qol patches
Answer:
We have a custodian patch every quarter with free updates, improvements, quality of life stuff, and fixes. These often include additions to past DLC.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Gothic (1 pop = 1billion people)
will there be a amogus crossover
Answer:
very sus
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Cape/008/GBSC (DO NOT PING)
What thing in the DLC are you the most proud of?
Answer:
That we managed to give players quite a bit of freedom to pick the features they want with very few restrictions. Also Toxic Knights being humongous in scope, content and flavor. And that Crafted Smiles Emoji.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Imp0815
Are more alternative playstyles planned like Lithoids or Necroids?
Answer:
Yes. You could say that the Knights of the Toxic God, for instance, constitutes quite a different playstyle and experience to your normal campaign. In general our Toxoids civics and origins were aiming to allow alternative playstyles to flourish.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: finn_ster
Are there any plans to make queuing armies up the late game more convenient or plans for an army manager similar to the fleet manager?
Answer:
We're unlikely to make an actual army manager, but I have been intending to enable ctrl clicking to queue up multiple builds at once for a while now!
Answered by
Monzun (Code Custodian)

Question by: Cape/008/GBSC (DO NOT PING)
One of the changes noted in the patch notes was that AI is now less likely to accept vassalization. Can you share how exactly it's been changed? Less base acceptance, more negative modifiers, reduced impact of positive ones, etc.
Answer:
Less base acceptance for the subject types, harsher penalties for the presets and adding penalties to formerly neutral agreement terms
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Azaken
Will the update include further changes or enhancements to the Ascendent Perks and the trees you go through to get them? And perhaps allowing us to get more then 8 of them since you have added so many now?
Answer:
We feel that having more attractive tradition trees and ascension perks than you have space for is good, actually - it makes the decisions you make during a game more impactful. We do have plans to rework the Ascension Paths into a since AP + a Tradition tree at some point in the future.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Variant01
For all crisises mode how much time is there between crises? Is it one directly after the other or is there a couple of decades then the next one spawns?
Answer:
Basically:
- They do not happen simultaneously because teaching the crisis AIs how to deal with each other is a bigger rabbit hole than we wished to tackle. (It is not controversial to say that they break enough already!)
- Instead, once the last one was defeated (is no longer present in the galaxy), the next one will try to spawn. One cannot repeat. It will try to spawn one every 5 years, with an accelerated chance each check once one has happened. It will be 50% stronger than the last one in terms of bonuses, to make sure there's some progression of difficulty.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: AiLystAP
Any plans to flesh out primitive interactions with players that end up heavily developing their systems, or will the memes of people building megastructures/colonizing and terraforming the primitives' habitable moon into an machine/gaia/ecumonopolis worlds while the primitives remain amusingly clueless continue?
Answer:
Pre-FTL societies are something I'd like us to look at someday. There are a lot of stories that can be told that involve them, and a lot of existing stuff in the game that could be better.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Vix
would there be the possibility of expanding upon the three ascension paths and maybe adding more (synthesics biological and psionic)
Answer:
I've done some experimental work on reworking the three ascensions paths into four tradition trees (Genetic, Cybernetic, Psionic, Synthetic), which was presented at PDXCON (I believe both ASpec and Montu did videos on the presentation). We're currently exploring these designs to see if they're balanced and fun to play with and I'm hoping we'll be able to get them into the 3.6 patch, but no promises.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Mit.Orion
when can i play without have one day is 1 min ?
Answer:
If you are playing and one day is one minute, you probably are not playing on the recommended specs. If you are, file a bug report. (As an aside, we have been working on performance. Check the last dev diary)
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Ghalind the Learner
Will there be any changes to the Galactic Community? New resolutions, revamp of how opinions are decided, anything?
Answer:
Expect new resolutions any time it makes sense alongside whatever content we're doing.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: AiLystAP
It was noted on the forums by a dev awhile back that the Instrument of Desire should have some sort of interaction with psionic Pleasure Seekers. Has this interaction been implemented yet or is still under consideration?
Answer:
Several patches ago we added biases to all of the covenants. The Instrument of Desire should be more likely to contact you if you have Pleasure Seekers.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Anonymous-77
Would it be... Even remotely possible to manage some sort of engine rewrite, not from the ground up but piece by piece to support more?
Answer:
Yes and no. We're updating our version of the engine as we go, according to our needs. For my upcoming expansion to Text To Speech for example, I've added some additional support that currently only exists in our version.

