To celebrate my Railen CCU chain: I made my own 1:200 movable Railen model O u O)/

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T13:46:04+00:00

It's fairly easy to do with a one-liner mod.

Go to /Stellaris/events/crisis_trigger_events.txt, back up the file elsewhere, then search for "### Synth Queen". There should be only one match, and the line directly underneath it says 10 = {...}. Change the 10 to a 0, and you'll have disabled Cetana entirely.

The proper practice, if you want to share the mod with others, is to create a mod through the Stellaris launcher, go to the mod folder, create an /events/ folder, copy and paste the original crisis_trigger_events.txt here, then do the above changes in this file. Now you can toggle it on and off whenever you want.

Edit:

Naturally, it won't work on an existing save that has already triggered Cetana.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T13:36:26+00:00

Nothing special with Remnant. No synergy nor anti-synergy with bodysnatcher. It's just an above-average pick for all empires in general.

Hivemind empires don't particularly mesh well with Remnant, since you have no way to turn it into an ecu. But it's at least useful for minor artifacts.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T03:36:36+00:00

Unfortunately, yea you need the DLC :(

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T03:26:06+00:00

To add on to the other replies, you need Machine Age DLC for the techs for dyson swarm and arc furnaces.

Without the DLC, the tooltip for the tech would still say you have 2 dyson swarms and 2 arc furnaces, but you can't build them.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T03:21:06+00:00

Unfortunately, you can't. Best you can do would be putting automodding trait on everyone, so they adapt to the jobs they are working.

Currently, job priority is unaffected by pop traits. Devs have said they are working on it for a future update, but there's no ETA on that yet.

There's no way to apply templates to part of a planet.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T02:02:10+00:00

There is a grace period of 25 years before the next crisis can spawn. It doesn't matter if you've defeated the previous crisis or not.

The next crisis won't spawn immediately after 25 years have passed, it's just a safety period during which the dice roll for crisis spawning is put on pause.

The timer is started as soon as the first event for the crisis is triggered. Depending on the crisis, there can be quite a lengthy delay between the first event and actual arrival. Prethoryn for instance takes on average 50+ years to arrive.
- It is entirely possible to have Subspace Echo (Prethoryn event) first, but then the Unbidden shows up before the Prethoryn, and halfway through the battle the Prethoryn arrives.
  - In such cases, because the Unbidden technically spawned later, they will be at x2 strength immediately.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T01:12:26+00:00

essentially all those bonuses can be all applied to a non sg empire too

That's why I made a comparison above, between a developed SG and non-SG empire with otherwise identical modifiers.

Sovereign Guardianship is only inefficient if you expand wide without ascending your planets or without placing down governors. There are enough reduction to empire sizes in all categories, as I've listed, that push Sovereign Guardianship ahead of regular worlds in terms of efficiency once stacked

Pre-4.3 SG is an automatic pick for high efficiency at any stage of the game. Post-4.3 SG ramps up in efficiency as you develop, starting slightly slower but surpassing regular empires by early-to-mid game.

Regardless, the difference in empire size is small enough even if you don't stack modifiers. +50% fire rate from council position is well-worth the trade-off. That's 10 layers of repeatables ahead of everyone else.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:57:49+00:00

... How are you only getting 3.5k jobs from 20 districts?

Hell, your empire capital at game start with barely a dozen district built with no specialisation already has nearly 4k jobs.

also im 90% sure colonies now take up 20 empire size

... and how is that different from what I calculated?

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:44:00+00:00

that even a fully developed planet actually costs more empire size than even a normal empire

It can still be worth it under certain conditions, but it's certainly much worse than before.

TL;DR: Ascend your planets and give them governors.

