Stellaris Mods - Part One - Progress, Milestones, Asari Blues (Patreon)

It is that time of the month again, the time, at least for the last few months, I would look back and feel very embarrassed by the meagre results. But no more! Today, I'd like to welcome you to the new series of monthly reports I'm starting, entitled Post-Summer: The Unlazyning! And this time, there's a lot of good news I can't wait to share with you! Goshbuttsdarnish! >.<

While I'm still dealing with the monstrous pile of work left in the wake of procrastination, at least it's no longer mountain-sized ^^ I've been making steady progress on getting the coding caught up with the art assets. Last month, after many months in development, we finally released the massive Lhuren update for Elves of Stellaris! Due to Nessa's scheduled absence, we chose to upload it sooner rather than later so not everything we wanted to include in the initial release made it in. However, we are still planning on following it up with another update focusing more on the mechanics, planet and map features, so don't worry, this is not all we have in store for the Lhuren or Elves in general! However, since all of that is at this point inextricably tied to Le Guin, we've decided to set Elves aside for now and focus on our Mass Effect mods again.

Because there is so much to talk about (and I talk too much) this monthly report will be a two-parter! Part One (today) will focus on the Asari, while Part Two (tomorrow) will be ALL about Omega, the current progress, the short- and long-term plans, as well as some of those juicy sneak-peeks that everyone seems to like for some reason n_~

But without further adoooooooooooo...

Mass Effect Civilisations - Asari 

Asari Civ has always been in this weird spot of almost-doneness. Every time we think we only have one milestone left, we end up coming back to some other aspect and deciding that it needs an overhaul or expansion. Of course, that's not a bad thing! It just a natural consequence of perfectionism... and getting easily distracted ^^

Anyways, in order to bring some semblance of order to the developement of Asari in the foreseeable future, I have condensed it into three major milestones that intend to work towards, while doing our best to fall within the projected timeframe. The milestones are as follows:

• Colossus + coloniser and mining/research stations rework (ETA: before Le Guin)
• Le Guin compatibility (ETA: as soon as possible once Le Guin is released)
• Gameplay expansion and ludonarrative integration for both Illium and Thessia (ETA: after Le Guin)

As you might have noticed, if you've been following Asari Civ development for a while, one objective seems to have vanished. Yes, it's the elusive AI update I've been promising for many many months now. What's up with that? Is it no longer on the table?

Actually, I believe I have finally figured out why I've been avoiding it for so long. Working on the diplomatic messages and tweaking AI behaviour over the past month has made me realise what a terrible idea it was to set it as the centrepiece of a content update.
Namely... it's the fact that most of the development time goes into testing. And it's not the fun kind of testing where I can spawn a thing and watch it glitch out in hilarious ways while making on-the-fly adjustments. Testing AI-related features involves a lot less of that and a lot more sitting around, observing another empire and waiting for it to do what I intended it to do, all the while wondering whether the fact that nothing is happening can be attributed to the AI choosing to do nothing or the mod not actually working. And then redoing it over and over just to make sure the first time wasn't a fluke.

So! How would one solve this problem? The answer... might not surprise you that much given that it's common practice in game development but it certainly felt like a eureka moment to me SO DON'T TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME! >.<

Ahem... I mean, of course, continuous development. Rather than attempting to cram all the AI-related features into one big update and losing my one remaining sliver of sanity along the way, I'm going to work on it little-by-little and have AI features piggyback off other updates. I can easily work on them while waiting for art assets, for example, and test them passively alongside actively testing other features.

Anyways, that's not the only thing I wanted to talk about today. The milestones were supposed to be the main topic so I should probably get to them before I go off on another tangent and completely forget what I wanted to say!

Our most immediate objective is completing the shipset before Le Guin arrives. For the last few months, our entire "art power" was allocated to Elves, but now that the Lhuren are out, Asari are next in line. At this point, we don't know whether Le Guin will come with any new ship types or structures that we need to incorporate into our shipsets, so we re operating on the assumption that it's possible and we need to wrap up the Apocalypse assets before Le Guin if we don't want to fall behind.