What is very hard to do however is porting changes back from the modern version of the engine, to our version. This is simply due to large differences in architecture and the time it would take us to update our existing code to any new interface.
Answered by
Monzun (Code Custodian)

Question by: Kairos_35
when you were adding the toxoids were there any ideas of adding an origin that only allowed you to live in a toxic world? Similar to tombworld origin?
Answer:
Not really I'm afraid, the Origins were decided on pretty quickly. We did have worries about the abundance of toxic worlds in galaxy creation and thats why ended with the implementation of the Detox AP in Toxoids.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: General Ktos04
Bubbles the amoeba merch when?
Answer:
I tried to get them to buy 30,000 Stellaris branded brain slugs after PDXCon, but for some reason they balked.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: welcome home, cheater
I love some of the achievements that are going to be added in the next update.

Which of the ones added in Toxoids are/were the most difficult to complete?
Answer:
Could be Worse is probably the hardest of the three Toxoids achievements, though it's not really difficult. We went for mostly thematic for those three.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: General Ktos04
when will custodians revisit Nemesis DLC. It's not as good as other expansions because espionage is quiet bad.
Answer:
We have plans, unfortunately desire to do it can't magically make time to do it appear, so I can't promise exactly when it will happen.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: AiLystAP
If Reanimator empires can bring back leviathans, why can't they reanimate the Prophet Zarqlan? Why have the head when you can have a whole prophet?
Answer:
Reanimated Zarqlaan isn't happy about his state.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Vix
would there ever be more origins like toxic God. I'm asking will there be more origins that change up will add origins specific mechanics that can majorly impact a game
Answer:
We have a history of trying to better ourselves with each release.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Horus Ascended
how possible would it be to add more different Government Types with new (or even old) Civics?
Answer:
I'm assuming you mean new types of government authorities. It's possible to add new ones, but we'd need to make sure that they don't overlap with any existing authorities and thus have a good reason to be implemented.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Starlight
i really would like to see more galaxy types. are there any plans for something like that?
Answer:
Maybe
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Kairos_35
has the idea come up of making a dlc thats pure content like origins, civics, maybe some traits, someting to make the game fresh again?
Answer:
Toxoids releases tomorrow.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Sapphirephoenix
With the (hopefully) upcoming combat rework, are starbases/defense platforms also going to be looked at to see if they can be improved to fit in with the new changes? Could it even be possible to have civics or origins to strengthen starbases/platforms to support more defensive playstyles?
Answer:
Yes, we'll need to take the combat rebalancing into account with Starbases and other static defenses. The Bulwark specialist type added in Overlord, and the Unyielding tradition (Apocalypse or Overlord) tree are both good ways to be clearly defensive themed.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Froozigiusz
How do you tackle a problem of balance between fairness and coolness? Many elements in the game have much more power than other for the sake of filing a power fantasy (like clone army)
Answer:
First and foremost, Coolness wins. After we have a cool feature, we balance and tune. Getting it to be fun has more inherent value than having it perfectly balanced. As Eladrin has mentioned elsewhere, balance becomes a major issue mostly when it distorts the game. EG everyone plays A cause because its overpowered or no one plays B because its too weak.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: shadoWarbird
So frequently whenever topics are brought up regarding fixing certain things, or adding new features, it seems a common recurring issue among the Stellaris dev team is not having enough time or having a ton of work to do to fulfill these topics. Out of curiosity, how large is the list of features that the Stellaris team would like to implement and what ends up being the biggest concerns when trying to get them into the game? Is it a matter of trying to prioritize which features you think would benefit the game most? Is it trying to figure out how long features will take to make and trying to plan ahead? Or is it something else entirely? As a Stellaris fan, I love the dev diaries but it's sometimes hard to get a sense of scale on the sheer amount of work and time that goes into implementing features and I think it would be cool to know a little bit of background on it.
Answer:
The biggest issue is how much we want to do. The list of things funnily enough also gets longer the more developers there are, because everyone builds up their own list of things they want to push for.

In the end, we need to balance bugfixes, performance improvements, QoL changes, our personal improvement ideas, future expansion work, community suggestions and all our other work, with the amount of time and personnel we have at our disposal.

