Stellaris Distant Stars story DLC and free 2.1 "Niven" update are out now

Pretty big free update today even if you don't buy the Distant Stars DLC for $10. I just jumped back in and the game has changed significantly over the course of the last two years, especially with the way FTL has been completely revamped. Anyway here are today's patch notes. Anyone else playing Stellaris, whether you are jumping back in or playing for the first time?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-team-niven-update-2-1-0-released-checksum-01a9.1099864/

Story Pack Features

• Added many new Anomalies, increasing the total amount by almost 50%
• Added new Leviathan: Voidspawn
• Added new Leviathan: Tiyanki Matriarch
• Added new Leviathan: Scavenger Bot
• Curator Enclaves will now also spawn for Distant Stars owners, to help with the new Leviathans
• Added new unique systems to explore
• Added L-Gates and the mysterious L-Cluster outside the known galaxy, which you will have to investigate and research to access

Free Features

• Galaxy generation has been reworked for more interesting hyperlane terrain: stars are now grouped in highly connected 'constellations' separated by thin 'highways', making for more strategic placement of natural chokepoints
• All hyperlanes are no longer immediately visible when starting a new game, but will be revealed through exploration. Hyperlane visibility extends roughly twice as far as your sensor range
• Added binary star systems
• Added trinary star systems
• Added new star classes
• Anomaly levels have been reworked to span levels 1-10 instead of 1-5
• Anomalies can no longer fail, but instead the time to research an anomaly will depend on the difference between scientist level and anomaly level, with high level anomalies potentially taking a very long time to research for a low skill scientist
• Some older Anomalies have been reworked and fixed to function properly
• Strategic Resources have been reworked so that similar materials have the same types of effects - crystals for ship damage, ores for ship defenses, gas for empire effects, etc.
• All Strategic Resources are now always visible, but most require specific Technologies to be mined
• Strategic Resource deposits are no longer distributed according to galaxy clusters
• Added new Aldar Crystals Strategic Resource
• Added Aldar Crystals tech
• Added Experimental Subspace Nagivation which allows science ships to go missing-in-action and travel to a selected system. This will allow them to bypass (but not enter) closed borders
• Added a new Alert for when establishing communications reveals a new Strategic Resource within another Empire's borders
• Establishing communications with another Empire that has a Bypass (Gateway, Wormhole, L-Gate) within its borders now counts as discovering that Bypass Type
• Added a new Mammalian portrait

Balance

• Survey speed increase per Scientist level increased from 5% per level to 10% per level
• Most scientist level requirements for Special Projects have been removed, as they tend to be gated by anomalies anyway
• Decreased outer boundary distance for Fallen Empires (was preventing more Fallen Empires from spawning in large galaxies)
• Zro Distillation is now a Tier 3 tech (down from 4)
• Rebalanced Strategic Resource tech tiers to better fit their effects

UI

• Situation Log has been reworked and will now also list anomalies
• Science ships now have a "Research Anomalies in System" right-click command on systems
• Renamed tile science modifiers from e.g. "Physics Output" to "Tile Physics Output" to better reflect what the modifiers actually do
• Scientist level is now shown in the outliner

AI

• AI will retreat its Colossus if it is alone in combat, as even a planet destroying giant laser is cold comfort in the lonely depths of space
• Fixed an issue where the AI would incorrectly allocate too much budget to navies when it could not support any more ships, resulting in underdeveloped empires

Modding & Bugfixes

(a lot, check the link)

Totally jumping back in very soon, once I finish some games. Stellaris was the first grand strategy that I could get into, understand it and have fun with it. I'm usually very bad at strategy games despite always wanting to get into them, but Stellaris was the one. It was very approachable and I guess the fact that I'm a sci-fi fanatic helped a lot. The addition of more and more sliders after a few patches during game creation is also great. I love customizing a game to fit my needs, my abilities or simply trying to fit it into a scenario I want to role play.I was astonished you can create your own civilization. I basically treated this game like an RPG.

Can't wait to play Distant Stars, I'm very excited for new anomalies and other events, it's one of my favorite parts of the game. One of the best features in 2.1 are definitely multiple star systems, finally the galaxy will be a bit closer to the real thing. I only have 267 hours on steam, which isn't a lot for an average grand strategy player I assume, but the amount of content and enjoyment I got from Stellaris was worth all the money I put in.

Is there a reason why the "recent reviews" section for the game on steam is mostly negative? I haven't really checked in on it after a few months post initial release.

@turambar From what I know it's review bombing, sadly. Basically, it's a mix of people demanding chinese localization or people being mad at a change in the game, specifically removing 2 other modes of transportation, so now the main mode is hyperlanes. It was patch 2.0 that removed wormholes and warp as selectable FTL choice during civ creation. There was a ton of angry people on paradox forums and on steam. The devs said that focusing on hyperlanes will allow them to implement a ton of cool gameplay systems and additions that wouldn't be possible with all 3 FTL choices present, like before. Seems to this day people can't accept that change and review bomb the game, even calling the devs thieves or liars. It's typical gamer/internet dumb outrage. Honestly, steam reviews in general are so useless these days, in any game.