After the Colossus update (if we make it in time) we don't intend to release anything else until Le Guin, by which point we hope to be free to completely dedicate our attention to adapting our mods to the new system. Depending on how challenging that turns out to be, we may end up either just focusing on the second milestone (compatibility) or attempt to reach the second and third at the same time.

Now, you may be looking at the third milestone and thinking "Princess-senpai! Sugoi! Kakoi! You are so amazing at using lots of words and not actually saying anything! The sublime vagueness of that statement is second only to how beautiful and smart and cool and wonderful you are! Aaah! I love you Princess-sama!"

T-that's very flattering! Thank you... >.< And um... right, I think it's time we finally started talking about what, specifically, we're planning for Asari Civ come Le Guin!

Ludonarrative integration, or in other words, the marriage of fluff and gameplay, is one of the core components of Team Nessassity mods. The reason why we don't just stop at ships and portraits, why we continue to introduce scripted mechanics, rarely seen in most species mods, is because our goal is to create as complete experiences as possible.
When we work on, for example, the asari, we see them as more than just cute squidheads. We don't really create "species" in the same broad terms that vanilla Stellaris defines them: as a set of portraits, ships and city graphics. Rather, we want our species to be seen as something more along the lines of "Sid Meier's Civiliztion" series' civilisations which are self-contained packages containing not only ethnic aesthetics but also unique playstyle-altering gameplay aspects steeped in historical inspirations. Things like China getting chu-ko-nu in place of generic crossbowmen units, or Venice being unable to create settlements but instead having the ability to peacefully take over city-states.

Naturally, Stellaris is a very different game with different rules and fundamental gameplay differences. But that doesn't mean generic empires and unqiue civs cannot coexist. Team Nessassity's niche lies in trying to squeeze as much immersion out of the game as possible, making our players feel as though our civilisations belong in the game and the game has always been designed to support them.

Which (finally) brings us to the point: we do not believe we have quite achieved that with the Asari yet. And we intend to address that in Le Guin, using the tools and the more open modding architecture it will provide.

The two biggest changes coming to Asari Civ post Le Guin are going to be the introduction of culture-defining civics for the Asari Republics (Thessia) and Asari Corporate Interests (Illium), as well as removing the Asari's ties to Psionics.

I imagine the latter is going to be somewhat controversial and a lot of users will wonder why, so let me address that point first.

Guaranteed access to the Psionics tech tree (back when it was just a tech tree) was the first unique mechanic I ever implemented for the Asari. Back then I was so happy that I accomplished something nobody before had done that I didn't put much thought into whether it was actually appropriate. Psionics was the closest thing Stellaris had to Biotics, if you could ignore all the ways it wasn't, so it seemed good enough. But also, I could not think of a better alternative. The game was extremely simplistic at the time. Things like Civics, Ascensions, Traditions weren't even something players suspected we'd ever get. The extent of empire customisation was species traits, ethics (which had minor impact, mostly just +% to this and that) and one of a handful of predetermined governments. Many systems that are open today were also hardcoded back then, so for the most part, empires were defined and differentiated by simple modifiers. Getting a free tech at the start of the game was unheard of! Revolutionary! So I went with that.

As time went on and the game improved and expanded, and when eventually Utopia completely overhauled empire customisation, I started debating whether to stay tied to the redefined and overhauled Psionics. In the end I had no better ideas so I kept it but changed it from a trait to a civic, as it was more appropriate for an empire-wide effect like that. But I have nevertheless been nursing doubts since then. And now, with Le Guin necessitating another evaluation of mechanics, I have come to the conclusion that it's time to let go of that legacy feature and do what I should have done long ago: implement proper Biotics.

