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Stellaris >  Workshop > Kolyn's Workshop > [Deprecated] The Zenith of Fallen Empires > Discussions
[Deprecated] The Zenith of Fallen Empires
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 This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important
Kolyn  [developer] 22 Feb, 2018 @ 5:00am
The Zenith of Fallen Empires 2.0
Hi all,

With the release of the 2.0 'Cherryh' update, I believe I have a bit of inspiration to resume working on this mod for a period of time. Since the release of ZoFE, the support you guys have shown has been amazing and I have heard really good feedback from you guys regarding the mod. With the Apocalypse expansion which features Titans, superweapons and world destroyers, there are now many more ways in which your own Ascended Empire can be made awesome.

It is therefore fitting that with this Stellaris rework, this mod deserves its own rework as well. Not sure if you guys know, but when ZoFE was conceptualised/designed, Utopia hasn't been released yet. Neither was the traditions/Ascension perks system, nor Synthetic Dawn nor special civics like Fanatical Purifiers. The mod has worked where it was meant to, but the scope of the base game has increased substantially since, and I feel that the current design is limiting as a result.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this for a month or two, including not just the design decisions but also the logistics of coding and how to get what I want done. It is my hope that ZoFE 2.0 will be launched within a week of Apocalypse's release, while keeping the current mod here for players who haven't yet updated their game, or wish to play this older version.

The Zenith of Fallen Empires 2.0 will feature an improved Ascension mechanic, which provides a more convincing journey of your Empire's ascension in the form of an Ascension Perk. This Ascension Perk will have a few prequisite technologies from vanilla and also ZoFE 2.0, and also shows you all the requirements you need in order to become an Ascended Empire. There is of course, no way to do this and make it save-compatible on this current version. The problem with the current system is that, while it is convenient to just research all the technologies and get all the pop ups, it doesn't require the traditions mechanic and it only make sense that this does.

My coding skills have also improved a bit since ZoFE's first release and when I wrote the code for the previous ascension event. It make sense that many backdoor changes are required and I have been working on it for a week or so in order to ensure ZoFE 2.0's relatively prompt release. After getting the Galactic Ascendancy Ascension Perk, you will get a pop up event similar to the current event after the completion of the Galactic Ascendancy tech, but reworked so that the option you pick will have more impact. Doing this has also enabled me to combine a few previous choices into one:

  • You can only Ascend if you have the AP. If you don't want to become an Ascended Empire, don't pick the AP.

  • You can only become an Ascended Empire if you have a Fanatic Ethic and can only ascend as that specific ethic. And providing other conditions are met.

  • Ascension event text and options available now depend a bit on that ethic.

  • The option you pick will now give you a third, locked, civic, and each option has its own 'bonuses'. This option also sets the ship set you will use as an Ascended Empire. Each ethic will now get a 'canon' ship set and a 'non-canon' version.

  • These civics will either expand upon your narrative as an empire, such as becoming a Galactic Superpower with its military bonuses, or Beacon of Prosperity which increases resources output. There will also be special civics which may or may not enable a certain kind of playstyle - such as The World Architect gets a buff on their megastructure and terraforming speed and cost, and maybe something for Fanatical Purifiers or Inward Perfection as a special option for Xenophobes or Pacifists to take.

Among these changes, you will also notice that it is no longer possible to select FE ships at the start of the game to keep some of the mystery. It can be modded back in of course, if people ask nicely.

I won't be getting the Apocalypse Expansion any time soon, so I won't be able to test any Apocalypse-specific things. After the initial launch of ZoFE 2.0, the 'base' mod will continue to be developed and fleshed out over time. My initial goals for release includes a functioning ascension mechanic, and other features shall be restored over a period of time.

Since there will be a shift in design focus (Imagine ZoFE 1.0 is about cool space battles and ZoFE 2.0 being more about the story and narrative of Ascended Empires), what I will do is create a 'base' mod for the Ascension mechanic, and then create other add-on mods to provide the tools for players to flesh out their story. You can play without these add-ons but ZoFE 2.0 is still conceived to be played with all the expansions. I will create a Playlist for all the add-on mods and all mods that I play with which will indicate compatibility. By providing all these infrasturctures in the base mod, this will allow other contibutors to create their own add-on to ZoFE, one of which I believe you will be seeing very soon...

