The fact that there is Dark Matter-based cloaking suggests Fallen Empire cloaked fleets. Awakened Empire cloaked fleets. That is scary.

Psi-Phase Field Generator: This allows the ship to remain undetected by all but the best sensor arrays, though what the crew may be forced to witness is better left unsaid." Let's hope those psi-shields keep out the impossible horrors that will drive you to madness at a glance. I'm sure we'll be ok.

I think they really missed a trick by not allowing a mixed cloaked/revealed fleet. Imagine only having a small contingent of cruisers and battleships revealed and the enemy attacks thinking they outmatch you only for you to reveal a bunch of torpedo corvettes and destroyers. Baiting the enemy into a trap would be such cool gameplay.

While psionic ascension probably doesn't need this in a meta sense, it definitely needed it in a roleplaying sense. Using the power of the shroud to get the best cloaking just makes so much sense. We've come a long, long way from Spiritualist and Psionic being underpowered haven't we?

I sure hope whoever uses Psi-Phase Field Generators don't forget to turn their Gellar shields on.

I hope there is an alternative tech for cloaking. Fleet spoofing. You present a false fleet power, either higher or lower than actual.

Having science ships gather intel on enemy planets is a great idea and way to use science ships mid game. I like to have loads in the early game to trigger as many anomalies as possible for resources but are left with 5 or 6 doing nothing later on i end up disbanding them. So this is a welcomed change.

Wait, different FTLs are back!? That makes me so unbelievably happy, I didn't play stellaris until just after the removal of the pop cells, so I never played with the different FTLs

The toxic god star system has 100% armour nullification. Unfortunately the single one star system with this modifier.

5:57 It says “per tier of Planetary Cpital”. This means that if the planet has a tier-3 Capital then you should get +30% speed and +60 Intel. At least that’s what it sounds like to me.

I'm pretty sure the go-to pattern for border detection is to have a fortress station in the outer chokepoint, then have a detection Starbase in the inner choke right after that. Two layers of border protection.

I'm really glad subterfuge is getting a buff via the new cloaking mechanic.

i suspect that a system with a starbase AND a planet with a orbital ring with detection modules will be the ultimate choke point.

Talking from a purely single-player point of view, I like the idea of being able to park an uncloaked weak fleet in a system as bait for a enemy fleet with a cloaked all armour fleet waiting to spring the trap. It may mean less time spent chasing down enemy fleets during wars.

Finally......a legit Romulan empire will be possible.

16:27 This is also dependent on if cloaking detection propagates through Gateways like trade protection and gather range. If so then simply have one station in the heart of your empire that is full of detectors with a gateway in its system just like you do with hanger bays and trade hubs. Then strategically place Gateways so that you have good coverage of your empire and put Bastion class Citadels on your borders.

the video just deactivated cloaking, making us feel like it was comming fast. But in reality, It was already lurking in the shadow, waiting for the right instant to strike thanks for the video 🙏

I think the path not taken might possibly be a reference to the mirror universe-portal event, where you encounter your empire with warp drives (and warp beasts. Oh, now what if the Warp Beasts is a new crisis faction...).

Jump drives and cloaking will be a terrifying combination.

I wonder if you can launch a cloaked fleet with the quantum catapult, or cloak troop transports. I also really hope there's an audible alert for fleets decloaking within your borders!

As soon as I saw the overview video, I was excited for your breakdown of it, as I definitely missed a lot by myself.

What is interesting that you can combine Slingshot to the Stars and those new civics

THIS QUICK???? Montu ain't playing damn.

I still think espionage should have ethic or "civic" operations, where you increase the ethic attraction of an ethic or create a faction with a civic-ethic aligment, or maybe a geopolitical aligment, which could be use to stage coups or give CBs to annex or liberate sectors from enemy empires

Eager Explorers + Distinguished Admiralty + Clone Armies + Crystaline Scales will be insane! Crystaline Sensors will reveal the enemy and you can jump around launching hit and run attacks on the colonies.

Feels like high level cloaks will make disruptors more viable. Hide until you're in striking range, then decloak and disrupt the enemy's hull. ETA: Pair up one of those Subspace civics with the species trait that links pop-growth to current population (starting with +30% and moving down to -10% as you're more crowded) and you can probably pull some high-speed compensation for the penalties.

