by MrFreake_PDX

Hello Stellaris Community!

One of the things I’ve always wanted to do as a part of the Community team is to try and come up with a format to better highlight Community mods. The Steam workshop is a wonderful, almost magical place, but from a Mod Creator’s perspective unless you’re in the top 20 most popular mods (a hard place to reach after mods that have been there 7 years), or post a brand new mod (that gives you 7 days on the front of the Workshop, if you’re lucky), your mod will never be seen by someone who doesn’t actively search for it.

Since it’s summer, and it’s the time for experiments, we’ve started a small-scale experiment to see if we can highlight some of the lesser well known mods in the workshop. This is currently limited to a small group of modders, but should it turn out to be popular, we would like to eventually expand this to the broader modding community.

Each of these modder highlights will be geared towards specific aspects of the game, new species, politics, etc. Today we’re here to show off four warfare related mods.

Let’s get into it!

This first mod is something a lot of you’ve been asking for. While this isn’t a likely direction that the base-game will go, maybe this is the Ground Combat Rework you were looking for. handwave

By Risker34

Major Features:

• Re-imagined Ground Armies
• Origin/Civic/Authority unique Army Types
• Improved Army types via research
• Industrial Connection to Army construction

Summary

Ground Command is a mod that attempts to expand upon the ground battles in Stellaris. It does this in several ways allowing for more control and greater roleplay potential. This is done by reworking the system to no longer use a single “Assault Army” but instead to use the components that an Assault army would be made of.

By giving the player the ability to recruit individual divisions it opens the door to a wide variety of different army types. These army types can be tailored to reflect the empire they come from by making certain civics, origins, authority types, or even ascension perks part of unlocking them.

There is also a system wherein more industrially taxing units, such as armored units, atmospheric air wings, and the theorized Mecha-Walker can only be built on planets that have at least 1 industrial district or have the industrial buildings (consumer goods factory/ Alloy forge). This was done both to reflect the actual challenges that armies have historically faced with producing equipment but also to give a sense of strategic importance to an empire’s more industrialized worlds.

Inspiration

The inspiration came when I was playing my weekly multiplayer game with a friend and we were discussing how tedious invading worlds was. We both quickly accepted that we weren’t experienced enough to make an alternate system mechanically but I had the idea of at least making it more interesting to engage with. I believed that if the ground portion of the game was as immersive as the political and naval aspects then the tedium would be a bit more bearable and so far it seems at least a few people agreed with me.

It was also a good opportunity to give some civics and origins that the community tends to neglect a little bit of love. Maybe someday someone will find all the wacky unique army types that I’ve hidden throughout the civics list.

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This next mod introduces new galaxy shapes and sizes to conquer, as well as new win condition mechanics that are guaranteed to spice up your next war focused run.

By Mute

Major Features:

• New Galaxy Shapes (Gemini, Triple, Islands, Split, Helix)
• New Galaxy Sizes (100,300,500,700,900)
• New Galaxy Size variants (Spotted & Aftermath)
• Galactic Seasons (Gameplay Modifiers)
• Extra Win Conditions (Emperor’s Throne)
• Sudden Death Mechanics (Eclipse, Attrition)

Summary

Everything this mod adds are optional additions; the goal is to let players have more control over their current “campaign” via the Menu offered on game start. Customizability is the main focus, with many interesting combinations which allow for a unique experience each playthrough.

• Emperor’s Throne has the Players fighting over a unique System at the Galaxy’s Core, ensuring victory for whoever controls it long enough.
• Eclipse dooms the Galaxy to a gruesome and dark fate as all suns begin imploding into black holes starting from the Galaxy’s edge and slowly creeping towards the core.
• Attrition plagues all life in the Galaxy, increasing costs and reducing growth, until finally pops begin dropping dead left and right.

Inspiration

The main reason I started creating this mod was to get some of my friends to finally try out Stellaris, as the lengthy playthroughs Stellaris suffers from put them off – that’s where Win Conditions and Sudden Death come in. Both are inspired by other games’ mechanics, such as Emperor’s Throne which is a variant of a “King of the Hill” gamemode, and are intended to bring the game to an end quicker than usual, all while feeling more like a “natural end” than simply having a low victory year.

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Ever wanted to play as a Private Military Corporation? Well, with this next mod, you can!

By dimuch62

Major Features:

• transfer of fleets to other players
• sale of fleets to other players
• auction of fleets
• lease of fleets
• AI uses the functions of the mod

Summary

The mod allows you to play as a private military corporation that offers its fleets for rent to other empires. Or you can play with a friend with one player focusing on military dominance and the other on scientific dominance. The first player can always transfer fleets to the second. Or you can help an empire that is losing the war, but the defeat of which will be unprofitable.

Inspiration

It all started with a friend’s phrase “can you make it so that I can transfer the fleet?” and one line of code “set_owner = player2”.
Now this is a good mod that can be useful in various multiplayer games.

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And of course, in your next warfare playthrough, you’ll probably want a way to put that SPQR Namelist to good use. Want to make all roads lead to Deneb IIb? This next mod will give you the tools to do just that!

By Risker34

Major Features:
3 origins depicting different stages of Roman history, from the early Republican period, to the high Augustan Imperial Period and the late Imperial Period.

• The Republic:
  *Cheaper election costs
  * Faster ship build speed
  * +3 Admiral & General level cap
  * +25% army morale and +100 starting xp
  * Unique Ruler, Specialist, and Soldier jobs
• The Empire:
  * +3 General & Governor level cap
  * +100 army starting xp
  * -15% building & district cost
  * +15% megastructure build speed
  * +10 stability on all planets
  * Unique Ruler, Specialist, and Solder jobs
• Late Imperial State:
  * +3 Admiral & General level cap
  * +1 Limitanei job per 30 pops
  * +25% ship fire rate
  * Big Ruler class political power
  * Stability from soldier jobs +1
  * Unique Ruler, Specialist, and Soldier jobs

Summary

The mod consists of 3 origins, each with unique jobs and bonuses. The vanilla politician jobs will be completely replaced with more thematic versions along with a unique specialist job and unique soldier jobs.

Inspiration

As a big fan of Roman history I noticed that Stellaris had a SPQR name list but no actual reason to use it. The Prosperous Unification origin was a bit too overtly modern future and things like Remnants would be too detached from being future Rome. So I decided to add roleplay origins to go along with the SPQR namelist.

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Do they all work together?​

What sort of Chad-mod-enjoyer would you be if you didn’t ask this question? There are no conflicts between these four mods, meaning you should be able to run them altogether without any issues!

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That’s it for today’s Mod Highlights! We’ll be doing these all summer during gaps in the Dev Diary schedule, so stay tuned!