by PDS_Iggy
Good afternoon fellow organics! PDS_Iggy here with the latest evolutions to our organic forms.
Way back when, in the summer of 2019 Eladrin (then a simple Game Designer) was left all alone in the office with the Lithoids DLC. Once people came back to the office they were greeted with the Lithoid traits! Since then Alfray Stryke further experimented with these phenotype-locked traits back in 3.1 Lem for Plantoids and Fungoids.
Well, now we have reached the DLC that is all about genetics and organics, so of course we had to take this to the end game. For that reason I started to work on Phenotype Species Traits and that naturally led to the Evolutionary Predators Origin!
Phenotype Species Traits
In Snail society you don’t really buy homes as much as rent sleeping nooks.
In BioGenesis, we’ve added 16 new Species Traits for you to explore at game start. Each of these is locked to specific portrait classes or, as we will refer to them here, Phenotypes. At a minimum, each one should have at least 2 positive traits and 1 negative. As you can see above, these traits are shared between Phenotypes, similar to Fungoids and Plantoids.
The intention of these traits was to make a Necroid Beacon of Liberty Subterranean playthrough feel different than a Reptilian one. Every choice in Stellaris should be an opportunity for mechanics and roleplay!
If the atmosphere is not at least 95% water, I will not leave the colony ship.
This habitat has been our home for 30 minutes. We will not be visiting the one a system over!
Negative traits are really interesting to design as they set up puzzles for the player to get around. What can you forgo, and what are you willing to pay for that intelligent trait? Here we attempted to stay flavorful to your species while providing more interesting modifiers than just simple static upkeep ones.
In addition, we have played it a bit looser with points cost here, introducing more 3-point traits that can really grant you the opportunity to craft the species that fits your fantasy.
Project Chimera is a go.
If you have been following the recent developers streams we have been broadcasting you might have heard about the Mutation path of Genetic Ascension. Well, if you fully commit and go full mad scientist you can add these traits to any of your pops. Make your egg laying, winged humans and wonder why the aliens won’t contact us.
No, I don't need a map! My genes tell me the gas station will be around the corner.
A lot of portraits don’t fit nicely into a single category, and for that, we have managed to make exceptions. So expect to see Egg-Laying platypi, Flying monkeys, Budding coral reefs, Shelled turtles, and more!
Evolutionary Predators
Now if you are like me, you played Crusader Kings 2 back in the day, got the cannibal trait, locked people with good genetic traits inside your castle, and ate them all to gain said traits. After that, you said, “This is peak game design!”
... Just me?
Either way, I have wanted to bring that playstyle back to our much more grounded and reality-bound game, Stellaris, and with the addition of Phenotype Traits, we finally have enough goodies to go around!
Lithoids are crunchy.
Welcome to the Evolutionary Predators Origin! This is an Origin with relatively few restrictions. As long as you are organic, you are free to play it! I worked hard to keep the language as neutral as possible. If you want to be a former hunter of the night, spreading fear across your entire planet, but now you have reformed and adopted pacifism and xenophilia, then go for it! Now, unprompted, let me show you our bat portrait.
Get down from there, this is an important diplomatic conference!
This Origin comes with the Malleable Genes species trait, which blocks you from manually modifying your species. As you can see, it costs an exorbitant 6 points, forcing you to pick a few extra negative traits to even start the game. Luckily, your economy should still run, as Malleabele Genes is an auto-modding trait that ensures that your pops are working each job fully.
Once you get started, you will be greeted with the Adaptive Evolution situation and a homeworld carrying the Genetic Soup modifier, which will help boost your situation progress.
Mmmm, avian…
The situation progresses faster from: fresh colonies, having many species in your empire, having a diverse council, purging, through a vassal agreement, and if you are a megacorp, through commercial pacts!
You don’t spontaneously evolve an extra heart?
Once the situation is finished, 3 randomly generated options will be presented to you which will grant you a random positive trait from that category.
Each time you complete the situation, it will get harder to complete again. But stay the course and always seek out novel genetic material and you too can become an abomination, unknowable by mortal Blorg.
Yes, I was called into a meeting with the UX designer when I first presented this. How could you tell?
The above example is pretty extreme and would only really happen in late mid game, but you can for sure get there if you try hard enough! As you can see the edges of, once you genetically ascend, you can also get access to the Genetic Ascension traits of old. As well as your own bespoke Evolutionary Predators’ advanced authorities!
If you ask me nicely perhaps I will share some more.
It was very interesting designing authorities specific to a single Origin. You can go a lot more granular with the flavor and consider what a truly complete Evolutionary Predator might look like.
One final extra step I took for this Origin was to go through every single event that mentions biological species of some kind and add in an option to consume their DNA, if applicable. Finally, when you discover that ancient avian pilot you can gain Flight, or Shelled from that molluscoid that was buried in that archeological site.
Next Week
Now I am hungry, so I will be signing off until next week when we’ll be securing our borders, and enduring invaders with the Deep Space Citadel and the Starlit Citadel Origin!
Until then, keep your genes safe!