Team Nessassity Mods - MEC: Asari 9.0.0 BETA, MONTHLY MOD REPORTS ARE BAAAAAACK, and THE FUTURE! (Patreon)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Guess who's back! At 400% energy! And probably with only 15 seconds left to live from all the caffeine she's had this week-

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OKAY! Guess who's back and actually, after 6 months, managed to dig herself out of that giant hole that only kept getting deeper and bigger? Who could have known that the MEC: Asari 9.0.0 update would go from "I'll just check out what's new in Paragons and make a compatibility patch" to "hey, how about I REWRITE MOST OF THE MOD FROM SCRATCH WHILE LEARNING ALL THE NEW MODDING FUNCTIONS AND... WHAT DO YOU MEAN ANOTHER PATCH JUST CAME OUT? OKAY, THAT'S FINE, IT GAVE ME NEW IDEAS, YEAH, LET'S MAKE THIS UPDATE EVEN BIGGER!"

...okay, actually, trying to pull something so dumb might be completely in-character for me, so perhaps some of you may have seen that trainwreck coming from a light-year away and stocked up on a lot of popcorn >.>

So, first of all, you have no idea how happy I am to announce: the development heck I've dragged you all into is OVER! And I can finally resume Monthly Mod Reports!

And if you're wondering why I haven't posted anything for the past half a year... well... Hmm... maybe that was a weird form of... punishment for myself.

I didn't feel like I deserved to ask anyone to support me, or to hype up future plans while I was still spending literal months spinning my wheels, not getting anywhere with a project that kept making too little progress and producing disappointing results. I was feeling more and more incompetent and unmotivated with every failed iteration of features I thought would be good ideas but wouldn't work.

For way too long, I was stuck in that weird limbo of wanting nothing more but to get it over with and release the thing in however bad a shape it was, but also being too proud and perfectionist to allow myself to do that >.>

In the end, the perfectionist won. And for better or worse, the "small compatibility update with a few new features" took half a year.

To be honest, I'm... touched and more than a little surprised that so many of you are actually still subscribed to the Patreon >.< I was sure that either the silence, or the long streak of delays would scare you all off. I was half-expecting to come back to 0 Patrons by this point.

Thank you, from the bottom of my stupid little heart for still having faith in me even after I lost it long ago ,>.<, you're the best andsdfsdjhfgvsghddgd I have no idea how perfect beings like you just come to exist and happen to cross paths with me? ,_,

ANYWAYS! That's the wrong tone! It's supposed to be happy news, so... out with the Self-Deprecating Princess (she should know nobody wants her here) and in with the fun stuff!

And oh, right... it's my old archnemesis! THE ADO! Begone fiend! Away with you!

MEC: Asari

So, the big one! The central feature of 9.0.0 is the Eternity Tradition Tree!

And you might notice that it comes in three flavours! The Eternity traditions are actually an extension of each of the three core Asari civics - Thessian Statecraft, Illium à la Mode and Ascendant Destiny - which themselves have gotten huge reworks!

In addition to the Sponsor Justicars agenda, an enhancement to the Amaranthine species trait, and two universal traditions, each of the three civics also gains exclusive access to three unique traditions and a Finisher designed to let you get the most out of them!

Thessian Statecraft has received a major overhaul, both in terms of mechanics and narrative flavour.
While it has retained the core idea of decentralised governance by planets expressing their autonomy by aligning with ethics that may or may not be shared by the empire as a whole, in the new iteration, said expressions are a lot more robust, and the player actually has very little control over them!

Rather than trying to represent a (slightly far-fetched) head-canon of global republics, Ecclesia Trends now instead depict the general sentiments and societal values of the citizens of the many little republics established on the planets. Now probably slightly more faithful to how Asari worlds must have been meant to operate - as a bizarre mix between the ancient Athenian democracy and futuristic social media dynamics.

Ecclesia Trends could be seen as miniature Factions, but rather than annoying you with unreasonable demands throughout the game, each one only has a one-off Focus that is relatively easy to fulfill.

• Foci are unlockable by the Themata tradition, and fulfilling them allows you to derive additional benefits from their corresponding Ecclesia Trends.

By default, Ecclesia Trends develop on their own, on any planet that has at least a Planetary Administration capital. And what kind of Trend appears is generally out of your hands. While it will usually favour the ethics already present among the populace, sometimes new ideas might take root and result in a Trend corresponding to a brand new ethos.

• There are no inherent negatives to any particular Trend (and in fact, Asari Republics do not even mind hosting ethically divergent pops), but if you unlock the Autonomos tradition, you will gain the ability to manually shift one Trend into another.