The plans for my own add-ons are mainly about restoring some of the old ZoFE 1.0 content in some form, and are constantly in flux, so I can't give any concrete information yet. Expect buildings, weapons, ringworld starts, Goliath, etc to be in these expansions. I will of course, ensure that this works well with vanilla 2.0 with or without Apocalypse. Due to limited time, I shall have to restrict any work on compatibility to mods that I actually play with. I hope that this new direction will bring much of the sought-after improvements for those looking for the ultimate Fallen Empire experience. Once again, thank you for your continued support and I shall see you when ZoFE 2.0 launches.

And this, is the link to ZoFE 2.0!
Last edited by Kolyn; 1 Mar, 2018 @ 10:35am
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Showing 1-15 of 42 comments
Azerik 22 Feb, 2018 @ 4:18pm 
I would advise against restricting ascension to fanatic ethics personally. It's unecessarily restricting, and bars Gestalt Consciousnesses from ascending.
#1
Azerik 22 Feb, 2018 @ 4:20pm 
But looking forward to it, I'll miss playing with this mod in the meantime, but I realize all these mechanical changes require a good chunk of work to be done. If you need someone to playtest changes you make and how the interact with Apocalypse, hit me up.
#2
Cat-Lunatic 22 Feb, 2018 @ 4:27pm 
Originally posted by Azerik the Metal Eater:
I would advise against restricting ascension to fanatic ethics personally. It's unecessarily restricting, and bars Gestalt Consciousnesses from ascending.
I agree with Azerik.
#3
Kolyn  [developer] 22 Feb, 2018 @ 10:37pm 
Originally posted by Azerik the Metal Eater:
I would advise against restricting ascension to fanatic ethics personally. It's unecessarily restricting, and bars Gestalt Consciousnesses from ascending.

Fanatic ethics at launch. Hive Mind/Machine Empires require extra thought and work. But rest assured they are not forgotten. The original mod was built over a month and began with 4 vanilla FE ethics only. It's not so much a design decision to leave them out for launch but more a logistic one. I don't want to mislead people by promising or discussing features that won't be at launch just yet.
Last edited by Kolyn; 22 Feb, 2018 @ 10:43pm
#4
TheOnlyKnight 23 Feb, 2018 @ 6:14am 
I was hyped for 2.0, but then this was announced.
#5
Daeharde Trihardt 23 Feb, 2018 @ 5:03pm 
^
#6
Azerik 23 Feb, 2018 @ 7:58pm 
Originally posted by Kolyn:
Originally posted by Azerik the Metal Eater:
I would advise against restricting ascension to fanatic ethics personally. It's unecessarily restricting, and bars Gestalt Consciousnesses from ascending.

Fanatic ethics at launch. Hive Mind/Machine Empires require extra thought and work. But rest assured they are not forgotten. The original mod was built over a month and began with 4 vanilla FE ethics only. It's not so much a design decision to leave them out for launch but more a logistic one. I don't want to mislead people by promising or discussing features that won't be at launch just yet.

Is there no way to just not restrict it by ethic at all? Flavor wise I don't see whay fanatacism of the ethics used in Stellaris would make an empire/species more likely to ascend, and mechanically wouldn't it be easier to not tie it to ethics at all?
#7
Azerik 23 Feb, 2018 @ 10:24pm 
Also unrelated, but is it possible for you to isolate the Ring World Starts of this and release it as a standalone? Something in the mod causes a blank event dialogue to pop up every in game day (so literally every second) and this is like the only feature I'm desperately wanting to use right this moment. Honestly if you could just tell me where the bits of code that do that are I'd spend a few days learning to do so myself.
#8
Kolyn  [developer] 24 Feb, 2018 @ 4:46am 
Originally posted by Azerik the Metal Eater:
Originally posted by Kolyn:

Fanatic ethics at launch. Hive Mind/Machine Empires require extra thought and work. But rest assured they are not forgotten. The original mod was built over a month and began with 4 vanilla FE ethics only. It's not so much a design decision to leave them out for launch but more a logistic one. I don't want to mislead people by promising or discussing features that won't be at launch just yet.