Adding onto that, all individual tasks have their unique requirements and some are indeed really hard to estimate.

My added custodian perspective would also be the soft judgement on how my time is best spent improving the game for the most amount of people, while also not neglecting specific playstyles or player archetypes.
Answered by
Monzun (Code Custodian)

Question by: Positivity
Ringworlds haven't served much of a purpose in a while, and Orbital Rings really put a nail in their coffin. Are there any plans to revisit it and its associated origin?
Answer:
Ring worlds do still have a few interesting niches, but there will be some Shattered Ring updates in the future.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Imp0815
Why is the Implented Tab in the Suggestions Section in the PDX Stellaris Forum empty?
Answer:
The suggestions forum gets reviewed regularly by the devs, and suggestions discussed regularly amongst the devs. The actual implementation of the Suggestions forum is a work in progress, and we hope to have a working implementation, or at least something better than what's currently there, Soon.
Answered by
MrFreake

Question by: Timeroc
is the Crystalline Empire still the rarest event or did toxiods add an even more rare one?
Answer:
I think it's still the rarest event, I might be wrong though.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Ben the Fox
What's your funniest story that you have from your time developing Stellaris?
Answer:
My favorite was when we were working on Federations and had gotten the AI finally assigning Envoys. The AI would Improve Relations with empires that it wanted to make alliances with, and Harm Relations with empires it wanted to rival.

My favorite moment was sitting in observer looking at different AI empires, and seeing "Harming Relations with Incoming Asteroid."
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: SirBlackAxe
Why aren't AI empires allowed to get colony events?
Answer:
A lot of them are designed to happen only once. (For instance, it would be weird to encounter two planets with the same dimensional portal on them, and the like). We don't really have enough events to cater for both the player and all the AIs.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Kentrol
do you plan on adding a proper tutorial instead of the assistant advisor into the game in the future? I want to get my friends into the game but they dont want to have to attempt to find a current version youtube video that ends up being hours long
Answer:
We're looking at ways to make it easier to teach your friends how to play the game.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: The Awesomer Federation
What do you think of the many popular community mods, like Gigastructural Engineering, and the way they impact the gameplay?
Answer:
Personally I'm very impressed by their work, especially considering how much and how long they have been working on their mods. Would I want them in the base-game, not really, they are a bit too extreme for me personally. But as mods they are amazing, offering a completely different experience compared to the base-game.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Timeroc
is there a reason reanimator lithiods can resurrect the asteroid (that has hyperspace engines)?
Answer:
Because it's an entertaining story to tell
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Froozigiusz
As it is a sandbox game in a way, how hard would it be to create an official RPG (paper style maybe?) set in a stellaris universe – and therefore canon?
Answer:
Let me introduce you to Stellaris Infinite Legacy https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/academygames/stellaris-infinite-legacy
Answered by
MrFreake

Question by: Imp0815
did you ever not implement a feature because it was already done by a mod?
Answer:
No. Usually, we'd back ourselves to give a better overall result than a mod, because we have access to the source code, far greater resources, and a group of highly talented professionals.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Broromir
any plans on adding dinosaur portrets?
Answer:
They're currently under "Avian".
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Drizzel
Whatcould* be topics for future expansions (DLCs)? *
Answer:
Every story, trope, or fantasy in science fiction is within our domain. There's a lot we can still do.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Tabernak
Any plan on a personalization of the behavior of the AI ? For example choosing the preferred Ascension Perks, policies or default species rights of the empire during its creation
Answer:
No plans at that moment, however instead I'd rather we go through the AI personalities and make those more deterministic in their choices. That way Spiritual Seekers will play very differently to Evangelizing Zealots.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: finn_ster
Any plans to reduce genetic ascension micro-managing for xenophile empires that choose it?
Answer:
From 3.5 onwards there's a couple of improvements for micro management:
- In the species modification interface, you can now see colony designation icons, so you can tell which planet you want your miners on, for instance. (3.6 will add this to the resettlement interface)
- Traits now have some automation smartness for pop assembly, based on colony designation. So your mining planet will automatically assemble pops with mining traits if it can.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Horus Ascended
when was the switch from making Species Packs based on taxonomies (Plantoids, Humanoids, Lithoids) to making them based on aesthetics (Necroids, Aquatics, Toxoids) made?
Answer:
...probably between Lithoids and Necroids? Are you sure WHEN was the question you wanted to ask?
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Azaken
Will we get more advanced weapon components eventually in the future? We have Psi-Shields, Dark Matter Shields, Dragonscale Armor, things like that, but we haven't seen much in the way of weapons for years, so it would be nice to see some more of that. Maybe an Enigmatic Beam weapon. or a Toxic Weapon Deployer? Toxic Pack feels like it should get some weapons that are blatent violations of the geneva convention after all, like maybe bombing a planet with toxic gas to kill off the population and then move in? But more energy weapons is always welcomed and loved.
Answer:
We consider more weapons, armor, utility, and aux slot items as appropriate with the content we're creating, but we're planning on adding some more high tier techs during the combat balancing scheduled for the near future.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: reberuappu
any plans for a slider to increase the rarity of rarest events (or just increase in general) or is that kind of thing better to be left to the modders?
Answer:
Better left to modders
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: SirBlackAxe
We've got a whole bunch of neat little Stellaris emotes here on the discord, is there any chance we could see some of them added on the forums?
Answer:
I would love to get more emotes added on the forums, there's a few unicode emojis that would be really neat to add as well. However, I believe that emotes on the forums are universal between all subforums. That would need to be changed before we could look at adding more Stellaris-specific emojis to the forums. #nopromises
Answered by
MrFreake