Because Biotics in Mass Effect was never about spiritual enlightenment or some nebulous, unexplained, mystical power. Biotics has always been a... well... biological ability to generate gravitational anomalies. It's a very physical, tangible, scientific (within the context of ME's science at least) thing that can be understood, measured and even propagated through genetic engineering. On the other hand, Psionics in Stellaris is anything but. It is very explicitly described as mind over matter, an unknowable force that defies scientific explanation and, in fact, is denied to those whose minds try to define it in physical terms (materialists). It involves powers such as telepathy, precognition, astral projection, and so on. And there's also the Shroud which adds another layer of otherworldness.

So... this is my reasoning. You can agree or not, but ultimately I believe that disassociating Asari from Psionics will grant me more control over both mechanics and fluff. Being tied to Psionics is inherently limiting and puts the asari at the mercy of the ever-changing balance and functionality of something that's far outside the purview of this mod and any attempt to mess with would result in an infinite flood of conflicts and incompatibilities.

I have not decided how the implementation of Biotics will work just yet, but I'm definitely looking at the possibilities offered by Le Guin. But I do know I want it to be a biological species-based feature, so it will most likely be reflected in pops and/or leaders.

And with that out of the way, let's move on to the other change coming to Asari Civ! Cultural differentiation.

As of Le Guin, the two prescripted Empires, Asari Republics and Asari Corporate Interests, will no longer share one civic. Now, each will have its own defining civic which, unlike Biotic Evolution, will be very specific to that empire, its lore and intended playstyle. The new civics will be very comprehensive, serving as packages containing all the relevant mechanics, both perks and limitations. You can compare it to how Inwards Perfection or Fanatic Purifiers work, balancing a wide range of benefits and weaknesses within one compound civic. The exact implementation is not set in stone yet, as obviously, it hinges on features coming in Le Guin, but here is a brief rundown of what we're considering:

Asari Republics: There are two main things I'm hoping to be able to reflect in gameplay: the fragmented administration of the Republics and the influence they exert on the galacic culture.

For the former, I'm hoping to take advantage of the new sector system, encouraging and rewarding having multiple administrative centres, perhaps through bonuses granted to sector capitals or something like that. There may also be some ways I could use factions, depending on how they are changed in Le Guin. Related to that, I'd very much like to emphasise the role of the extranet in asari society, and the fact that the Republics are directly governed by popular consensus. I think I can use the mechanics of strata-based political power to do just that. And I think it might also be fun to have the redditocracy enact random policies in the form of temporary modifiers from time to time.

For the latter, I'm looking at piggybacking off diplomatic agreements to create a sort of cultural pressure, gently pushing the diplomatic partners of the Republics towards adopting similar ethics while sweetening the deal by having diplomatic ties to the Republics confer some small bonuses. I want to implement some mechanics that synergise with the Gynogenetic trait (however its implementation will change under the new pop system) and encourage diversifying the population's gene pool as much as possible.

Asari Corporate Interests: There is one thing I've always wanted to do with Illium but have never been able to implement in a sensible and satisfying manner. Reflecting the inequity inherent to its unique culture in gameplay, things like indentured servitude as a form of corporate slavery, coexisting with rampant consumerism and a celebrity culture in which wealth and popularity determines a person's worth and people idolise the sexiest, the most fashionable, the coolest.

And if there's anything we already know for a fact Le Guin will have in abundance, that's ways to stratify your society and exploit the living blue out of your workers! 

I'm super excited for the job and strata system and intend to take full advantage of it! I'm also eyeing galactic markets, custom resources, trade value and trade routes as potential points of interest for Illium. With that, it may finally be possible for Illium to actually be the commercial powerhouse it's supposed to be!

As I said, the details are still up in the air, and most likely will be until we get our hands on Le Guin see for ourselves what is and isn't viable, but this is the gist of what we're planning for the direction of Asari and other Mass Effect Civilisations going forward.

Tomorrow, I'm going to talk about Omega in Part Two of the monthly progress report. Thank you for your continued support and please look forward to a galaxy of fun things in the future! <3