Xenology : Traits Expansion Reborn

XTE:R aims to make every species fully unique, with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some may be excellent explorers, others steadfast defenders. Some are natural leaders, and others yet are born inept and dimwitted. No two alien species are alike. Most positive traits even have a chance to generate special leaders with even greater bonuses, incentivizing the violent conquest or peaceful assimilation of alien races, adding their unique characteristics to your own. Alternatively, you may choose to preserve the purity of your empire to best benefit from the traits of one or very few species. Each trait describes a unique aspect of a species biology or psychology. There is no boring, linear tier system or confusion between societal tenets and biological attributes.

Also, to prevent genemodding from veering into game-breaking territory, species modification costs have been significantly increased. Additionally, adding or removing traits costing over 3 or under -3 trait points after empire creation requires having achieved Evolutionnary Mastery (Biological Ascension) and thus, the Utopia DLC. However, all but a few traits can be picked in empire creation and by the AI. Expensive and useless vanilla traits (Extremely Adaptive, Very Strong and Venerable) have also been boosted with unique leaders. Presapient traits also generate their own very powerful leaders, as befits the difficulty in acquiring them.

I was always somewhat annoyed by how insignificant species traits felt in Stellaris, and how little of an impact on the flow of the game these could make. Now, your starting traits are at least as important as the set of ethics you pick!

As of version 2.1, i’ve rolled back vanilla traits to their original state. This means that unique leaders will no longer spawn for Very Strong, Extremely Adaptive, Venerable and advanced genemodding traits. This is because the changes to the trait IDs caused game-breaking problems that were only exarcerbated with the new Distant Stars DLC. The loss of content is minimal, but I will reintroduce some of the removed features in later patches.

♦ 55 New species traits
• 37 Biological traits
• 18 Machine/robot traits
♦ 30 Special leaders
• Special leaders for XTE:R traits worth 2+ points
♦ Leaders spawn with more traits
• Rulers spawn with 3 traits
• Rulers are 3x more likely to have a relevant special trait than other leaders
• Governors, Scientists, Admirals and Generals spawn with 2 traits
♦ Modifying organic and robot pops takes considerably longer

XTE:R is incompatible with other mods that alter the original 03_species_traits_presapients.txt 04_species_traits.txt 05_species_traits_robotic.txt files (although fortunately, most similar mods use their own separate .txt files). This was absolutely needed to ensure special leaders would not just spawn for any species traits. I’ve tried different methods to work around this, to no avail. Though it is more likely to overwrite/be overwritten by conflicting mods than to cause any crashes, there can be no compatibility patch between XTE:R and any other mod that alters the aformentionned files directly.

Beyond that, it seems to work perfectly with other mods, even those adding traits through a separate file.

Where can I find the full list of traits and leaders?
In the discussion section. All traits and their respective leaders are listed in 3 separate threads. There is unfortunately too little space in the empire creation trait selection to properly list each leader’s effects.

Does the AI use the new traits?
Absolutely! Though it may not always pick the right leaders (I’m not sure if the ai_weight modifiers works for non-scientist leaders). I’ve also locked very few traits and leaders from AI use. I don’t trust the AI to manage an empire with -75% growth speed, or a machine empire unable to build new units.

Why are the new species traits so expensive?
Keep in mind most beneficial traits unlock special leaders, with their own unique bonuses. Unfortunately, the trait selection UI doesn’t give you much space for longer descriptions, so all new features are properly described in the discussion section.

Can I use genetic modification to add or remove XTE:R traits?
Yes, although anything that costs over +3 or under -3 trait points requires Biological Ascension (Utopia) to add or get rid of.

How balanced are the new traits?
Balance is a top priority for me, and when possible I try to calculate trait point and pick costs versus their effects so they line up with vanilla numbers. I also nerfed species modification by making it consiverably more expensive. However some traits have such complex effects I can only theorize about their impact on the game as a whole (especially those that only shine in the early or very late game). Since I cannot test all of them for a full game, please bring any balance issue you encounter to my attention.

Why isn’t it compatible with every other trait mod?
I got that question several dozen times, though I should have done a better job of explaining the reason. There is no way that I know of to get leader traits to check any file other than 04_species_traits.txt for requirements. None whatsoever. If I tried to change it, unique leader traits could appear for literally anyone, defeating the purpose of the whole mod. Still, XTE:R will work with most trait mods and almost all other mods.

Supersized Trait Selection : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1235220661
Ultimate Trait Compatch : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1423034295
Creation Interface : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1371513720

• [HK] for helping me test XTE:R before each release (and gloating over his win months after the fact 😉 )
• [HG Snowyamur] for their sage advice and their excellent Trait Archive
• UnironicWeeaboo for their help rebalancing this mod
• megamen212 for his Russian translation (bear in mind that I have added new traits since, so some traits might remain untranslated)
• Icons8 [store.https] for their ridiculously large collection of high quality icons.

Please be sure to leave a rating and don’t forget to comment if there’s something I need to improve.

Enjoy!