Question by: Timeroc
Any plans on reworking the nemesis system (the one that makes empires with opposite ethics spawn right next to you)?
Answer:
There currently isn't any such system anymore (to my knowledge). However, when AI empires are generated they are given ethics via a weighted random which also takes into account which other empires are present in the galaxy. As the player empire(s) are always the first empires spawned in the galaxy, their ethics will be "overrepresented" when the first few AI empires are created. This will likely lead to at least one empire existing with opposing ethics to the player(s), but they aren't forced to spawn neighbouring the player.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: lyra_tcm
*What was the design decision that lead to a switch from making Species Packs based on taxonomies (Plantoids, Humanoids, Lithoids) to making them based on aesthetics (Necroids, Aquatics, Toxoids) made?*
Answer:
There hasn't been a hard decision to do so. We've found, however, that since we now have a decent amount of content in our Species Packs that picking a few themes for the pack is generally pretty satisfying.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Luke5Arman
Are there any plans to add hybrid ascensions, similarly to civilization beyond earth? You wouldn't gain the full benefits as opposed to going down one path completely, but it would open up new RP or certain flexibility options!
Answer:
We don't have any plans to allow hybrid ascension paths but I feel it's a good design space for modders to explore.
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Azaken
Exactly how will it work for Overlords/Megacorps to build their Branch Stuff on Toxic Worlds owned by a Toxoid Empire? Are they just going to wear the heaviest and thickest enviro suits, or make special bio-domes, or what? Or maybe eat some special ULTRA SUPER RESISTANCE boosting meals?
Answer:
Detoxed planets may still be a bit messy, but will have a non-Toxic planet class.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Vix
are there any mods that you like and you could see some parts of it being in the full game one day
Answer:
There's a lot of awesome mods and I personally really love our modding community and I try to support them where I can, because they can do things that we can't!

Mods have a fantastic advantage over vanilla in that they are opt-in. Vanilla needs to cater to all player archetypes including min-maxers, roleplayers, competitive MP players, new players, experienced players and @Iggy (Content Design) who only plays hive minds.

On top of that, vanilla more strongly needs to remain consistent with existing content and avoid creating upkeep for future development.

Mods on the other hand can hyper focus on a specific part of the game or a specific theme and only needs to cater to the existing group of players who have opted in, who are already likely to be experienced and to like the type of content the mod provides.

