Team Nessassity Mods - CLASSIFIED: April & May Intelligence Reports (Patreon)

It's a-May! May... io... ugh... what's wrong with me?

Don't... answer that!

But on the topic of things that are just right, we're back with another Monthly Mod Report after an extended hiatus! Between the release of Nemesis, PDXcon Remixed and my personal distractions in the form of NieR: Replicant and Mass Effect Legendary Edition... these past two months have been a rollercoaster! With so much happening, I didn't want to talk about our plans until we've had a chance to take it all in and have a moment to breathe.

BUT thankfully we've been able to keep up with updates, added some new content to all our major mods and even managed to release a new one! I would say we've navigated the springtime downpour of exciting events pretty productively!

But wait, that's not all! Now that it's all over and we are once again reminded how bleak and empty our everyday existence is, we've come up with a couple of things for you to look forward to in the near future!

Now then... you know the rules and so do I, further ado...

MEC: Expanded Galaxy

I didn't have a chance to mention it last month, but in case you missed it, shortly following the release of Nemesis, we finally released the newest addition to the MEC family - MEC: Expanded Galaxy!

Containing countless planets, events, anomalies and archaeological sites inspired by the Mass Effect universe, all written by the incredibly talented LostInACave, this mod should help bridge the gap between our more specific MEC mods and vanilla Stellaris by seamlessly sprinkling lore and references to the technology, environments and events that shaped the development of our Mass Effect Civilizations throughout your Stellaris galaxy.

It's also a very important milestone on our journey and today I'd like to explain why.

A long, long time ago, so long that I don't remember when or where exactly, I expressed the sentiment that Team Nessassity had no intention of launching a Mass Effect Total Conversion project. All of us had had experiences with colossal monolithic projects in the past and had seen them collapse under their own weight, whether via burnout, copyright issues, internal drama or simply the failure to keep up with the sheer volume of simultaneous maintenance and ongoing development that such projects tend to demand.

Wanting to avoid flying too close to the sun, we decided early on to develop our MEC projects (or what would eventually become the MEC series) as smaller pieces that would eventually form a larger whole, but were each a standalone entity that could function on its own, be updated on its own schedule and not hold back unrelated themes and features. This more agile, low-level approach to developing content turned out to be perfect for a team of our size and range of diverse interests and priorities, allowing us to leverage our creativity and capacity for multitasking in absence of sheer manpower or a unified vision.

That said, I do have to admit that we got a bit obsessed with MEC: Asari and fell way behind schedule (figuratively speaking, our understanding of time and priority defies simple definition) on the other MEC factions and features we intended to develop. Granted, this hyperfocus did allow us to polish the Asari civilisation to near-perfection and made it a lot more (we hope) enjoyable than the originally intended scope of just portraits, ships and some traits would have been. As the Stellaris formula itself evolved, matured and started to move away from the conventions of 4X in favour of more closely resembling other Paradox GSG titles, so did the scope and vision we had for our own mods.

In all of that, however, one thing that was bothering me for years was the fact that we were failing to deliver fun content for the players who wanted to see more MEC flavour besides the Asari.
While I would like to assure you that our plans to cover other ME factions eventually have not changed, unfortunately Omega (more on it later!) is still the only other faction in development at the moment.

But when LostInACave came forward with the idea that would ultimately coalesce into MEC: EG, I was ecstatic! It offered a great and relatively resource-light way to fill the massive and discouragingly overwhelming void I had no idea how to even begin approaching.

So while we are still a long way off from completing the journey we originally set out on, MEC: Expanded Galaxy is a major landmark along the way that will serve as an anchor for our future MEC projects, big and small. We hope that as you continue to cruise on with us, it will inspire you the same way it inspires us! ❤

MEC: Omega

And speaking of projects that have had troubled development, were announced way too early and keep dipping in and out of the production limbo, it's time for a big Omega announcement!

Now... it's not perhaps as big to you as it is to us, but in an indirect way, the more sanity we retain by the time it's actually released, the more likely it is that you and your entire universe won't be consumed by psionic manifestations of our anguish, so I'll still call it a win for existence at large!

We have decided to readjust our pre- and post-release plans, shifting the things that we felt were holding the pre-release development back into the post-release roadmap.

Notably, this includes the Omega Shipset, which was supposed to consist of a mix of generic/Turian and mercenary/pirate ship designs, most of which... we have to this day been unable to get started on as the needs of our already released projects tend to take priority in terms of art.

However, this does not mean the shipset has been scrapped! Instead, what we are hoping to do is apply the same strategy as Elves of Stellaris with regards to its Drow shipsets.
Technically, the Drow shipset in EoS is not yet officially done, but we have been sneakily adding individual ships to it every once in a while and it's by now on the verge of completion. Players have been able to play with those ships, test them and offer feedback, which in turn has given us ideas for future assets and allowed us to decide what ship or structure to tackle next. And for the most part, it also allowed the dark elven ships to avoid the fate of the Asari shipset and its... many, many reworks.

There are also other things originally planned for the version 1.0 of Omega that we're currently debating shifting into post-release updates, but we haven't decided yet.