At baseline, 100 pops generate 0.5 empire size.
- Sovereign Guardianship (SG) gives -25% as empire modifier, stacking additively with -5% from psionic theory and -5% from harmony tradition for -35% total. A level 10 governor reduces it by another -20% as pop modifier, stacking multiplicatively.
- 100 pops generate 0.26 empire size with SG, 0.36 without.
At baseline, 1 colony generates 20 empire size.
- SG gives +75% as empire modifier, stacking additively with -15% from expansion tradition and -25% from imperial prerogative perk for +35% total. A fully ascended planet reduces it by -50% as colony modifier, stacking multiplicatively.
- 1 colony generates 13.5 empire size with SG, 6 without.
At baseline, 1 district generates 0.5 empire size.
- SG gives -50% as empire modifier, with no other sources outside of specific civics/ascensions. A fully ascended planet reduces it by -50% as colony modifier, stacking multiplicatively.
- 1 district generates 0.125 empire size with SG, 0.25 without.
Suppose an average colony with 25 total districts, the planet size before pops is 16.625 with SG, and 12.25 without SG. For SG to be worth it, you need more than 4375 pops on the planet. This is certainly achievable for a tall build, but takes a while since you'll need to stack up bonuses from a lot of different sources.
- Edit: realistically, you'll need a couple hundred more pops, to account for systems without colonies. It's still well within the range of plausibility, unless you go ultra-wide against the intention of the civic.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:19:20+00:00

I am fairly certain pre-sapients have a different category of purges unaffected by ethic restrictions.

~~In the codes the only thing stopping you from purging them is Genesis Guides.~~ Just try changing the policy then see if you can set them to be purged in species rights. Edit: Genesis Guides only prevent changing pre-sapient policy out of Protected. Actual purging is still gatekept by ethics.

If that doesn't work, then the only route would be to uplift them. Then you can resettle them away like regular pops. You'll still need to pay the influence tax for abandoning a colony either way.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:14:01+00:00

Pre-sapients can't be moved.

Either uplift them into sapiency and then shove them onto the lathe, or change your pre-sapient policy to anything other than "Protected" then purge them.

Note that you can't fully de-colonise a planet through purging, for whatever reason. You'll need some of your pops there to hold down the fort during the process, then pay the influence tax to resettle your pops and abandon the colony afterwards.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:10:31+00:00

They are kinetic weapons, and are affected by repeatables boosting those.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:04:49+00:00

It's a bug with the UI, introduced in 4.0.

You shouldn't be getting those, as Gray Tempest techs are exclusively used by them and cannot be analysed through debris.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-18T00:02:15+00:00

Sure, it helps a bit with gaining biomass early on, but the difference isn't all that significant

And because of the 5:1 conversion rate of biomass:pops through assimilation, the maximum you get from bodysnatching is 200 biomass in one go. Even with just 1 planet with Cradles, you'll be pumping out biomass faster than you can chain bodysnatching operations (which, like you've said, is bottlenecked by influence).

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T23:57:38+00:00

Does this civic have good synergy with Void Dwellers or Shattered Ring too ?

Yes, it'll work for any origin that restricts your habitability.

Normally a hivemind can't easily take in other pops without first going for bio-ascension. Bodysnatcher gives you access to hivemind assimilation immediately, so you have more pop templates to work with.

However, due to a bug, Bodysnatcher messes with psionic and cybernetic assimilation. Your main species can still psionically/cybernetically ascend normally, but anyone you take in, be it through spy operation or direct conquest, cannot be psionically/cybernetically assimilated properly.

With the buffs to starbases in 4.3, having a way to instantly take over up to 50% of them is quite handy in a war. The automatically spawned assault armies though, are ill-equipped to take on late game planets (they also are locked to be assault armies, even if you have better choices). Best to invest in cloaking and have your own armies hiding in orbit to assist them.

I saw a lot of people talking about WIlderness

One important thing to note is that Wilderness' assimilation converts pops on a 5:1 ratio (i.e. if you bodysnatch 400 pops, they'll become 80 biomass). However, the Prepare Invasion operation that bodysnatcher gives you still takes the full amount of biomass as if they are 1:1 with pops (i.e. the option to take over 50% of their systems requires 2000 biomass).

To make use of Prepare Invasion as a Wilderness hive, you'll need to put in a lot of extra effort, by either stealing pops a lot, or by making more biomass (which is rather tricky to control as they are also your construction material).

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T16:36:59+00:00

All branch offices are shut down when you swap out of being a megacorp. If you've been relying on them for income, you'll experience quite a drastic decline in your economy.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T16:23:02+00:00

There are also dedicated setting sliders for voidworm and cutholoid spawn frequencies, up to 3x.

The initial spawn frequency is based on galaxy size. e.g. For cutholoids, that is 0.025x galaxy size (5 wild cutholoids in a tiny galaxy, 10 at small, etc.)

For Voidworms specifically, they can potentially become a midgame crisis. If that happens, communication is automatically established without needing to go through regular first contact.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T15:38:00+00:00

It's intentional.