Is there no way to just not restrict it by ethic at all? Flavor wise I don't see whay fanatacism of the ethics used in Stellaris would make an empire/species more likely to ascend, and mechanically wouldn't it be easier to not tie it to ethics at all?

The narrative of an Ascended Empire is a civilisation that will go to fanatical lengths to defend or impose its ideals upon the galaxy. This has been the case for vanilla Awakened Empires, and also ZoFE 1.0. I'm not too happy with the implementation in ZoFE 1.0, as a 3 ethic empire can simply choose a fanatical ethic and all pops instantly become that. In this iteration, you will need a fanatical ethic on the point of selecting the AP, and this allows you plenty of time during the game to utilize the faction system to shape your empire into having a fanatical ethic. Coding the AP itself without needing restrictions is indeed easier, but then you will have to design the rest of the mod based on an much larger number of possible combinations, such as Materialist/Xenophobe/Egalitarian empires can sire Satellites, Thralls, and Democratized Utopia at the same time, which is not only much more work, but also not very engaging as a story.

Originally posted by Azerik the Metal Eater:
Also unrelated, but is it possible for you to isolate the Ring World Starts of this and release it as a standalone? Something in the mod causes a blank event dialogue to pop up every in game day (so literally every second) and this is like the only feature I'm desperately wanting to use right this moment. Honestly if you could just tell me where the bits of code that do that are I'd spend a few days learning to do so myself.

I don't really know what's going on with it. The starting systems are going in its own add-on but I haven't really looked at them as I'm working on the core mod. Can you believe that PDX doesn't actually have any FE art for the middle two star-port levels? Or habitats? Vanilla FEs are just told to never upgrade those because they turn into primitive graphical cultures. If I make some headway into solving that problem, I will take a look at it this evening.
#9
Myphicbowser 24 Feb, 2018 @ 8:49am 
I'm so happy you are going to be making a new version of this, I always loved this mod and thought something like it shuold be in the base game, good luck and have fun and all that jazz!
#10
The Sun 24 Feb, 2018 @ 9:49am 
Can you add the ability to switch to Humanoid ships if you have the DLC? it seems like a perfect fit for a high-tech human empire.
#11
Darky 24 Feb, 2018 @ 12:46pm 
Originally posted by The Sun:
Can you add the ability to switch to Humanoid ships if you have the DLC? it seems like a perfect fit for a high-tech human empire.

I feel that allowing ship designs other than the Ascended Empire ships would break the artistic style of the mod, don't you think?
#12
The Sun 24 Feb, 2018 @ 2:57pm 
Originally posted by Darky:
Originally posted by The Sun:
Can you add the ability to switch to Humanoid ships if you have the DLC? it seems like a perfect fit for a high-tech human empire.

I feel that allowing ship designs other than the Ascended Empire ships would break the artistic style of the mod, don't you think?

They already allow you to keep your own ship-types, so why can't you change it to something other than the FE ships?
(Besides, the main reason I don't like them is because they're too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ large - my superdreadnoughts from NSC are clipping.)
#13
Azerik 24 Feb, 2018 @ 3:28pm 
Originally posted by Kolyn:
The narrative of an Ascended Empire is a civilisation that will go to fanatical lengths to defend or impose its ideals upon the galaxy. This has been the case for vanilla Awakened Empires, and also ZoFE 1.0. I'm not too happy with the implementation in ZoFE 1.0, as a 3 ethic empire can simply choose a fanatical ethic and all pops instantly become that. In this iteration, you will need a fanatical ethic on the point of selecting the AP, and this allows you plenty of time during the game to utilize the faction system to shape your empire into having a fanatical ethic. Coding the AP itself without needing restrictions is indeed easier, but then you will have to design the rest of the mod based on an much larger number of possible combinations, such as Materialist/Xenophobe/Egalitarian empires can sire Satellites, Thralls, and Democratized Utopia at the same time, which is not only much more work, but also not very engaging as a story.