The choice is yours whether you wish to go along with the people's wishes and develop the planet's infrastructure as they desire, or try to influence their sentiments to align with your vision.

• The third tradition - Agora - is the most straightforward, simply increasing the maximum Trends that a planet can accommodate, and increasing the rate of their appearance. As your empire grows, you might wish to pick it up sooner rather than later, to give your colonies an early boost to their development.

• Lastly, the Finisher allows you to capitalise on your most-developed e-democracies by granting you additional Envoys, each one forged in the fires (including no doubt the occasional flame-wars) of direct democracy politics and ready to test her debate skills on the galactic stage.

Illium à la Mode has had probably the most mercurial development process and has gone through... a lot of iterations. The number is a lot. It's so a lot that I don't even remember them all off the top of my head. At one point, it was all about special diplomatic actions that would exchange influence for goods, then it shifted over to an unsuccessful attempt at introducing a new class of leaders (celebrities) who were essentially glorified envoys... or would have been if that had worked.
Eventually, we settled on something very different, but... saved the previous ideas for future reference - perhaps in other Nessassity projects.

At its core, the civic has retained its ability to derive Influence from Trade Value (now slightly more than before), but instead of spending it on special Branch Office buildings, its focus - mechanical and narrative - has shifted towards squeezing as much potential as possible out of its own assets through Leverage Policies, unlockable via the Eternity tree.

• Each of the three exclusive traditions grants access to two Leverage Policies, and you can probably spot the three themes they revolve around: your Capital, your Branch Offices, and your Leaders.

Those are the three things that we've ultimately decided to settle on as the focus of Illium. The entire Origin is meant to encourage playing tall, making Illium as hospitable, profitable and self-sufficient as possible through both development and trade. Hence the traditions are designed to help you realise a small empire's potential.

You might also have noticed that Generals aren't included, and that's because this particular iteration of Illium mechanics was actually inspired by the Stellaris dev diary outlining the upcoming 3.10 re-rework of leader classes. With Admirals and Generals getting merged into one class soon, Illium should be relatively future-proof and (hopefully) won't require that many adjustments next patch.

• Anyways, back to the mod, the Finisher is another scaling benefit, but this one does not cost you influence. Quite the opposite, in fact - by increasing your Trade Value, each Technology you research will further boost not only your economy, but indirectly also your Influence gain! With a large enough trade network and an agile enough R&D department, you will be able to punch far above your weight in no time! Should any Crisis one day see the little asari colony as easy prey, it might find itself on the cost-paying end of a particularly raw deal.

Lastly, but this time not leastly, Ascendant Destiny has actually been expanded into its own distinct gameplay path! No longer just a generic option for playing a more aggressive asari civ, the Asari Ascendancy's mechanics as well as flavour should now be on par with the other two. And feel a bit more like a legitimate reward for taking the Renegade path in the Prothean Beacon storyline.

Funnily enough, this iteration of Ascendant Destiny was only conceptualised about a week ago. It was originally supposed to work very differently, focusing on espionage, manipulating subjects and exploiting them for benefits, but... I wasn't happy with how I coded and designed it, so in a fit of whimsy, I decided to... scrap most of it and pursue another idea I suddenly got after finalising Illium.  So I crunched non-stop for over a week to realise a very different vision.

The core Civic now directly follows the philosophical foundations established in the Red Ending of the story. To prove the superiority of their civilisation, the asari shall use the knowledge left behind by their precursors to elevate themselves above younger species, so they might guide them towards a brighter future.
As such, each Technology researched will grant the empire an increasing amount of Influence.

• But before anyone can think of galactic domination, the Matriarchs who people now look to for direction must first earn the trust of the still-extant, if less politically relevant, Republics. Synod of Sagacity represents that ongoing process by rewarding you for putting your most accomplished and experienced leaders on the Council.

The Ascendancy is all about playing the long game, so appropriately, the people expect the leadership to have a good grasp of how to play one. And speaking of...

• All of that accumulated Influence must go somewhere, so why not invest it into the Ascendancy's future? The long-lived Asari know very well that not every problem in life can be solved right now, not every opportunity is worth seizing, and not every threat will still be around in a few centuries. Achieving their ultimate Destiny might truly take an eternity, but it's fine - they're well equipped to wait that long.

Stepping back from the petty conflicts of today to slowly build up a powerbase behind the scenes will pay off greater dividends at a time and place of your choosing.

