Team Nessassity Mods - I Tried To Come Up With A Name For This Post All Day But I Just Can't. But That's Okay, Not Every Post Needs a Name, It's Totally Fine Not To Have a Name And Just Be Yourself! Or a Monthly Mod Report Post Without A Name If You'd Rather Be That (Patreon)

Ooof, I had a half-finished draft of this post saved for days and it was supposed to come out earlier but I got hopelessly distracted by all the gaming shows that decided to happen all at once. And holy cup noodles, how I regret staying up late and wasting my time trying to keep up ._.

Looks like CK3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Bloodlines 2 will remain the only games I have to look forward to in the near future. But that's probably a good thing considering Stellaris is still my primary addiction and you're here to hear about our Stellaris mods!

Speaking of which, last month, we celebrated releasing the MEC: Asari and Elves of Stellaris Federation updates and that's also when we decided to take a short break and actually play Stellaris and our own mods outside of test scenarios!

That said, development never really stops. Even when we take it easy, we still keep planning and bouncing ideas around. And having had the opportunity to release our mods into the wild and experience them for ourselves, we have noticed a lot of areas that could use improvements.

So today, I'd like to talk a bit about the small additions and pet projects we've been tinkering with over the past month, the fruits of which you will most likely see in the next series of updates!

WITHOUT FURTHER BORING PRESS CONFERENCE!

MEC: Asari

Overall I'm quite happy with how the new mechanics and even balance work out in the current version of Asari, and while playing I even came up with some ideas for how they can be fleshed out even further, especially on the Illium side of things.

Both Thessia and Illium got new civics and origins, but admittedly while Thessia has a good balance of interactive features across both, in Illum's case the origin contains the lion's share of mechanics, leaving the civic, Illium a la Mode, with a relatively passive effect.
I do love how the scaling influence income based on Trade Value works out and it is very appropriate... but I also recognise that having tons of Influence with nothing new to spend it on is rather pointless... so the obvious solution is to add something new to spend it on!

Currently, I'm still undecided on what form the new Influence sink will take, but I do know that I want to tie it to Branch Offices, using them as proxies to extend the influence of Illium's corporations across the galaxy in a way that would allow for viable tall/diplomatic play.

So far, I am considering two different approaches:

• One of them would be centred around Branch Office buildings, allowing the player to construct powerful facilities that require Influence upkeep. This would be very straightforward and easy to implement as well as highly intuitive to the players. The downside is that Influence upkeep would mean potentially running into the issues inherent in negative influence income and potentially influence deficit which would mean I'd have to also account for the consequences of going into debt.
• Alternatively, it could revolve around Planetary Decisions, unique by the virtue of being useable on unowned planets. Being manually triggered by the player and carrying a bulk Influence cost, this approach wouldn't risk plunging the empire into Influence debt, and also allow for instant effects as opposed to just passive production bonuses. I could imagine such actions as buying ships, procuring pops and leaders, applying temporary modifiers to the planet in question, etc. The downside is of course the implementation complexity and micro-reliance that hearkens back to the nightmare of the old Biotics system, so each decision would have to be expensive, have a long cooldown and feel rewarding throughout the game.

I am currently leaning towards the latter approach, but every once in a while I'm coming up with ideas for buildings that make me reconsider so nothing is set in stone yet. Whichever one ends up winning, I hope it will make Illium a la Mode that much more unique and relevant throughout the game!

Elves of Stellaris

The EoS update saw the introduction of six origins, some of which were the old starts ported into the new system, refined and polished. And while that was good enough for a start, we won't be happy until we can squeeze the last drop of potential out of each and every one of them!

Two origins in particular, the Celestial Throne and Elven Foundations, ended up feeling rather... bland compared to the new Arcadian Symbiosis or Subterranean Inception. While a lot of work was put into the art and planetary features, they do lack mechanical depth and any sort of tangible gameplay factors that would be relevant past the first 10 years.

To address that, we are currently working on adding unique things they, and only they, can do as the game goes on.

• The Lhuren will get a special Relic, the Flaming Pearl, that will allow them to finally interact with the enigmatic "dragons" occasionally seen on their homeworld. The ruler of the empire will have a chance to learn more about those entities, speak to them and partake of their wisdom... or possibly just getting toyed with, depending on how one wishes to interpret the dragons' inscrutable actions. They're fun!
• The Ayleids of Senalata have been the "standard" elves for as long as long as EoS has existed, but that doesn't have to mean they should be generic. The exact specifics are still being discussed, but the tentative plan is to allow them to actually live up to the legacy of grand builders that Elven Foundations hints at. If the idea sticks, they will have the ability to add special unique features to any planets they inhabit, including artificial structures! They will be able to get more than anyone else out of their planets, and wherever they go, they will leave eternal monuments.

After these two origins, we might extend similar treatment to other origins, civics and maybe even traits, adding interactive gameplay and special effects that go beyond mere modifiers wherever we can.

Crusader Kings 3

...

OwO? What's dis? That's not a Stellaris mod, and certainly not made by Team Nessassity, there are no elves in it!

Well... truth be told, we haven't yet officially committed to modding it as a team, but it certainly has our interest. Obviously it's not out yet, and we have quite enough Stellaris projects to last us a long long time. Nevertheless, it is on our radar because it shows a lot of modding potential, and its scope and systems offer room for mods that we would love to explore but Stellaris, by nature, cannot support.

Personally, I've been haunted by millions of ideas since the past couple of dev diaries, and there is a chance that I might dip my toes into CK3 modding in the months following its release, just to see if it's something we might wish to do in the long term, alongside Stellaris.

I cannot  reveal quite yet what form the test will take, but it may have something to do with a fantasy trope I loved a lot once and another soon upcoming game has resurrected my interest in n_~

Cough. Cough. On that note, happy summer everyone! Please stay home and maintain no less than 1.5m distance from- oh... huh. Well. If nothing else, it might be a productive summer for Team Nessassity for a change! Stay tuned if you want to find out!

Thank you as always for supporting us and our work (and I promise I'll update the Wall of Fame soon, I just need to find a good place to host it that won't require constantly updating the link!)
And of course, have fun playing Stellaris and any other games that help you maintain sanity <3