Developed in collaboration with Behaviour Interactive, the new Stellaris: Cosmic Storms expansion and free 3.13 'Vela' update are out now.
With this new expansion you'll find new types of space storms that will begin to randomly spawn a few years into a game. They have a cool-down and there's a hard limit on how many can spawn during the early, mid and late game but these can be configured during the pre-game setup. However, since you can also now spawn your own storms they will happen regardless.
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DLC highlights:
- 8 New Space Storms.
- Storm Chasers Origin.
- 3 New Civics:
- Planetscapers.
- Astrometeorology.
- Storm Devotion.
- Galactic Weather Control Ascension Perk.
- Weather Forecasting Map Mode.
- Two new Precursor narratives, with two new Relics.
- Events, Anomalies, and Archaeology Sites.
- Storm-related technologies, Edicts, and Galactic community resolutions.
The free update had various bug fixes and improvements like changes to planetary resource deposits. Instead of giving access to Crystal Mines, Gas Extraction Wells, and Mote Harvesting Traps they now increase the number of mining districts available on the planet and, after researching the technology to extract the relevant resource, add a small amount of resource production to miners on that planet. Additionally Penal Colonies now reduce crime across your empire while giving access to unique Prison Industrial Districts, while Thrall Worlds give access to the Battle Thrall District to give armies additional XP, and Battle Thrall jobs will increase the damage your armies do.
Cosmic Storms is available for €12.99 / $12.99 / £10.99 or as part of the Stellaris Season 08 DLC pass.
Stellaris has Native Linux support and you can buy it from:
In Stellaris, big beasts are immune to gamma ray lasers. There's a little bit of army improvement but it's extremely abstract and gives the impression of being about better training and organization rather than physical tech; aside from that, stone age troops appear to be exactly equivalent to armies with hyperadvanced technology. The only other ways to make tough armies are
--make them robots
--make them genetic monsters
--make them psionic
--find gigantic native life on some planet to fight for you
It doesn't matter much to me because I don't care much about ground combat. Sometimes you need to do it, and then you make a bunch of armies and whatever. But it is a bit weird and why didn't I ever notice before?
That change to how planetary resource deposits works sounds goods, once I finally untangled it. And now I kinda want to make a storm-chaser civilization, set all the storm limits to max, and watch the galactic chaos unfold.
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