• But of course, the Asari know that they are not building that future for themselves alone. Other civilisations are to be cherished and cultivated, not destroyed. To do otherwise would be to doom their own species to a slow, Ardat-Yakshi-ridden path of extinction.

As all of that accumulated Destiny helps the Ascendancy gain more political power and influence over younger species, so in turn do their favoured pupils elevate their caretakers to ever greater heights.

• You may have noticed that all of the previous effects were limited by a cap. Well, the Finisher allows the Ascendancy to transcend even the limits of their designated destiny, and not just meet the expectations of the Protheans, but to exceed them. Each Ascension Perks adopted increases the cap of all previous Eternity traditions, up to twice the original limit!

Oh! But that's not all!

Aside from all those exclusive features, all three Asari archetypes also benefit from three shared benefits: the Cycle of Eternity, two Eternity traditions, and access to the Justicar Order.

However, this MMR has been going on for a little long already, so let's go over them quickly!

• The Amaranthine species trait (which is currently still exclusively tied to the asari portrait, but I am planning to decouple it from it in a future update) grants Leaders a special Cycle of Eternity trait, which grants them different effects based on the life stage they're currently in. Maidens, Matrons and Matriarchs each are driven by different instincts and societal expectations, which is reflected in their approach to life.

And by adopting the Eternity traditions, Cycle of Eternity traits also unlock additional benefits that come into effect if said leader becomes a Councilor.

And the two universal Eternity traditions revolve around the universal philosophies of asari cultures:

• The Siari belief, which, appropriately, grants Unity from all pops as long as they live in harmony
• And the tradition of peaceful Discourse, which stems from their tendency towards political centrism. Having differing viewpoints represented on the Council gives everyone some peace of mind, as it would prevent any ideologies from being taken too far and seizing too much power.

And the final major feature of the update - the Justicar Order. Or... at least the early stages of a much larger project I would like to expand upon in the future.

• For now, the Council Agenda - Sponsor Justicars - allows the empire to interact with the Justicar Order in a limited fashion, cooperating with the errant justice-seekers to root out corruption, crime and a certain genetic disorder.

I will let you discover exactly what happens in each scenario, but just keep this in mind: the Justicars are not trained attack varren who can be sic at a specific problem to make it go away! They are as deadly effective as they are unpredictable, so don't be too shocked if the results are not what you expected n_n

But! That is it for this Monthly Mod Report! Before I leave though, I will just mention that MEC: Asari 9.0.0 Beta is ongoing! You can play it right now, and we appreciate any and all feedback you can provide! Especially in regards to any bugs or weird interactions you find. Because it was such a large project that stretched over 6 months, with... so many ideas getting tried, iterated on and discarded along the way, quite honestly, not even I remember all the changes we've implemented!

AND! We aren't even done yet. Just to give you a little idea of what's still coming to the mod (although we are going to wait for Patch 3.10 before implementing anything major, for the sake of Princess' sole remaining shred of sanity) here are a few planned features that weren't ready for the beta:

• A Biotics rework, with a completely new system that further reduces micromanagement by allowing leaders and pops to autonomously use up the accumulated Biotics resource to grant themselves a brief but powerful boost.
• Ecclesia/Synod/Board events, further fleshing out the narrative of each of the three Asari archetypes and offering follow-ups to their respective Origin stories
• QoL and polish, further improving the tooltips, toasts and notifications to help players understand and keep track of all the mod's features
• Expanding the Justicar Order and Ardat-Yakshi, giving both a more tangible presence in gameplay
• Providing more modularity and support for fully custom player empires using MEC: Asari elements without the origins and civics. In particular, making the Amaranthine trait and Eternity traditions accessible to generic asari empires
• Deprecating the "Spawn Illium" and "Spawn Thessia" submods and integrating the choice to spawn asari empires as NPCs into the base mod

Okay! Okay! I'm finishing this up for real now because I've been writing it all night and if I don't stop, it will be December by the time this gets posted >.<

So! THANK YOU again for being so patient with me and supporting us even through all the silence and delays <3 You have no idea how much your continued encouragement means to me. Finishing (well, mostly) this cursed update has actually reignited my passion for modding, and I'm super excited to back to all the other projects I've neglected for way too long! Especially Veiled Realms, which, no, i haven't forgotten about! You'll be hearing a LOT about it in the coming months, because I do not intend to lose my momentum!

Until then, be sure to join us on Discord where you can chat with Team Nessassity and our wonderful community almost every day, and if there are any urgent news and announcements, we tend to post them ASAP as well!

...and as always, never, ever forget to have fun playing games! <3