Evolution Traits – 1.1.7

I always found the selection of species traits in Stellaris lacking in variety and as I really enjoy the species editor and sometimes spend hours just creating new species for my next playthrough I wanted to spice things up a little bit and add more unique traits. I know that there are a lot of trait mods already but except for a few most of them are either low quality or outdated and don’t work as intended.

EvolutionTraits 1.1.7 adds 151 unique species traits (122 organic / 29 machine) sorted into 3 categories:

• Character Traits
• Biological Traits
• Special Traits

The Traits presented in the images above are just some selected examples. There a lot of cool and unique traits included in Evolution Traits. Try out the mod and check them out!

Character Traits are exactly what the name suggests. Some examples for this category are: Corrupt, Lawful, Curious, Heroic, Territorial and Cowardly. Most of the positive traits in this category have at least one negative opposite trait (Athletic – Lethargic, Lawful – Rebellious etc.) and range in cost from -2 to 2 points.

Biological Traits resolve around certain "natural" traits a species can have like: Hibernating, Nocturnal, Herd Behaviour, Exoskeleton etc. In this category you will also find traits about the eating habits of a species (they have a green icon). Those are: Herbivore, Carnivore, Omnivore, Lithovore (for non Lithoid species) and Photosynthesis (makes your empire actually use energy instead of food.).

Special Traits are especially powerful traits with a high trait point cost that, in exchange, will give you some really strong benefits. Examples here are: Immortal, Invisibility and Precognition. Trait point cost ranges from +2 to +8.

Some traits in all of those categories do things species traits can’t do normally so when selecting them your empire will get assigned an empire modifier at the beginning of the game (ONLY for pops that have citizenship in your empire). The game will also check if this condition is still true everytime you or the AI modify a species as well as on a yearly pulse. Some traits will also add new buildings, jobs and leader traits.

I’ve tested every single trait in this mod and they should all work. The only exception here is the Photosynthesis Traits as I had to modify quite a lot of vanilla code to make this work. So there COULD be issues with this one and thats also the reason why Photosynthesis can’t be selected randomly by the AI.

Randomization
Most of the traits added by these mod can be randomly selected by the AI if you play with random empires. I was taking care to set the opposites of each trait in a way so that randomly generated species will still make sense (no species that is rebellious and traditional at the same time for example).

Overly specific traits like flying or Aquatic can’t be choosen by the AI randomly as there is no way to assure that a clearly non-aquatic species would get the Aquatic Trait for example. If you really want this you can still create a custom empire and set it to force spawn in your next game.

Modification
Same as for randomization. Most traits can be added by gene modding but the opposites I have set prevent the AI from doing crazy combinations.

This mod is absolutely fine to play with other trait mods as long as they don’t use the same name convention as I did:
"trait_evo_traitname". I don’t know of a mod that does this so there should be no problems.

ALL the habitability related traits in this mod are compatible with Planetary Diversity. I love PD and so I included this mods planet classes into the code. If you don’t want to use Planetary Diversity though you can absolutely use my mod without it.

Load Order
Trait mods are fairly uncomplicated regarding load order so you can put Evolution Traits somewhere at the top of your order without any problems.

ONLY if you want to play as an photosynthetic gestalt empire (or have a custom AI empire with this combination) be sure to put this mod BELOW Starnet or any other mod that overwrites gestalt jobs. If do you not, synaptic and spawning drones will still have their food upkeep but your empire will spawn without farms or food in storage putting you in a food deficit at the very beginning of the game.

• Add more traits of all categories
• Rework the mod page

Engineers of Life
My currently biggest project. This mod allows you to seed your own primitive civilizations, be the god of the galaxy and lets you breed your own army of space creatures (Amoebas, Tiyanki, Dragons and many more)
Go here if you want to try it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2411220897

Gene Modding Window Expander !!! Highly recommended !!!
Do you also have the problem of the gene modding window being too small for all the custom traits added by mods? The GMWE will solve this problem for you by greatly expanding the window. I highly recommend using this mod with EvolutionTraits!
Go here if you want to try it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434146346

Besides the Gene Modding Window Expander (see above) I also recommend you to use Planetary Diversity and its various submods as it really adds a lot to Stellaris and various traits in this mod will be way better when used in combination with Planetary Diversity.

Not really recommended but many people asked me if I will increase the number of trait picks and/or points in empire creation. The answer is: NO I won’t. My traits are balanced around the vanilla limit but if you really want to go crazy and have more picks for your custom species feel free to add a dedicated mod that does so. There are several of them on the Steam Workshop.