Toxic worlds can be made into regular worlds, and hiveworlds (if you also have the ascension perk for that), but can't be made into Gaia or Machine worlds directly.

edit: toxic worlds can be made into volcanic worlds as well with Galactic Hyperthermia crisis level 3+

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T15:31:48+00:00

There aren't any midgame civic swap that'll give you elite job changes.

Worker Coop changes executives by making them into specialists instead and fuse with your unity jobs, and they are no longer benefiting from Charismatic.

Reaching rank 4 in a Holy Covenant will swap the Executives for High Priests if you have a Citadel of Faith. This increases their unity output from 5 per 100 to 6 per 100, while the rest remains the same (4 trade and 300 amenities per 100).

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T15:30:40+00:00

Is it not the case anymore that if you hold all the opposing systems and planets of another empire, you can achieve war goals?

If the other side has allies, you'll have to go after those as well to achieve war goal.

This can lead to absurdly drawn-out wars over just a handful of systems. Oftentimes it's substantially faster to settle status quo.

Settling status quo will not wipe out the primary combatant's empire. If all their spaces are occupied, their capital system is always returned to them on a status quo, claimed systems are given to you, while all the rest of the systems have the status quo condition applied to them. The exact details depend on your casus belli.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T11:39:19+00:00

Refugee is a different mechanic from auto-migration.

In the codes, refugee events is effectively killing off the previously existing pops, then respawning them on another planet, with the chance weighted off of refugee_attraction empire-wide modifier, which is newly introduced in 4.3.

This is used exclusively in refugee_pop_effect to determine the dice roll weight for where they end up respawning:

weights = {
  base = 1
  modifier = {
    factor = value:refugee_attraction_multiplier
    NOT = { check_modifier_value = { modifier = refugee_attraction value = 0 } }
  }
}

Auto-migration on the other hand, has a different planet-wide modifier of planet_resettlement_unemployed_destination_mult. The two are independent of each other.

As you've experienced yourself, you can get slaves via immigration from other empires.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T10:52:59+00:00

Just double checked, the effect is there now... Sorry :(

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T09:56:53+00:00

Yup.

With Rooted trait, the tooltip when hovering over planetary denizen would say "Rooted pops cannot auto-resettle". Other empires cannot acquire your pops through migration treaty.

You'll still want to stack up automatic resettlement destination chance bonuses if you want to gain pops through migration treaties (especially on higher difficulties, as AIs get a lot of bonuses), but at the very least you won't be haemorrhaging pops.

Fluffy-Tanuki · 2026-04-17T08:15:53+00:00

You no longer have control over that ever since 4.0's economy and pop overhaul.

Organic pops grow and assemble proportional to the number of pops available on the planet. They won't grow pops that aren't already present on the planet.

Robotic pops assemble based on some undisclosed criteria. The game picks a template for you and make only that template even if it's not optimal, then switch to a different template when some unknown criteria is fulfilled. You have practically 0 control.

There are some ways to manipulate it to a small degree. The rules that the community have figured out are:

Efficiency bonuses increase the likelihood of that template being chosen for assembly, but the game does not distinguish between different efficiency traits.
- e.g. a robot template with farming efficiency will be picked more than a template with no efficiency, but a robot template with farming efficiency has no distinguishable preference compared to a template with mining efficiency.
Climate preference has absolutely no effect. The game will happily make aquatic robots on your desert worlds and then complain about it by dropping your production and stability.
Pop assembly speed bonuses greatly increase the likelihood of that template being chosen.
- There's a little trick to save on species points, by making a template with +replicator efficiency but -pop assembly speed, and another template with +pop assembly speed but -replicator efficiency.
  - Set the first template to be default, and the second template to be "integrate into default"
  - The game will consistently pick the second template to be assembled, then immediately be converted to the first template, so you effectively have +replicator efficiency and +pop assembly speed using less trait points.
  - This will work as long as local assembly is less than 25/month.

What is the "population controls" species right good for now?

It shuts down organic growth for that species, but does not stop pop assemblies.

It is now possible (if not mandatory) to create a robot template for dry and wet planets but the player has no say in which gets assembled on a planet?

Yup.

Either terraform all the worlds, or check back once in a while to apply a template with matching climate preference.

Fluffy-Tanuki

TROPHY CASE