Fair I suppose, I look at story development from a more loose perspective in this game, and think freedom of choice in such things is better, because this conversation is proof that not everyone agrees fantacism is a key part of ascension. Sticking to that narrative just because the vanilla FE's do is boring to me personally, but its your mod and your narrative, and the features implemented by your mod are worth the restrictions they impose, so while I might argue my point on this, it's not gonna stop me from supporting it (if you had a patreon or something for this stuff, I'd fund it)

Originally posted by Kolyn:
I don't really know what's going on with it. The starting systems are going in its own add-on but I haven't really looked at them as I'm working on the core mod. Can you believe that PDX doesn't actually have any FE art for the middle two star-port levels? Or habitats? Vanilla FEs are just told to never upgrade those because they turn into primitive graphical cultures. If I make some headway into solving that problem, I will take a look at it this evening.

Can I believe PDX cut corners and did something without considering it's repercussions on the modding community? More than believe, I expected that, considering how many mods the 2.0 update absolutely shattered lol.

Thanks for the consideration though, your starting systems are a great asset, and I know plenty of people would be interested in using them as a standalone.
#14
Kolyn  [developer] 24 Feb, 2018 @ 5:44pm 
Originally posted by The Sun:
Originally posted by Darky:

I feel that allowing ship designs other than the Ascended Empire ships would break the artistic style of the mod, don't you think?

They already allow you to keep your own ship-types, so why can't you change it to something other than the FE ships?
(Besides, the main reason I don't like them is because they're too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ large - my superdreadnoughts from NSC are clipping.)

While I agree that Humanoid ships look good, you can actually select them at the start if you have the DLC. Same cases can be made for all vanilla ship sets and possibly other ship sets that people use. That's way too many options and the current event already stands at about 3k lines and I'm not even done with it yet. I'm sure other people can use part of the code to make an event that change your ship to whatever, however. There's already a mod called Fallen Empire ships or something that has a similar function.



Originally posted by Azerik the Metal Eater:
Originally posted by Kolyn:
The narrative of an Ascended Empire is a civilisation that will go to fanatical lengths to defend or impose its ideals upon the galaxy. This has been the case for vanilla Awakened Empires, and also ZoFE 1.0. I'm not too happy with the implementation in ZoFE 1.0, as a 3 ethic empire can simply choose a fanatical ethic and all pops instantly become that. In this iteration, you will need a fanatical ethic on the point of selecting the AP, and this allows you plenty of time during the game to utilize the faction system to shape your empire into having a fanatical ethic. Coding the AP itself without needing restrictions is indeed easier, but then you will have to design the rest of the mod based on an much larger number of possible combinations, such as Materialist/Xenophobe/Egalitarian empires can sire Satellites, Thralls, and Democratized Utopia at the same time, which is not only much more work, but also not very engaging as a story.

Fair I suppose, I look at story development from a more loose perspective in this game, and think freedom of choice in such things is better, because this conversation is proof that not everyone agrees fantacism is a key part of ascension. Sticking to that narrative just because the vanilla FE's do is boring to me personally, but its your mod and your narrative, and the features implemented by your mod are worth the restrictions they impose, so while I might argue my point on this, it's not gonna stop me from supporting it (if you had a patreon or something for this stuff, I'd fund it)

Originally posted by Kolyn:
I don't really know what's going on with it. The starting systems are going in its own add-on but I haven't really looked at them as I'm working on the core mod. Can you believe that PDX doesn't actually have any FE art for the middle two star-port levels? Or habitats? Vanilla FEs are just told to never upgrade those because they turn into primitive graphical cultures. If I make some headway into solving that problem, I will take a look at it this evening.

Can I believe PDX cut corners and did something without considering it's repercussions on the modding community? More than believe, I expected that, considering how many mods the 2.0 update absolutely shattered lol.

Thanks for the consideration though, your starting systems are a great asset, and I know plenty of people would be interested in using them as a standalone.

My Patreon and Support links are on the mod title page, hidden away in the FAQs :D

If you'd let me know which particular systems you are fond of, I could look into prioritising them more if things are going to plan. I don't have any time today as I have been largely working on station and ship sections, ship scaling, ion cannons, weapon locators (I feel like I'm making NSC...) and then fixed a disappearing Titan bug. I'll probably finish the rest of this one shipset tomorrow and then work on habitats.

#15
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