Engineers of Life Updated – 3.4

This is a semi-unofficial update to NukaBoy’s excellent Engineers of Life , uploaded with his permission. The original ideas and code are NukaBoy’s, I have only made some small balance changes, fixed a couple of bugs and updated the mod to. Detailed notes at the end of the description.

NOTE: This mod has been updated to 3.4. I have uploaded a second legacy/compatibility listing for 3.3.4 HERE which will not be updated further, excepting bug fixes if needed.

Images and most of description also NukaBoy’s, used with permission.

This mod enables you to fill the galaxy with more life by creating new primitive civilizations or breeding your own space creatures. Please report any bugs or issues you run into in the bugs, issues and compatibility thread below.

• Build Seed Ships which allow you spawn new primitive civilizations.
• A new observation post option which allows you to advance primitives to their next stage of development as opposed to simply "enlightening" them.
• New Origin "The Creators" unlocks seed ships from the start of the game, as well as some other fun surprises.
• A new megastructure and 2 new APs allow you to breed your own space creatures and leviathans to add to your offensive and defensive armies

Seed Ships create a new, randomly generated civilization on the chosen planet. Unlock Seed Ships with the rare late game tech "Sapient Life Engineering," which has prerequisites of Targeted Gene Expressions and Gene Banks.

A new observation post mission allows you to advance primitive civilizations through their stages of technical development instead of simply enlightening them directly to the space age.

This origin works similar to the scion origin, but you won’t be the vassal of a fallen empire. Instead, the Ancient Caretakers will look up to you, and offer you tribute as well as other benefits over time.

• Unlocks Sapient Life Engineering (Seed Ships) from the game start
• Colony and seed ships cost 50% less
• Start on a size 25 Relic world with special blockers
• The Ancient Caretakers will recognize you, and:
• Give you a relic upon first contact that allows you to summon a single FE battlecruiser every 10 years
• Will not give you tasks but instead pay you tribute in the form of resources, technology or fleets sometimes

This new megastructure is your home base for building your space creature army. It is unlocked by the technology "Bio Engineering Program", a T3 technology with the prerequisites Cloning, Genome Mapping and Xenobiology.

It has 2 construction stages stages and a monthly upkeep of 15 energy and 25 food, and produces 150 society research as well as adds 30 naval capacity.

The Bio Engineering Facility can only be build around single stars and black holes, not in binary or trinary systems.

To access the breeding overview select the megastructure and click on the button ‘breed creatures’.

Leviathan Engineering unlocks most of the Leviathans:

• Tiyanki Matriarch
• Crystal Core
• Shroud Avatar
• Voidspawn
• Ether Drakes
• Dimensional Horror

To select Leviathan Engineering you have to have selected at least 2 other ascension perks.

Ultimate Leviathan Engineering unlocks the Stellar Devourer. The most powerful of all the Leviathans. To select Ultimate Leviathan Engineering, you must select at least 3 other ascension perks, at least one of which must be Leviathan Engineering.

The space amoeba section includes hatchlings, Mothers, and Amoeba Centenarians. Space Amoebas have no special abilities but they are rather cheap. Centenarians are about as strong as a Battleship.

The tiyanki section includes Tiyanki Calfs, Tiyanki Cows, Tiyanki Bulls, and the Tiyanki Matriarch. Tiyanki Cows and Bulls each have a special aura. Cows have a healing parasites aura that heals ships in the same fleet and Bulls have a rage pheromones aura that increases fire rate by +10%. The matriarch has both of those auras.

The crystal section includes Shardlings, Shards, Crystal Quintessences and Crystal Cores. Crystals are cheaper than most other creatures and only cost minerals and a small amount of rare crystals. The crystal core is a defense only ship that can’t travel hyperlanes and needs to use gateways for travel.

The void cloud section includes Lesser Void Clouds, Void Clouds and Shroud Avatars. Void Clouds are very strong but they need additional technologies to unlock (Psionic Theory and Zro Mining). They cost energy to breed and a small amount of zro.

The Voidspawn is one of the stronger leviathans. Its weaponry is based on launcher weapons so it can easily be countered by heavy point defense fleets. It has an empire wide limit of 3.

The ether drake section includes Ether Drake Hatchlings and Ether Drakes. Ether Drakes are overall balanced and have a strength of 50 – 60k (mature). Hatchlings have a limit of 8 per empire and mature drakes a limit of 3.

The dimensional horror, like the crystal core, is a defense only ship that can only travel using gateways and wormholes. It’s the second most powerful leviathan and costs dark matter to conjure it. It has a limit of 3 per empire.

The stellar devourer is the most powerful of the leviathan with a strength of 130k+ and the ability to destroy whole star systems. To unlock it you need both ascension perks added by this mod, Leviathan Engineering and Ultimate Leviathan Engineering.

I’ve just taken over this mod and am still getting my head around its code. As of now, my future roadmap includes:

• Add/fix all broken localization keys
• Further code polishing
• (far future)Make the Bio-Engineering Facility respect ship build times, allowing the leviathan fleets to have build times as opposed to simply popping into existence
• Compatibility work for ACOT, Gigastructures, and ZOFE.

PATCH NOTES 5/24/22:

Updated code to game version 3.4.
Improved/edited code behind Custodian Beacon acquisition. It will now take a year or so after the custodians meet you for them to give the beacon, but this method has MASSIVELY improved compatibility with other mods as it no longer needs to overwrite the entire first contact event.
Fixed several issues with ship components.

NSC2 Compat Patch Here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812333185