Overview

Are you a fanatic xenophile when it comes to blue aliens? Do you wish Silfae's "Animated Asari Portraits" mod was up-to-date? This mod is for you! With this mod, now you can play the Asari Republics as designed and use all the gameplay elements for your own empires.

There are lots of other mods which contain the same or similar portraits, so why should you choose this one? Silfae's art style meshes well with Stellaris, or maybe you want to play her version of the Asari Colonies - content which this mod again makes playable. Please enjoy my translation of Silfae's custom empire into modern Stellaris.

Changes

All gameplay features from the original mod are upgraded to be fully compatible with Stellaris 3.8 "Gemini," the latest version when this was written. Updates include:

• Code now sets the pre-scripted Asari Colonies empire portraits to have gender = female
  • This is now implemented through the feature introduced in Stellaris 3.2 to specify a mono-gender species during empire creation
• Improve Asari portrait definitions and selectors
  • Clothing selectors influenced by Pop job
  • Fix syntax error in Asari mesh definitions
  • Reduce duplication in portrait entity definitions, mesh definitions, and asset selectors
• Update the namelist to account for all built-in army types, remove obsolete entries; Army names more lore-friendly
• Update namelist to support any gender and not just female
• Replace original Asari trait with "Cellular Regeneration" that grants the majority of the age boost (and leader XP penalty) and is available for any species to use
• Update pre-scripted empire for 3.0+
  • Now has Origin: Prosperous Unification
  • Some negatives of the original Asari trait had corresponding negative traits, so Deviants and Slow Learners were added instead
  • Added Unruly - Asari government is extremely decentralized and "young" Asari tend to be restless and rebellious, it seemed to fit
  • Can randomly spawn
  • Gains Psionic Theory for free
• As of Stellaris 3.8, the Asari are part of the Humanoid species class
• Add custom trait "Asari Longevity" for species using the Asari portraits
  • This trait makes leaders begin at an older age
  • Add bonus lifespan to compensate for their older starting age
  • Automatically given to any species designed with the Asari portraits for free at game start
  • Enhanced art from original trait

Compatibility

Compatible with any mod that does not add the same portraits or art assets.

The Launcher will tell you that some mods are outdated - that is because the dependency is out of date with the game's version number. This mod overwrites and replaces all incompatible code so that the portrait mod will function as originally designed. You can safely ignore the out-of-date warning for the dependency mod.

Built for Stellaris version 3.8 "Gemini." Not compatible with achievements.

Dependencies

In order for this mod to function, you must install the following mod and load it before this one:

Animated Asari Portraits by Silfae

When to Install

This mod should be added before the game has started. If you remove it from a game in progress, your game may have graphical problems if any species was using the custom portraits.

Known Issues

Silfae's original mod does not include graphics for ecumenopoleis, so they will fall back to the Avian graphical culture. If anyone knows of a mod that provides said stage-6 city picture, I would be happy to investigate getting permission to reuse the graphics, or add it as a dependency to this one.

Changelog

• 1.0.0 Initial version
• 1.0.1 Don't allow other species to use the 0-cost Asari trait
• 1.0.2 Namelist tweaks
• 2.0.0 Update for compatibility with Stellaris version 3.1 "Lem"
  • Add new localisation keys introduced in 3.1
  • Set Asari as female-only using new features (start a new game or run event asari_evt.3 to update an existing game)
  • Fix capitalization issue with second names that started with "th" in the namelist
• 3.0.0 Update for compatibility with Stellaris version 3.2 "Herbert"
  • Use new "mono-gender" species choice to set the pre-scripted empire to gender = female
  • Remove event to force the Asari portraits to be female (the game can do this now)
  • Ensure namelist works with any gender
• 3.0.1 No longer ignore portrait duplication for the pre-scripted empire
• 4.0.0 Update for compatibility with Stellaris version 3.3 "Libra"
  • Asari traits use the new properties that replaced modification
  • Use a shared set of triggers for job-based clothing
• 5.0.0 Update for Stellaris version 3.4 "Cepheus"
  • Update shared triggers
  • All static text moved to localisation (random names, name lists, prescripted empire)
• 5.1.0 Further enhancements for Stellaris version 3.4 "Cepheus" - add a slave cost adjustment for the custom trait
• 5.1.1 Fix duplicate localisation key for a planet name in the Asari name list
• 6.0.0 Update for Stellaris version 3.6 "Orion" (and changes from version 3.5 "Fornax")
  • Minor namelist updates
  • Update hair to attachment
• 6.0.1 Fix "BLANK_STRING" literal that was used for the ship prefix by the prescripted empire
• 7.0.0 Update for Stellaris version 3.7 "Canis Minor"
  • Update shared triggers for Pop portraits
  • Remove global flag
  • Add compatibility trigger has_asari_portraits_revisited_active
• 8.0.0 Update for Stellaris version 3.8 "Gemini"
  • Asari are now part of the Humanoid species class (thanks to changes by Paradox, this is no longer mod-unfriendly)
  • Update prescripted empire to use the new prescripted ruler class and trait system
  • Update shared triggers
  • Integrate underlying game changes

Source Code

Hosted on GitHub

Development Notes

It is best to clone this repository into <Stellaris User's Directory>/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/mod, and then make a connection to the mod folder via a *.mod file's path property. That will ensure the game can see the files, and also that CWTools will parse them. Also note that the README.md file exists in the mod directory but is symbolically linked in the root directory.

Special Thanks

I was inspired to extend the original mod when I saw Endugu's expansion of Silfae's Animated Xirmian Portraits. Modular mods that require downloading the original mod(s) help give credit where credit is due.

An extra special thanks to Silfae for creating and sharing so many detailed, animated portraits for the community.