Whoniverse Galaxy Mod

  It’s been a while since I last released a new mod, so I’m very happy to finally announce Ascendancy Redux ! AR is a simple yet fairly extensive species modpack introducing all playable species from the classic PC game Ascendancy (1995) . Ascendancy is a 4X space strategy title released in 1995 - just a year before the much more famous Master of Orion II. While definitely flawed, the game introduced several innovations that later became genre staples, such as fully 3D galaxy and solar-system views. What truly set it apart, however, was its mysterious atmosphere, created through ambient synth music and a selection of bizarre alien races. There were no humanoids in Ascendancy: instead, you could play as sandwich-like membranoids (Kambuchka), unicellular organisms (Mebes), or the self-explanatory Oculons. Today, the game is essentially abandonware.   Ascendancy’s alien species were once implemented in Stellaris through the Ascendancy Races mod, which is now unfortunately outda...

 Almost since the inception of the Whoniverse Galaxy Mod , I have been challenged by how the Ascension mechanics of Stellaris interact with the Daleks. With choices between Genetic, Cybernetic, and Psionic ascension, the Daleks have elements of all three, yet each presents significant thematic issues: While Daleks have some (mostly latent) psionic abilities, I can hardly see them communicating with the Shroud, except possibly trying to invade it. Cybernetics seem fitting, but all Daleks are already cyborgs. It feels as if they already achieved this ascension long time ago. Genetics aligns most closely with their ideology, yet existing non-cybernetic traits fail to fully reflect their true development. The solution is clear: Daleks require a unique Tradition Tree that truly represents their ambitions, technologies, and societal progress. With patch 0.8, I am proud to introduce the first incarnation of the Dalek Ascension Tradition Tree , unlocked by the Dalek Ascension perk:  T...

With the year nearly over, it feels like the perfect time to reflect on the progress made throughout 2024. So far, I’ve worked on three mods: Whoniverse Galaxy Mod (WGM) , Parasitic Assimilators , and Disable the Chosen . Among these, it’s no secret that WGM has been my primary focus, receiving as much of my attention as I could spare. I began work on WGM back in June. The first patch included only the Dalek faction , and at the time, I had no idea how far the mod would evolve. Now, six months later, version 0.72 features ten unique factions , each with their own origins, civics, traits, and more. Take a look at the current roster of empires in the table below: But that's not all! The mod also includes: 70 individual portraits with custom sounds, 14 new empire flags , 22 handcrafted solar systems , 5 archaeological dig sites , 8 custom leaders , A variety of new ascension perks and event chains . It’s safe to say that a lot of work has gone into the mod over the past six months—...

So, after a short break, I'm back to tinkering with the Whoniverse Galaxy Mod! Even though the mod takes place after the Last Great Time War, ever since the mod started there were always requests for a particular Classic Who element - the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, as seen in the Remembrence of the Daleks episode. Myself. I love this part of Dalek history myself, finding a way to implement them, though, took some time to think through. After some very fruitful discussions on the mod's Steam page I came up with a solution - there will a single new origin, Dalek Civil War , which will enable two Civics - one for the Imperial Daleks, and another for the Renegades. This way, the game will be able to tell which faction is which and correctly spawn the other one. So if you start a new game as the Imperial Dalek Faction, the Renegades will spawn automatically - no need to force spawn them as a preset empire! I'm also aiming to implement failsafes to prevent the opposite fa...

The Chosen are an event faction introduced in the First Contact DLC which spawns in wormhole-locked territory in about 25% of all games. While testing my Whoniverse Galaxy mod, I came upon a regular problem: every time they spawned, the game was effectively hijacked by them. I guess feature bloat is a real thing in Stellaris! Unfortunately, there is no way to turn The Chosen off in the game settings, which is what lead me to make a simple fix - disable them by modifying the relevant event file. The result is tiny mod with which is fittingly called Disable The Chosen .    You can download it here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3308303247 https://mods.paradoxplaza.com/mods/87550/Any It's possible I'll come with more feature-blockers in the feature, as Whoniverse Galaxy is becoming pretty event-heavy by itself. Have a good day!