The Psi cloak might come from researching the psionic avatar remains in that one tri system that you gotta wormhole to. That leviathan did have nothing as a reward besides the system after all.

Sounds like a good reason to use a lot of corvettes in the late game to me. Especially with the higher levels of cloak which don't effect speed. Good for some hit and run tactics. Attack where they are weak and disappear before something stronger shows up. Even if caught they are cheap so expendable. Definitely looking forward to seeing what types of strategy and tactics players come up with the use the cloaking system though.

I wonder how this will effect multiplayer, sending 5 corvette fleets behind enemy lines to screw with the resources in space. Naturally ftl blockers will be an issue still it has its potential.

Interesting. I like the "bigger ships can do it but small ships do it better" approach. Edit: And i like that it is paertly tied to traditions/ascension perks, this means not everyone will invest in cloaking the same way.

Funny in star wars cloaking small ships was considered impossible as Captain Needa said "No ship that small has a cloaking device"

It might have skipped my attention, but did the devs say anithing about the "Sentry Array"? That might give us some decent anti cloacking cababilities. Just guessing.

I'm positive that's a Harry Turtledove reference, because being technologically advanced but missing developing the simplest FTL technology was the whole point of that story.

Armour nullification might be one of two things: being in the space of a hostile high level bulwark as it dismantles your ships, or your ships exploding.

I wonder if pirates will have access to cloaking tech? Like both the marauders and the generated ones from your empire? That would be really annoying to play "wack a mole" with them as they go around wrecking star bases in your empire.

Now that I think about it, I hope they make the ships jump automatically or it's going to be a micro hell and undo everything we got with autosurvey and autoconstruction. Also, getting that early jump tech from primitive insights will make me not kill them automatically, and I think should be added to them. It fits the paths not taken for those techs.

Choke points may need to be double layered - the first layer is a Bastion, a massive brick wall, the second layer is detection with crew quarters to station a defensive fleet on.

Having a Bastion behind a pulsar system might be better than in the system now because you'll have shields and theirs will need to regen.

Could be interesting to equip a fleet with cloaking devices and hide them in a Bastion system. Let the AI empire attack your bastion and then have your cloaked fleet move in to reinforce... Not really possible with shield builds but armor or Psionic Shield builds would work IMO

Armour nulification (as far as I am aware) only happens in the system in which you find the toxic God, the one with the acid-green star

16:44 I can think of 2 ways that are slightly more expensive, but otherwise more effective way than just deciding whether your choke point statbases have detection or military. Either, you have have your chokepoint starbase be detection based and supported by weapons platforms or you have a secondary statbase enough systems over that it's still within sensor range of your chokepoint (preferably multiple chokepoints) that reveal cloaked ships either when they enter the choke point system, or when they reach the system beforehand. Also, on the subspace drives, I'd argue that it would probably be good to have a mix between subspace and hyperdrives. Corvettes/Frigates and maybe destroyers running hyperdrives, cruisers and above running subspace. That way, you have fast response vehicles that can manoeuvre easily around your empire and harry/distract your enemy, then jump the big boys in behind enemy lines too act as the anvil you crush them upon.

Armor nullification is in the game (the code anyway), just nothing in the core game does it. Mods use it, I think Real Space has some pulsar like thing that reduces armor by 15% or so. Been awhile since I played it.

I hope that psi edict includes a cloaking bonus (at least if combined with the psi PHASE CLOAK - why go Klingon/Romulan when you can go all USS Pegasus?) as well. I'd say detection, too, but that starts feeling greedy. Also, I wonder if space fauna has detection or Science ships can get through their systems after researching that tech.

A long way from the days of battleship artillery being all you needed to consider in fleet combat

Aww yeah, time for _Circumference_ -class science ships, _Dusk_ -class corvettes, _Midsummer Night_ -class destroyers, and _Point of No Return_ -class cruisers. Gonna show the galaxy how ONI managed to successfully stall a losing war for almost 3 decades.

