Gateways – New megastructures that can be built, or found and reactivated.Jump drives have also been tweaked, they normally travel across hyperlanes like any normal ship but they are able to make a small tactical “jump” into a nearby system that is not directly connected by the hyperlane network. They work in pairs and essentially function as very long hyperlanes that can potentially take a ship across the entire galaxy near-instantly. Wormholes are now a natural formation that can be encountered while exploring the galaxy. Ships now need to travel to the entry point of a particular hyperlane but to compensate sublight travel has been sped up. Hyperlane generation has been altered, now creating more ‘islands’ and ‘choke points’, allowing for a more interesting galactic geography. FTL overhaul – The game no longer allows players to select the starting FTL type, instead everyone starts as primarily hyperlane-based, with more advanced forms of FTL unlocked through technology.Colonization changes – It is now impossible to colonize worlds outside an empires’ borders, but it no longer costs influence to do so.Constructing a Starbase costs influence and they can never be destroyed, only disabled or captured. Starbases replace spaceports in military ship construction. They can be upgraded, ranging from outpost to citadel, and further specialized with modules and buildings. Starbases – Each system can now only have a single Starbase above its sun.Border rework – Borders are now simply a reflection of system ownership meaning that the owner of a system is now almost always the owner of the Starbase in said system.
You can’t target a star or put a shield around a colonisable planet and deny it to the enemy, for example, which is very disappointing – especially given the power and possibilities of a globe-shattering superlaser or an eternal impenetrable barrier.These features will be added to the base game on the 2.0 (Cherryh) patch meaning that they are free for all players and function without the need of the accompanying DLC.
While powerful, their use is extremely situational – you must fulfill a series of requirements to choose your target, effectively limiting its use and only being able to fire at where the game lets you.
Unlocked by an Ascension Perk and researched by a Situation Log project, there are four Colossus weapons so far: A world-destroying planet-cracker capable of breaking even megastructures apart a genocidal neutron sweep that kills all organic life an eternal and impenetrable shield that cuts a planet from the galaxy forever and a ideological conversion beam that’s exclusive to Spiritualists.Īll of them take a few months in-game to charge and fire, requiring the use of proper fleets while both in use and on the move. The main selling point of the expansion, Colossi are huge superweapons capable of taking a whole planet out of commission. Aside from the nonsense of a group of alien pirates naming a leader after a Mongol warlord, the Marauders work mostly as they should. The crisis itself works about the same way as other Stellaris crisis do, requiring a huge fleet power to beat it into submission. Luckily, they tend to keep to their own unless paid to attack you or triggered, meaning you can safely keep an watch on them through sensors and not risk having a sudden incursion in your territory. This individual unites all warring groups into a single barbarian horde that starts expanding through the galaxy, acting as a sort of mid-game crisis. Unlike Privateers, Marauders can unify during the mid-game to give rise to a pathetically Earth-sounding Great Khan. They have so little scruples you can even hire one Marauder group to attack the other, weakening both rivals with a single strike. Like the old privateers they replace, this multiple organised groups of pirates care only for money, and will attack anyone – or stop attacking them – for the right sum. A race of space nomads that aren’t really all that nomadic, the Marauders act as the new scattered mercenaries of the Stellaris universe.