Basically, mods are awesome and they do things we can't and that's why they are such great complements to vanilla
Answered by
Monzun (Code Custodian)

Question by: We may or maynot be back on Hive
any plans for a more friendly hive civic/origin in the future?
Answer:
As long as I am on the team (and Iggy I guess, who actually y'know..makes stuff) we will keep advocating to give our beloved Hiveminds more content.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Vix
will overtuned traits (yellow traits with the origin) only be able to empires with the origin or if I take biological ascension can I put some of them on my species
Answer:
I'm afraid they do require the Origin to be put on your pops.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Froozigiusz
Do you have any regrets when it comes to L-gate implementation?
Answer:
Yes, not enough variation in the awful things you can find there. Sometimes opening Pandoras box should be bad.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Horus Ascended
any plans for cloaking devices?
Answer:

Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Imp0815
When will the Space Combat be reworked? (like the Planet Manager was)
Answer:
Space Combat is kind of a core part of how Stellaris was built and I don't think a ground up rebuild is on the cards. But we have plans for the balance and pacing of combat coming
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Drizzel
jorg phenotype when?
Answer:
Something something "Keeping a consistent tone with our artwork" something something. I
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Aerolfos
are there plans to review machine empire balance? specifically, their job efficiency is much higher than other empires, like +1 base alloys, or halved researcher upkeep, there doesn't seem to be a good reason for this. Hiveminds are in line with normal empires for example.
Answer:
Balance is constantly being assessed, but we have enough stuff that is straight up not fun to play with to address first. Machines are doing OK for right now.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Azaken
Is this update going to further the goal I suspect you all have of removing the Influence Resource from the game and fully replace it with Unity? Honestly Influence still feels very weird and out of place compared to all the other resources, and it seems like its getting removed from more and more systems so I was wondering if this update would work towards that as well? And if your overall super evil criminal master plan is indeed to expunge Influence and replace it everywhere with other resources, like the mad geniuses you are? Cause id fully support that honestly.
Answer:
We do not have the intent of removing the Influence Resource. In general, Influence is used for external politics, represents your empire's ability to impose its will on others, and for things that increase your living space, and Unity is largely used for internal politics and represents the resilience of your people.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Sjihttam
Date a Blorg, or live with Jeff?
Answer:
Why not both?
Answered by
Bojj (Content Design)

Question by: Chuunibyou Khalagari
what would you say is the possibility of getting an update for mercenary enclaves to wear we can tell them to focus on a specific weapon type like kinetic or artillery or lasers etc? If I remember correctly, it was mentioned in the thoughts for the combat rework that there would be a new ship designer with auto-generate buttons geared towards specific ship types like that better, which seems like it would be perfect for that
Answer:
You kind of have that power alrready, since you can share YOUR technology with them. But I'm afraid thats as far as it goes right now.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Cybernetic VD Iron Lotus
In the eyes of developers: are void dwellers meant to stay on habitats or colonise planets sooner or later?
Answer:
Stay in your tin cans. Rocks with air have gravity and microbes and other nasty things. Up in space it's safe and controlled and there isn't this scary thing that people call the "sky" or the "horizon".
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: Dark Knight
Currently, the player and AI can create their own enclave. Are you also going to add the option to create your own caravans for the megacorp empires?
Answer:
No current plans for that I'm afraid.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: SirBlackAxe
What's a suggestion or idea you've seen on the forums recently that you liked?
Answer:
Yes! On a previous dev diary we got a suggestion to show both the planet type and planet designation in the outliner and I made a prototype for it!

Still working on getting it into the actual game, but to me it felt like such a "Why haven't we done this already!?"
Answered by
Monzun (Code Custodian)