This has got to be one of the best dev diaries I have seen in a long time

I think that those sublight drives work similarly to sublight jumps that science vessels use, but they could still be useful in reliably avoiding enemy chokepoints by simply outmaneuvering them and hitting the enemy core systems directly

I'm pretty new, so I wasn't around for the days when you picked your FTL type. I'm looking forward to trying out the subspace drives. Along with cloaking, it seems like managing choke points is going to get harder. Between this and the 3.6 combat rework, it's looking like an interesting time for meta shakeups and experimentation. I'm also a big fan of increasing my sublight speed, so I might give these a try and see if I can get over the initial economic hump. (Go Overtuned + cloning vats!) Does make me wonder about the influence cost of building outposts: If you're not using hyperlanes, it doesn't make much sense for the cost to be based on the number of lanes away from your border. Another thought: How might these civics mix with the retooled Slingshot to the Stars? Could make for a very different style of warfare from what I'm seeing.

It's hilarious that eager explorers isn't incompatible with fanatic purifiers. Eagerly exploring the galaxy to find and purge all the xenos.

I really hoped that cloaking detectors would be independent buildings outside of the Starbase, like a defense platform since a Starbase already has such limited slots. Unless you mod them, of course.

Just imagine something like a cloaked Stellar System Craft from Gigastructures! That sounds like something they would do.

The obvious solution to the starbase issue is to have one with 6 detection arrays, science ship assistance, etc. next to a gateway, then gateway the hell out of the rest of your systems

just placed my pre order for first contact using this link. This will be my first Dlc I have ever pre ordered cross my fingers its good.

The privatized exploration description text really reminds me of the last book in Three-Body Problem.

Psi-Phase Cloaking Field Generator... Not only can you not see us, you can't even think about us.

Cloaking should give a huge evasion boost to ships. Hard to hit targets you can't see.

Montu, me and my friends want to have sectors add/remove button or something. It was good in old days, why they remove that?

These new civics are suddenly the most exciting thing about the dlc.

In practice ive found this makes the Yuht Precursors have a nice niche bonus to playing, cause you can make a single starbase somewhere in the center of your empire use exclusively detection arrays, yuht observatory, listening post, and dark matter resonance chamber. You now essentially have an early stage Sentry Array that has some defensive capability still. I got to about 18 sensor range and level 8 cloak detection, could use a science ship to boost further.

Montu: better not cloak battleships Me: cloaks battleship while keeping them docked, so they don't show when you have sensor range, making me appear weaker than I am.

I find it really cool lore-wise how pre-FTLs can now spawn with origins besides PU. I’ve come across a few Remnants ones on relic worlds that had special names, and in one playthrough as UNE I had a late-medieval Shattered Ring one spawn only 2 jumps away from Sol; I’ve repaired the 2 ruined segments for them as the prereq for making my own some day, even colonizing one and dedicating it entirely to research districts, just for them. Now that I’ve brainwashed them to embrace democracy, I can’t wait to plant knowledge and then use a migration treaty to get a strong, void-dwelling lithoid species to colonize habitats and ringworlds

Damn man when did you reach 100k subs congrats and sorry I missed it

Espionage still needs a bit of work, IMO. there needs to be a much wider array of operations that can be carried out. I would still love stellaris to see the psionic system worked a little. Telepathy should level or have a P score (Ala Babylon 5) with low-level psychers being able to do basic things, and higher levels bring your psicorps, envoys, and spies. The idea would be to make psychic pops a resource of their own. I'd only really like it for flavor, and so thar not ever psionic pop can perform as well as any other. I guess like an expansion to Espionage. It's probably a pipe dream, though. This does look like a nice addition.

Loving the new features. Hopefully the Unyielding tradition tree can help with detection. I am worried that Psionic ascension is becoming that much stronger for bio playstyles. Bio ascension is still lagging behind even with Erudite and Overtuned traits and all the pop modifying you have to do.

If you want to talk about different FTL methods, I wonder how Stargazers reduction to starbase influence distance cost stacks with the ruined quantum catapult origin. Imagine if you could claim any system at almost no additional cost. In general, the fact that these are civics makes me curious what kind of interplay between them and origins is possible.

