Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. This development diary will cover Leviathans, the recently announced DLC that will be accompanying the 1.3 'Heinlein' update. As previously mentioned, Leviathans is not an expansion but rather something we call a 'Story Pack', a collection of mostly scripted content that is larger than an event pack but smaller than a full expansion. Originally, Heinlein was supposed to be an update accompanying a full-fledged expansion, but we chose instead to do a Story Pack so that the Stellaris programmers would be able to focus on bug fixing, UI improvements and improving/reworking features in the free update. The Heinlein update has already been exhaustively covered in several development diaries, but I still thought I should take the time to remind everyone of what it contains. Note that this is NOT an exhaustive list:

• Awakened Fallen Empires
• Fallen Empire quests, tasks and general improvements
• Fleet Roles and new XL weapons
• Weapon Balance rework
• Federation Victory Condition
• Strategic Resource Rework
• Auto-Exploration
• Rally Points
• Expansion Planner
• Habitability System Rework
• Federation/Alliance Rework
• Federation Association Status
• Better control over sectors
• 5 new portraits (NOT the 'cuties')
• Major sound and graphics improvements
• Space Creature rework, including new art and encounters
• Loads of bug fixes, AI improvements and UI improvements

The Leviathans Story Pack, meanwhile, will contain the following. This IS an exhaustive list:

• Guardians feature
• Enclaves feature
• War in Heaven feature
• 5 new portraits ('cuties')
• 20+ minutes of new music by Andreas Waldetoft

With that out of the way, on to today's topic! Today we'll be talking about Enclaves, one of the above listed paid features. Enclaves are a new type of precursors those with the Leviathans Story Pack will encounter while exploring the galaxy. Instead of living on planets and controlling an empire, they are neutral traders, artists and scholars who reside in ancient space stations and who will offer their services to anyone who is willing to pay.
There are three types of Enclaves, each with their own range of interactions:

• Traders allow you to exchange minerals for energy and vice versa.
• Artists allow you to commission a piece of art that can be placed on one of your planets as a building, or become their patron to support more advanced works.
• Curators allow you to purchase star charts, enlist their aid in furthering your research, or purchase information about the different Guardians and their weaknesses.

In addition to these basic interactions, each type of Enclave also has an 'advanced' interaction. This interaction is not immediately available, but must be earned by building up that Enclave's opinion of your empire. This is done by utilizing their basic interactions, so for example a Trader Enclave's opinion of you will increase every time you trade minerals and energy with them. An Enclave that is located inside of your borders will also have its opinion of you slowly increase over time. The advanced interactions are as follows:

• Traders will sell you a unique strategic resource accessible only to them.
• Artists can be asked to organize a festival across your worlds, improving happiness across your entire empire.
• Curators will allow you to recruit one of their researchers, who provides access to unique technologies not otherwise researchable.

Of course, if your empire leans more towards the Fanatical Purifier type of thinking, you can also choose to simply attack an Enclave. Their space stations are powerful, but not invincible, and you may just find valuable salvage and technologies among the wreckage. That's all for today! Next time we'll be talking about the headline feature of the Leviathans Story Pack, the Guardians, so stay tuned! In the meanwhile, here's a little teaser of what to expect...
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[ 2016-09-19 10:52:15 CET ] [ Original post ]