Making It Into A Mass Effect Strategy Game With Stellaris Mod

One of the main factors in the popularity of Mass Effect is the sheer amount of detail that BioWare placed into creating the game's setting. A galaxy teeming with life is wonderfully created by the variety of systems, species, civilizations, and technological advancements. These pillars also provide the ideal backdrop for a strategic game that takes place in space.

That's probably precisely what the Binary Helix mod team had in mind when they made a huge mod that effectively turned Stellaris into a Mass Effect aesthetic. The Stellaris mod, Beyond the Relays, brings the whole Milky Way galaxy from the Mass Effect series (thanks, PC Gamer).

This contains "381 custom solar systems gathered from the ME3 Spectre Expansion and Expanded Galaxy Mods, allusions from lore through in-game emails, Specter terminal messages, news broadcasts; the novels, comics, fanfics, and Mass Effect: Paragon Lost."

Beyond the Relays also offers a primary relay and a secondary relay for the Mass Relay Network. Every significant species from the series is included in the meticulously researched mod, as well as obscure species from spin-offs and related works.

Last but not least, the mod offers three distinct game modes: "traditional Stellaris sandbox with each empire starting on equal footing;" "Canon" game mode starting shortly after the First Contact War; each species starting with their lore-accurate colonies, technologies, and fleets; and a third hybrid mode that will allow players to play as empires that are primarily event-driven in the Canon map."

The mod got a fresh update in May despite having been released in November of last year. This update marks the beginning of the mod's significant Eden Prime overhaul. The Alliance, Asari, Turian, Salarian, Batarian, Hanar, Volus, and Elcor are the first empires introduced to Prothean dig-sites.

The patch notes said that "something less visible but perhaps as obvious is our AI change." As we started testing our internal versions of the mod, it became evident that the AI needed a significant overhaul in order to function as we had envisioned. Once this is done, you should notice that the AI civilizations in your games behave more naturally in accordance with their lore counterparts. "