More stuff for psi ascension is always a bonus My fave path

This is going to open up some fantastic baiting opportunities. Fly in a few battleships escorted by a second fleet of cloaked corvettes, and when the enemy thinks they caught you, spring the trap

I think you are right. Only weather and pulsar systems nullify shields. Unless Disruption module from starbase kinda counts.

I will be using this with the "Shadow" ships mod from B5. The ships screech when they enter a system, this will be a cherry on top of that.

Sensor range will probably work similarily to collection range. You will still be able to have your defensive stations on the choke points with sensor stations safely behind them.

i have a doubt about cloaking detection / starbase have a hyperlane detection range and a sensor range. Doesn't it make it sense for the stleath detection to be applied on the whole hyperlane range ? Thus making a specialized starport able to monitor a big part of frontier while being a bit in the back ?

the corvets and frigates are going to make a klingon roleplay fun! less so for the romulan... a bummer, i vanted those battlecrusiers!

Hey, is there any other cloaking detection method that has been revealed besides Starbase modules? Would like to save those for anchorages as much as possible. For example, anything on ships?

Note that the only restrictions on the pre-FTL civics are the new origins amd Inward Perfection. Scion pre-FTL is very tempting - oldest of the old and newest of the new!

16:30 You won't have to chose, it will still be a military base on a chokepoint. Cloaking detection range is based on sensor range, this means that cloaking is a very niche QoL feature that is extremely easy to counter but still has the benefit of avoiding aggressive non-empire enemies. It will also become completely useless in the lategame because sensor range is projected through gateways and thus will be projected across the whole galaxy.

Armour nullification shows up via the toxic god being present, but that's the only thing that comes to mind

I was sort of hoping, after seeing the early screencap of Cloaking showing S, M, and L slots in addition to A, that cloaking could serve as a form of defense, such that you could choose a combination of shields, armor, and/or cloaking for more evasion. As it's now been explained, while it has uses, it almost feels maybe a little too niche. It's something I'll have to play around with, like having large ship fleets without cloaking accompanied by corvette/frigate fleets that do cloak, as you're not going to be sneaking those battleships behind enemy lines without psionic cloaking and some bonuses for Subterfuge and other places (though if you could get a battleship fleet to 5+ cloaking, that'd be crazy). Using research ships as spies once there are no more system to practically survey is a pretty cool addition I'll admit, as it frees up your potentially limited envoys to do other things rather than manage your spy network, and once most of your first contacts are done, you can decide where you want your actual spy networks. The shield interference may also encourage more armor based builds to mitigate the threat of decloaking without your shields (unless you went psionic), so if you catch on that an opponent is using cloaking and isn't psionic, if you suspect you'll go to war with them, it might be a safe guess to gear your fleets for anti-armor rather than anti-shield, as if they try to attack from cloaking after war declaration, their shields are starting at 0 and regenerating. I suspect Active Reconnaissance will work like Assist Research, in that only 1 ship can be engaged per planet. You'll likely be able to recon multiple planets using multiple ships, but I'd wager the intel level and speed bonuses are smaller than that shown here for a capitol planet. It also mentions "designable ships", which I believe defense platforms fall under. While I'm sure we won't have cloaked starbases, I wonder if it's possible to have cloaked defense platforms in an effort to conceal the true strength of our defenses, especially in the early/mid game where attackers aren't quite as likely to have doomstacks that would overwhelm a decked out citadel regardless. And speaking of starbases, you don't necessarily need to have your chokepoint systems be the ones with the detection sensors; the detection works at a range of the starbase's Sensor Range, so in the example image, with a Sensor Range of 5, that starbase could reveal cloaked ships at a range of 5 systems away, so you can have your defensive border base, and then your detection base a few systems back, so long as you're only worried about detecting cloaked ships within your borders and not on approach.

How about putting Armor nullification around black hole and keep shield nullification on pulsar? It would make the Star Eater uberly dangerous :) But honestly, where you got Star Trek vibes, I wish we could get a component on an orbital ring to cloak a planet in exchange for a big expense in energy. Like it was done in Star Gate season 10 against the Ori :) Yeah, I know, it was phasing in Star Gate, not cloaking. Until we get phasing, this is the next best thing :)

I’m so happy about these new civics. I really loved the alternative means of ftl travel in the game, and it was my only gripe that these were removed during the Armageddon update, when they revamped combat way back when, so really happy to see them coming back, it’s going to make things so much more interesting, can’t wait for this dlc, Paradox has hit it out of the park yet again.

