Mod «Technology Ascendant» for Stellaris (v3.4.*)

Have you ever felt technology across the galaxy was too equal? No one rising to the top in a certain field, but lagging behind in others? Do you miss institutions from EU4? I know I do.

This adds twelve breakthrough technologies, one for each specialization (particles, materials, biology, etc) that dramatically increase research speed in that field, along with other unique empire bonuses. They are incredibly rare, likely to originally spawn in a single empire across the course of the game.

New Mechanics

Breakthroughs have a unique spread system, and depending on your relationship with your neighbors you are more or less likely to learn their secrets over time. The goal is that different parts of the galaxy may end up specializing in entirely different fields, with one empire far ahead in biology and society while in an opposite corner another empire is on the cutting edge in physics.

Each breakthrough is more likely to spawn under different ethics and traditions, with bonuses for specific ascension perks, and scientist skills, making it nearly impossible to spawn all of the breakthroughs yourself, and hopefully spreading different technology boosts across the galaxy. However, having a neighbor who has a breakthrough will do far more for you than stacking all the perfect modifiers to spawn the technology yourself. Once a breakthrough appears, it will begin to spread. All neighboring empires will have dramatically increased chances of drawing that tech and friendly empires will get double the spread bonus. The Enigmatic Engineering perk however will block breakthrough spread.

Specialization

Over time, your empire will specialize depending on the technologies you choose. This happens because every breakthrough that you take in Engineering will slightly decrease your chances of drawing a breakthrough in the other fields Society and Physics, or visa versa. Hive and Machine empires ignore this specialization rule to balance out the fact that they do not have any ethics that can boost spawn chance of a specific breakthrough, and that they are less likely to have friendly neighbors to share tech with. Hives and Machines will generally have a slightly lower chance of spawning breakthroughs at the start of the game, but should catch up as other empires begin to acquire specialization maluses.

Once an empire gets 3 breakthroughs, they will not be able to spawn any more themselves, they have become set in their ways and lost their innovative edge. The only way to get the remaing breakthroughs is to have them spread from neighbor empires, or take the technological ascendancy ascension perk.

The game will monitor your relationship with your neighbors, and if opinion falls below zero you will get a popup to inform you that the chance of breakthrough spread has fallen, and again if you can boost relations back to positive. You should also recieve pop ups every time a known empire aquires a breakthrough, and you can see in the tooltip what is needed to boost spread chance. There is also mapmode added that shows the number of breakthroughs each empire has.

Since the mod works by boosting research speed, you will complete the tech tree faster than in a usual game. To balance this, I usually play with the game start slider for tech/tradition cost at 1.25x or 1.5x.

Other Features

New repeatable technologies with a stacking weight mechanic, like breakthroughs. The more levels of an individual repeatable you take, the less likely you are to draw it again, forcing you to spread out your research. There is a stand alone version below. New Research Philosophy Policy. Steer your planetary research labs towards a particular field, hoping to get the breakthrough you want sooner, or perhaps, balancing out your research once you've made a few. Research policy is also a stand alone mod.

22.03.20 (3.3.*-3.4.*)

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