Stellaris Mods: Progress Updates + Plans for 1.9 Cherryh (Patreon)

Hai! And welcome to another monthly(ish) status report! (I should really settle on a specific day to do this, apparently "start of the month" is really flexible in my book)

AHEM! Anyways, today the "plans for the future" part is going to be really interesting! If you've been following Stellaris dev diaries, Twitter teasers and livestreams, you know how much the game is going to change with the next major update, and as always, we'll be trying to prepare well in advance to deliver patch day updates as soon as possible. BUT more on that later! Let's go back to the present for a moment!

The Asari Civilisation - Ringworlds and Reworks

The long awaited (and definitely behind schedule) Ringworld is, fittingly enough, the most complex and demanding of all the Megastructures. While I showed you an early prototype two months ago, admittedly it hasn't evolved much since then. Our attention was mostly focused on the Science Nexus and 1.8+ transition. But now that we are past that, we'll be coming back to the Ringworld soon and I'll be sure to keep you updated on our progress throughout the coming weeks!

But that's not all that's coming! There's also a rework scheduled for stations and (most) ships! Don't worry though, it's a small one! n_n Unlike the previous rework that redid most textures and models from scratch, this one will just amend a small oversight.

Apparently, we got Asari propulsion wrong!

What? Okay, so it's a bit complicated. Turns out the references we were using were based on models seen in ME1. As we recently found out, Bioware sneakily updated the designs of Asari ships for their second appearance in ME3, adding previously missing thrusters in the final battle cinematics. Right here:

You probably know by now how perfectionist we are, so we cannot simply ignore it! Therefore, once the Ringworld is finished, this is next up on our list! Fortunately, this won't be terribly time-consuming. It's just a matter of adding new objects to the existing meshes, with minor adjustments where necessary.

A slightly more dramatic rework is planned for civilian stations: research, mining and observation posts. The current "donut" design is a result of lack of ideas more than anything else. But having gained a lot of experience and inspiration from working on Megastructures, we have become a lot more confident in our ability to design proper space structures. The uninspired donuts aren't long for this world! n_n

Ship Classes Extended - Bugfixes + AI is a Filthy Exploiter 유ㅅ유

Speaking of things that may be going the way of the Dodo, Cherryh may be putting some parts of SCX on the endangered species list and I'm very excited! But more on that later!

My more immediate concern is that, while playing my ongoing Stellaris campaign, I noticed a few issues that will be getting fixed soon. Namely, Graviton Catapult sections for Carriers aren't properly unlocked by the Superdreadnought tech and... Stellaris AI managed to find an interesting bug and apparently LOVES exploiting the living cheddar out of it!

Turns out, thanks to the way Federation Fleet works, the AI will fill it with Superdreadnoughts and nothing BUT Superdreadnoughts. When my turn to be federation president came around I was amazed to see that the federation fleet was composed of 20 supers and only a couple of other ships! It was funny, but definitely not intended ㅇㅅㅇ

Given that the cost and maintenance inefficiency are supposed to be their main disadvantage, being able to bypass that so easily cannot be allowed. I'll be patching that out ASAP n_n

Future Plans - 1.9 Cherryh & Beyond

Now on to what we know about the upcoming supermassive update so far and how it will affect our mods!

• Obviously the news that's closest to our heart is MASS RELAYS! Or... Gateways and Wormholes, as they are officially called, but we have already committed to turning them both into Mass Relays on day one! ◕ヮ◕ Since conventional wormhole stations are being removed as part of FTL consolidation, our already existing Mass Relay model will finally get to serve the purpose it was born for!
• Starbases replacing spaceports is actually something we've been anticipating for a long time and when we heard the official news, we were ecstatic! We will use the current asari spaceport model as base and expand it with modules and additional levels to match the impressiveness of high tier starbases. Squeeee!
• TITANS! Buildable Titans were hinted at before, in a very busy and unclear teaser screenshot, but now we have an explicit confirmation of them being player-buildable! If you've seen the Design Corner livestream, you couldn't have missed it! n_n
• Now, what does it mean for us? Two things! One, SCX Superdreadnought will become redundant and we can say bai-bai to its imperfect implementation! The Titan will take its place and, two: our shipsets will be adjusted accordingly. Do you think Destiny Ascension needs a superweapon worthy of its name? So do we!

But I've been ranting for long enough so this is all for today! We're so happy that the future is looking brighter than ever and we can't wait to get our paws, claws and tentacles on all the upcoming, game-changing features!

But Cherryh is still very far away, probably not coming out until sometime next year, so in the meantime, we're feeling more motivated than ever to finish what we've already started and hopefully get ready for what's coming!

As we learn more, I will keep you updated on our progress and plans! Until then, have fun playing! Love! <3