Information is slowly trickling out of PDXCon for the upcoming Stellaris content. Most of the below information is provided with permission from Reddit user u/Irbynx, who took the time to consolidate all of this.

Of course, we’ll work on getting as much information as Paradox is willing to let us have and we’ll update this post if/when that happens.

So first, let’s talk more about the species pack that drops in two days:

Lithoids

Thursday, October 24th, release

16 new portraits (15 + 1; that +1 is a rock robot)

4 Unique traits: Lithoid racial trait (eating minerals, slower pop growth, and better habitability), Scintillating Skin (+0.01 Crystals per pop that is at least a slave or better); other two not mentioned during the stream

Gets a stronger version of the slums blocker (digging out hibernating lithoids)

Purging lithoids gives you minerals

Scintillating unique traits!

Such pretty rocks!

Furthermore, the information that was gleaned from PDXCon about Stellaris: Federations, which sounds like it’s due later this year, can be found below:

Federations

The revealed federation types are a Research Cooperative, Trade League, Military Alliance, Galactic Union, and Hegemony.

Every federation will have XP and the ability to level up.

Federations several passive abilities they can unlock by leveling up.

Research Cooperatives get free and automatic research agreements with every member of the federation by default as a basic feature. Their perks increase how strong that sharing is “among other things”.

Trade Leagues get a special “Trade League” trade policy which “encompasses all the bonuses of other trade policies combined, so quite powerful”.

Galactic Unions are the “default federations that make it easier to collaborate in a larger federation”; maybe it implies lower cohesion penalties?

Martial Alliance is oriented “around having a large fleet which is also very powerful.”

The Hegemony is oriented around one strong empire and a bunch of weaker empires. The weaker empires can not leave the federation without permission of its president and the president has a special war goal (not CB? I’m quoting here) that can force other empires into the hegemony.

One of the perks mentioned for Hegemony members (not the president) provides increased resource production. (audience Q/A)

Hegemony members have more autonomy than vassals (audience Q/A)

Gaining experience requires maintained cohesion.

Cohesion is penalized by having a large federation and by having empires with differing ethics.

Cohesion penalty can be offset by assigning Envoys.

Federations “usually have two perks that affect all members and one perk that affects the president”; is it per level up or just overall? Hard to tell. Hegemony is said to have it in reverse; the president gets 2 perks, the other members get one.

Federation laws “customize federations” and seem to be (at least in part) tied to federation levels and federation types.

An example of a new federation law is the naval capacity contribution law; 20% is not the default. As another example, that federation law is not enacted for a Research Cooperative, which was said to have to “level up” first and then select the law to have any sort of federation fleet. They also can’t reach the highest level of fleet contribution that other federations can reach.

Another set of laws determines how the president is selected and for how long is the president a leader of the federation. Included examples are “rotating” (the one that was pre LeGuin if I’m not mistaken), “random”, “highest diplomatic weight” and “challenge”

Challenge law selects between strongest empires (or empires that are willing to participate). The example was of a “psionic battle”; I assume this means that more challenge laws would be available.

The federation type you can propose to form is limited by your government factors; i.e Trade League can only be formed by a megacorp or an empire with merchant guilds civic. (audience Q/A)

Galactic Community

UN in space; a Galactic UN even. A GUN, so to say.

Also have law mechanics: “The Resolutions”. These affect all the members of the Galactic Community.

The effects of resolutions is described to be “contentious” so expect trade-offs on most of them.

One example of a resolution is a resolution that trades Naval Capacity for higher Trade Value.

Another example is a resolution that increases the contribution of your naval capacity to your “diplomatic weight”.

Resolutions can be proposed by any member of the galactic community. After proposing one, they are added in a queue; the resolution that is backed by the highest amount of diplomatic weight will be the highest one in queue (you aren’t the only one who can put weight into it; see favors section). Only one resolution can be voted on at a time!

The current duration for a resolution voting process is 5 years.

Some resolutions set a “galactic focus”; an example of that is forming the galactic market, which is no longer covered by an event but rather is a resolution you need to vote on. Another example of a galactic focus is a focus to defeat a crisis, which replaces the normal threat interaction (empires needed to be personally threatened by the spooky unbidden to start doing something cohesively; now the galactic space UN can meet and be like “yeah ok, drop everything, we need to beat the crisis now boys”)

Only one galactic focus can be active at a time.

A security council can also be formed. Members of the security council are privileged with the power of veto and can fast-track a resolution into voting without dealing with the resolution queue as an “emergency measure”.

Potential laws also include giving the Galactic Council more power in resolution votes and changing the number of council members; even to just 1 resolution member – become the senate! (audience Q/A)

This one is a bit blurry. We’ll see about getting a higher-quality screenshot ASAP

Diplomatic Weight

A score based resource.

Its gain is calculated primarily through the fleet strength, economic power, technological advancements and “so on” (AKA probably exactly like our current score system but with the ability to influence it somehow through civics and policies?)

Judging by how it was used and mentioned, it’s not as much of a mana level as it is a power level. You won’t get your diplomacy weight dropped by backing a resolution, so you can back all of them if you want (for a total difference of zero really) and you don’t “spend” it to do something, you just aim your diplomatic gun at someone and apply the diplomatic damage.

So no bird mana here, it’s bird damage type instead.

Favors

Seem to be only focused on the Galactic Community now.

Basically you can borrow diplomatic weight from another empire to back a resolution you want by calling in favors.

Daniel used “ten favors” as something that can be used to have an empire put their whole diplomatic weight into backing your proposed policy (which means that one favor gives you 10% of the target empire’s diplomatic weight for the resolution?)

Envoys

Closest analogy are diplomats in EU4

Can be assigned to the Galactic Community to “gain more diplomatic weight”

It can also be assigned to your Federation to increase cohesion.

Have “more to them” (info would be available in future dev diaries)

The Origins

These are Rob’s most anticipated feature!

Will not reiterate what they do; check out origins dev diary for full info.

Shattered Ring: Start on a shattered ringworld

Void Dwellers: Fled destroyed homeworld to live on habitats; can build habitats earlier, has difficulty inhabiting other planets.

Scion: Start as a vassal of Fallen Empire; promised “interesting interactions”.

Remnants: Start on relic world to rediscover the former glory of your empire through archaeology sites.

Tree of Life: Hive Mind-Only! Gives homeworld a tree of life that provides massive bonuses at a cost of having hefty penalties if the homeworld is lost or the tree is destroyed (glass cannon hivemind meta?)

Unnamed origin 1: Starts you in a Hegemony federation with “sort of vassal states” (audience Q/A)

Unnamed origin 2: Starts you in a “more friendly federation” (audience Q/A)

18 origins planned to be available on release; this most likely includes non-Federation DLC ones too.

Mega Constructs

Juggernaut: A “mobile starbase”, can both repair and build ships and is strong enough to hold its ground in combat.

Mega Ship Yard: Allows building a lot of ships really quickly, seems to be it.

Other

Hotkey rebinding not planned (audience Q/A)

Other phenotypes might get different traits depending on the “ideas that they have”, but this is not something they are planning to do (nothing confirmed; audience Q/A)

(nothing confirmed; audience Q/A) The Blorgs might finally find friendship, depending on how they play their cards on the galactic arena (audience Q/A)

What have we missed? Thanks again to our friend, u/Irbynx, for the time he took to consolidate this and for allowing us to repost it here.

We’ll be reaching out to Paradox to get more information and will update our post with any more information provided!

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