Stellaris Mods - Progress, More Delays, Lhûren Space Shinies, Why Are GIFs So Hard To Optimise? (Patreon)

I must start off by apologising for dramatically missing the mark on the predicted release schedule last month... As you may have noticed, neither the "small" Asari update nor the Lhûren have gone live yet.
I have no excuse. While Nessa has more than completed her part (and there's some exciting new art I'd like to show you today), I have been a total mess for the past several weeks, falling way behind schedule on the code, concept drafts and templates for the volunteer writers, holding up other team members through my lack of time management and sideways priorities. The meagre results I have managed to produce are limited to Omega and mostly involve writing up plans for Le Guin that is nowhere near release rather than actual, tangible code...

As excited as I am about the upcoming Stellaris update and expansion, I should not have let it distract me from work that I could, and have no practical reason not to, be doing right now. Passively waiting for the next patch to happen is inefficient and irresponsible and I should know better >.<

I fully understand if you are completely sick of delays and apologies. I won't ask your forgiveness because I'm not ready to forgive myself. Objectively looking at my results since the holidays started, my work ethic has been abysmal. For how much free time I have had, I have wasted most of it on unproductive and unrelated distractions.

I only ask that you do not hold the team responsible for my failings!

The only way I can fix it is by working harder than ever to complete the tasks I neglected and synchronise with the roadmap I have set instead of constantly bending it and rearranging various milestones. As the leader, I absolutely cannot have my own negligence disrupt the work of the other members.

Thankfully, all thanks to said other members, I still do have some exciting new things to show you today!

Elves of Stellaris 

Last month I said that the Lhûren's initial release would mostly focus on portraits while the planets would come in a later update, after the planet/pop rework in Le Guin.

While that is still true, there are some things Nessa managed to finish way ahead of schedule and we've decided to include them in the release build! Regular old pictures wouldn't do them justice so you absolutely need to see them in game! Until you can, however, I hope these gifs at least provide a little glimpse of what you can look forward to!

Warning! I optimised the gifs as much as I could but I wanted to preserve their fidelity so the files are still quite large and may need time to load! If they do not, or you encounter any other issues with playback, please let me know!

First of all, those of you who follow me on Twitter maaaaay find this little thingy somewhat familiar... n_n

Yes! It's the little blooper that we affectionately nicknamed the Suck Giant. Originally, it was the result of a shader glitch that ended up animating the cloud layer in the wrong direction. The result looked... ALL kinds of weird:

But then the Stellaris community team took a liking to it and a lot of people expressed their excitement as well and even started theorycrafting on what might have caused it to look that way! Ideas ranged from psionic calamities to rogue vacuum cleaners. We had a lot of fun reading the comments and in the end decided to turn this bug into a feature ≧∇≦

After cleaning it up a bit and reproducing the effect in a more deliberate manner, the first gif is the final result. The planet is called Mixa and will spawn in one of the Lhûren's neighbouring systems. As for what's wrong with it... well... you should have a look and find out ◠‿◠

Another fun thing we ended up with in the course of developing the Lhûren is what we call...

THE GREAT FIREWALL!

Sorry, you can't have Space Elf China without one! This big bubble of shiny encases the Lhûren homeworld, protecting it from hordes of alien barbarians who have not (yet) offered tribute to the Dragon Emperor's Most Magnificent Hat. While currently its mechanical implementation is rather limited, we're hoping to expand on its functionality in Le Guin! n_~

In addition, Nessa has been poking at more hair options and hats and making further improvements to other Elven races in an effort to bring them up to par. The Lhûren are currently undergoing finishing touches and last-minute additions. While the release is still not set in stone, we are still planning on releasing it in two parts: one, focused on portraits, before Le Guin and the other, revolving around planets and mechanics, after.

And on that note...

For reasons I explained at the beginning, I am deeply that this month's report was so short. Hopefully I can make up for it soon! I have weeks of procrastinating to catch up with and I need to start immediately ._.

Thank you for your continued support. Right now I don't feel worthy, but I hope I can somehow deserve your faith and incredible patience yet. Please look forward to actual progress soon!