Anyways, what all of this means for you is that we should hopefully be able to release a playable version of Omega sooner, including most of the gameplay mechanics and flavour, albeit it will take longer to deliver the playable shipset part of it!

MEC: Asari

As for the one existing MEC faction, April saw the release of the long-awaited Illium civic rework! It would be a... tiny little itty bitty understatement to say that it took us a while to figure out what the new civic should even do; we'd gone through countless iterations, trying to tie it into a lot of different systems, internal, diplomatic, even event-driven, but after testing and discarding most of them over the past... I don't even know how many months, a lone survivor emerged from the battle royale of ideas.

In the end, we decided to go with one of the earlier concepts we had, but with a bit of refinement and some room left open for future expansion. Partnerships, which are special Branch Office "buildings" that can be constructed on foreign planets, leverage Illium's theme of decentralisation. Illium is home to myriad of fiercely independent corporations and powerful individuals who work together in the interest of maintaining their respective autonomies, but otherwise lack a central authority. A philosophy of governance no doubt inherited from their homeworld of Thessia and adapted - or perhaps twisted - to serve the elite rather than the masses.
Thus, a Partnership represents an opportunity for a foreign corporation to do business with Illium, adopt its culture and receive patronage and protection, all in exchange for merely the price of some small favours to be discussed behind closed doors...
Establishing and maintaining a Partnership requires Influence, which the Illium à la Mode civic provides by converting a portion of Trade Value into, and grants various economic and diplomatic benefits. At the moment, the benefits are strictly passive, but in the future we are thinking of interacting with the Intel and Espionage systems to enable more involvement... and potential liability. All in service of FUN™ gameplay of course n_n

Oh, but that's not the only thing we have cooking for the asari in the near future! Recently, Nessa resumed working through our huge art backlog! There are a few things in there that we are hoping to poke at over the summer - Juggernauts, a new Habitat model... and, oh! What's this?

It looks like something that's been worked on very recently. It's clearly early in development but I'm loving the direction it's heading in! I can't wait to see how it looks with 3D elements and shiny texturing that will bring this mysterious object to life! n_n

Elves of Stellaris

And, of course, when it comes to mysteries, who could possibly be more mysterious than the pointy-eared Inwards Perfectionists from across the Gateway?

...

Okay, listen, I'm doing MY BEST! I may not be a NoCB host, but they are a huge inspiration to me, so I hope that one day I will be able to deliver genius segways that sweep you off your feet!

...but until then, this is what you're getting. Please look forward to it.

ANYWAYS! To celebrate the launch of Nemesis, we decided it was time to give our most secretive Elven Empire some extra love. The Lhùren, also known as Dragon Elves, distinguish themselves through their fantasy-Chinese aesthetics and flavour, but for the longest time, they have been lacking much in the way of mechanics that would reinforce it.
The new Celestial Grace civic introduces the idea of "Mandate of Heaven", which is a measure of how deserving the current regime is of claiming dominion over the Celestial Throne.
At its strongest and most virtuous, the Empire enjoys various benefits such as Citizen happiness, Influence and reduced Amenities consumption and such. It might even gain the ability to project its power outwards, subjugating neighbours in the name of maintaining peace. But when the populace believes that the regime is weak and has lost the celestial authority to rule, the government might find itself besieged by instability and divergent ideologies.
As for what determines the Celestial Favour... well that is for you to find out through gameplay! One big hint I can give is: the appearance of strength is relative. Sometimes, if there is nothing you can do to increase your own splendour, assessing external threats might offer a new perspective... ~_n

At some point, I would like to revisit these mechanics and expand on their potential further, adding more interactive ways to raise and lose Celestial Favour as well as add some opportunities for external factors to actively affect it via Operations and Galactic Community resolutions. There's so much potential in this civic and I'm super excited to try all kinds of FUN™ ideas!

But! That's not all. It seems that the Art Department has been doing some experimenting as well. At great peril to my highly disposable operatives, I have launched a successful infiltration of Nessa Shipyards and received some valuable intel on her current WIPs!

This high-resolution footage of what appears to be an Elven ecumenopolis seems to be from an early draft of the project. It looks incredible! But the Art Department was not quite satisfied with it yet so the design was brought back to the drawing board for some revisions. The intelligence network has been unable to get ahold of any live footage just yet, but a couple of mysterious blueprints have found their way into our possession!

That's all we have for now, but the Intelligence Department will keep you apprised of any new developments as soon as we receive up-to-date reports from our field operatives!

Until then, we hope you've enjoyed this look into Team Nessassity's recent releases and upcoming content!

Notable by its absence is Veiled Realms, which I originally wanted to talk about as well, but in light of the recent announcement of the Royal Court expansion for CK3, I ended up with a LOT of thoughts and a lot of new ideas, which I feel deserve their own Mod Report. So! That's exactly what next month's MMR is going to be all about!

As always, thank you so, so much for your continued support and interest in our work! We could not do this without you and I cannot imagine where we'd be if it wasn't for your constant encouragement and feedback! ❤ I hope you're looking forward to these updates as much as we love making them for you! ⊂(・ヮ・⊂)

Here's to even more fun playing and loving Paradox games together!