How does cloaking in combat work? I see a ship role for stealth frigs. When they initially decloak to fire their torps, do the cloak again? Or do they only get one stealth run per combat?

Hey Montu any chance for a fleet composition video with the new meta? I always wondered if it was a waste having flak/PD destroyers escorting your BBs, but is that still the case? Or is building nothing but missile cruisers more economical now?

Starbase detection range of cloaked ships, is it seperate from the usual scanner range or the same as those?

I have a challenge for you. Remember your no fleet challenge? I hereby propose a no visible fleet challenge: starting corvettes must be stripped of their weapons until cloaking tech becomes available, once it is all science ships must be upgraded with cloaks and every ship must be cloaked permanently unless in battle or on cloak cooldown, it may not leave a system uncloaked.

I guess the next step would be planet cloaking, to appear barren or something, like the event where you find out a planet was a projection.

I would have liked to see dedicated ship cores/platforms as a mechanic to boost cloaking effectiveness. These would of course carry less free spaces for weapons and/or special devices, but would add some bonus (say +1) to cloaks. So, having a cloaking nose, code and read would add +3 to cloaking, but would mean less speed, shields or weapons.

Exploration Protocols civic sounds amazing for Custodian!

9:55 Is that the techs individually? Or can they stack? Like if I have all the base techs without Psi-Phase or dark matter, would my corvettes then have the strength of 1+2+3, or just 3? If it's the former, then you could have a Titan/Battleship with the same cloaking strength as a tech 2 corvette

yes iv seen armor null mostly in mods but it can mean how much it by passes armor and targets derrectly hall vs just sheld/armor like 5% bypass bypass 5% of your armor and hit 5% of your hull oversimpcation but it has been there

I'm curious to know how the cloaking mechanic works with the Sentry Array. Does it, too, have detection levels, or does it automatically detect cloaked ships?

Pure subspace drive multiplayer would be really fun.

I haven't been this excited for an expansion since Nemesis.

Seems like stacking starbases in adjecent systems on chokepoints might become valuable, if not resource intensive. Put a militarized defense base on the true chokepoint system, put a starbase on an adjacent system behind it, and outfit it for surveillance, using its building slots for added benefits. Being spawned into the galaxy on a narrow spiral arm never felt safer. In either case, between cloaking and pre-ftl reworks I feel like stellaris is about to get far more interesting and less predictable. I am so fucking excited.

First Contact is great for me because now I can recreate Destiny's scenario of pre-FTL races being visited by an alien benefactor, only to then be totally decimated by the fleet of the benefactor's enemy

I think the subspace drives should work exactly like the current experimental science ship drive you can get now, that lets you "jump" anywhere in the galaxy. In this case, however, it has a range limit. So you pick a target in range, hit jump, and your fleet disappears for some length of time, and then reappears at the target system. In that way, its not jump>arrival>cooldown, instead it's jump>cooldown>arrival. That'd make it an interesting travel alternative but remove the tactical advantage that a real jump drive gives you currently, and just leaves it as a means of travel.

I wonder if the new science building will still be given to you at base if you have remnants as your origin with the eager explorers civic

Interesting. This will make the menacing ships from become crisis even stronger.

Ooo. Combining Eager Explorers with Mechanist origin could be pretty flavorful.

I’m curious how those hyper drives work jumping multiple systems. With it auto pick a good path. Or is it going to be very babied to get A to B. Also… is it bad wording in that it’s a “jump drive” or is it like old school “warp drive”? The look of the engines on those new ship models make me think Mech Warrior Jump Ship and Generation Ships with big long burn drives.

i am really looking forward to clocking for rp games since it will allow u to play around with having hidden fleets so u can not be countered or allowing u to hide ur true fleet power and trick other players. it will also allow me to do a nice rp with fear the dark where u dont want to interact with any other race but will always be ready to crush them

can stargazers circumvent FTL inhibitor stations/planets? Would they make the chokepoint system obsolete?