@turambar: If you look at all reviews, including those in other languages, you'll see all the Chinese review bombs. They are even doing it to old DLC.

This game is well on track to hit my top steam played time. I still have 3 empires designed but haven't played them out yet. I don't have distant stars yet but like the heat death of the universe it is inevitable. Say what you want about the endless march of DLC for Paradox games but the free updates that come with them seem very hefty.

oh wow, glad i didn't bite on the last dlc sale wtf why would they remove modes of transportation? Like i didn't even like hyperlanes at all lol. I guess you can always roll the game back at least, but man that really sucks were fans asking for this?

reading some of the reviews seems like the AI has gotten worse? I remember the automated system not being that great but it was improved a bit in one patch if i remember right.

@oursin_360 said:

I was skeptical about the change before 2.0 dropped but in hindsight it was absolutely the right decision. Galaxies now have actual terrain which introduces a bunch of new strategic considerations and it helps to resolve some long-standing issues, like the absurdly porous Empire borders that would spring up over time. Also, wormhole and warp drive navigation still exist as terrain features and late-game tech options, but now they're supplementary to hyperlanes as opposed to a first-class method of travel.

There's a really detailed breakdown of the changes here if you're curious, but I'd recommend just jumping into 2.0 and seeing for yourself — the FTL changes aren't part of any DLC pack so if you own the base game you're good to go.

It was necessary because they changed the way civ borders worked. Instead of being automatically awarded the dozen or so stars that surround each colony, now you have to claim each star one at a time. Because it was such a fundamental change to the way borders are drawn, having the ability to bypass hyperlanes would be far more powerful than it had previously been. There are still wormholes, they're just at fixed points in the galaxy, and there's still a warp travel equivalent, it's just a late game tech now. People fixated on removing warp and wormholes, but 2.0 changes nearly every system in the game, so you can't really judge the change in the FTL system without looking at everything else.

Personally I think the game is a lot better after 2.0, I hated losing my mineral rich system because my neighbor settled a new planet near by border and watching my border shift arbitrarily. Now in 2.0 you're fighting over every single star, and the fact that everyone is using hyperlanes just means that you have to expand much more strategically, and think a lot more about the stellar terrain as you expand.

I'm really looking forward to checking out Distant Stars, especially the new anomaly system. Exploration has always been the weakest part of the game, so the idea that there'll be anomalies that may not appear until mid or late game sounds great.

It and Battletech are right at the top for starting next, after God of War. It'll probably be my summer game when I get deployed on wildland fires. I'm probably just gonna play on easy and try and have a fun narrative to play out.

Every time I've been ready to finally try and jump in, I realize I'm not in the mood to learn a whole bunch of systems. Instead, I'm watching Waypoint play through it and enjoying it vicariously, while slowly becoming more familiar with it.

This looks like typical don't buy this dlc by paradox.

At this point I just ignore Steam user reviews.

@kevin_cogneto: @conmulligan: i do own the game but not the last maybe 2 expansions. I can try it out but i honestly hated hyperplanes, they were so slow and boring for me. The border change sounds alright but i didn't have any problems with the influence thing as its been in other games. I do appreciate you can roll back patches with the beta feature though.

@oursin_360: should mention that hyperlanes make a ton of fort buildings and galaxy arm chokepoints actually important, when securing borders. i was a die hard wormhole player but this was absolutely the right choice for the devs.

@the_tribunal: i kinda wish they would at least give you a choice, i really liked turning on all 3 and seeing what happens. To me that felt more 'realistic' than only having one transportation system for all these different species, especially when ele events happen. I guess i am less strategic and more roleplaying type of player.

Finally started playing. Put in quite a few hours in two sessions. I have to say, this is one very accessible game. I was surprised how simple it i; the flashing as they're about to jump is great. And the soundtrack is a joy. s to just pick up and play. I've added some mods and it looks beautiful. I love zooming in on all the little actions, even just watching ships get ready to jump to a new star system.

I had an idea for the type of ideology I wanted to pay with but didn't execute too well, so I'm going to restart now that I know a better path to go down.

@flashflood_29: On the Workshop, check out UI Overhaul 1080p Plus, Real Space 3.0, Realistic Camera, Guili's Planet Modifiers, and Beautiful Universe 2.0 if you don't have those already.

@mike: Thanks! I had BU2.0, kept Realistic Camera off because comments say it needs an update, and got all the others. Few mods that I found myself were More Events, Planetary Diversity, and Color Coded Pop Status Icons