Question by: UMAR
Can we remove the soft-cap of 10000 naval cap? In very long games it limits fleetsizes quite substantially...
Answer:
Maybe, but awful things also happen when a certain number of ships are in the game. Awful awful things. So we'll see.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Timeroc
will overtuned traits be applicable to main species with the origin or any you get your hands on?
Answer:
You can put them on any organic species that ends up in your empire, as long as you have the Origin.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: DJ Palemkov
Are there any plans for new civics that will completely change gameplay, or add new depth into the current one?
Answer:
Depends if anyone can come up with a good idea for it and get the resources. However there is an extra complication in that tying it to civics means even more combinations of various things to consider. Where as Origins constrains it enough to have a more cohesive experience.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Darkrougist
at the moment the only victory condition are points, are there more conditions planed in the future as conquer 40% of the map as federation ?
Answer:
One of the big takeaways from Nemesis is that more victory conditions = good. It's something we'd like to explore.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: AiLystAP
The Vault event spawning on nuked Earth would under the best outcome, spawn aliens instead of humans. Shouldn't finding human survivors on nuked Sol be possible?
Answer:
Yes it should
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Froozigiusz
What visual style would be in the theoretic Stellaris 2? 3D models are easier to animate and make/mod, but it takes much more processing power. On the other hand current sprite system gives much more creativity and is more light, and yet it's harder to produce a dump-load of content.
Answer:
Not sure, but if such a thing would to happen. There will be spaceships.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Davin111
any plans to give players the ability to play as a nomadic empire or is that not even possible?
Answer:
We've discussed nomads internally, but it would be extremely technically challenging. There are many assumptions made about empires that such an origin would break.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Neko_Trans
Will the Relentless Industrialists civic be available for Machine empires as well?
Answer:
Not at the moment, but hey mod away the restriction and see what happens (it's probably broken)
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Luke5Arman
Ocean paradise and Life seeded both give a bonus to finding the first tier of terraforming technology (Terrestrial sculpting, tier 2 tech, base weight of 105), which makes sense, but Life seeded doesn't get a bonus to finding climate restoration (tier 4, base weight of 45), which is required to take the world-shapers ascension perk to make more gaia worlds. Wouldn't it make sense for life seeded empires to be more focused on trying to terraform nearby worlds into paradises that match their beautiful home?
Answer:
Make a bug report please
Answered by
Alfray Stryke (Game Design)

Question by: AiLystAP
Any plans of letting you join an ongoing war with the approval of the side you are joining? An option to directly support a rebellion once they rebel to secure their independence.
Answer:
We have discussed it often enough but it is can of worms that we dare not rush if we go for it.
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Slayer
Is there a chance we will ever see Titans having other sections beyond the T+L-slot weapons? Titan designs feel somewhat......rigid due to this as there´s no other weaponry choices available for them.
Answer:
Something to consider after the ship combat rebalance I feel. We're paying a lot of attention to the roles each ship plays.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Chuunibyou Khalagari
would it even be on the table to add a seed system to the game, so you can have map seeds of the Galaxy that can be shared online or reused if you find a starting location you really like? Does the engine even support such a thing or is it against the design philosophy of the team?
Answer:
It's certainly not impossible! It's however not the engine that enables it, but the fact that the Stellaris simulation is deterministic!

This does also however mean that seeds would be specific to a certain version of the game and potentially also the used modset.

On a technical level, we would need to rework randomization a little bit, so it's not a small or risk free thing to implement, even if it's possible.
Answered by
Monzun (Code Custodian)

Question by: Bruh Moment
Can a way to mute the slave market be implemented? Ive broken migration treaties with slaver ethics and im bombarded non stop with “Your species has appeared on the slave market” notifications. Gets very annoying after the first few hours
Answer:
I've made a note to look into that.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: got6
When will overlord for console possibly be released?
Answer:
Expansion Pass Five says to expect it in Early 2023.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Dawnfyre(Jaedar)
are there any plans to improve the war whackamole minigame
Answer:
If you happen to have a save where the Ai splits its fleets too much, please upload it in a bug report on the forum
Answered by
GruntsPlayground

Question by: Drizzel
Stellaris: The Movie when?
Answer:
We haven't found the right star yet...
Answered by
Bojj (Content Design)

Question by: Sjihttam
Are there any plans to teach AI that debris exists?
Answer:
I spent half of this Q&A session trying to debug this in the background.
Answered by
Caligula

Question by: Azaken
Will there ever be genetic traits that have both positive and negative effects, to make it more interesting, to choose for the species creator? For example, making a Small Trait that while decreases strength, mineral output, and alloys production, also decreases food costs, increases lifespan, and housing usage, while Tall would be the reverse of that? Also traits for thin and thick, or one for species that lay eggs instead of giving birth, or things like that? I feel like that would be really cool and fun to have!
Answer:
Toxoids includes some traits that have positive and negative traits, especially if you take the Overtuned origin.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Sapphirephoenix
bubbles plushie when?
Answer:
I don't know who to talk to about merch, but I'll make sure the idea is out there.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)

Question by: Archaeon
What is the plan for Stellaris after the Combat Rework post-Fornax?
Answer:
We'll be outlining that in the dev diaries after releases.
Answered by
Eladrin (Game Director)

Question by: Scorpione Orzion
When we have all crisis enabled, how mush time between each?
Answer:
Not much, make sure you are ready.
Answered by
JoJo (QA Lead)