stellaris [mod] [ALPHA] The Abyss Above

[wolfbartz]

I hope that this mod hasn’t died. It was a great concept that I really looked forward to seeing progress on. I’m not a good modder myself so when I see a good or interesting concept lose interest it really bums me out. I hope I’m wrong and the creator has been plugging away. If anyone knows please speak up. Thank you.

[R0amer-475]

Hey.

Sorry for this, but you made a mistake.

in the .mod file, the specified path is
- path="C:/Users/eliho/OneDrive/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/mod/The Abyss Above - Hyper"

I suggest you fix the path to
- path="mod/The Abyss Above - Hyper"
for people who don't know how to mod this game



Cheers!

 

Edited February 15, 2025 by R0amer-475

[DCHY]

With all due respect to the author of the mod and the people here, it seems to me that it is not worth doing modification too quickly. Paradox make bio DLC and change species system, next DLC will DEFINITELY break the system of genetic modifications and the menu of species. It will be a shame to fix everything that is broken

[E V E]

Eve Check-In

Hey all, back from the weekend trip I was on and now I actually have PC access! Also sorry for not responding to these sooner, LL didn't notify me that new posts had been made here. That, or I cleared them somehow without realizing.
 

On 12/14/2024 at 9:12 PM, SpaceRaven said:

I found a pretty major typo in the traits files that breaks the mod, and made it so that all the traits had 0 cost. Each trait was missing instances of the line "has_country_flag = lv_cheat_mode". This made it so that the base cost was immediately cancelled out by the negative modifier below, which is only supposed to be paired with LV cheat mode.

This is how it's supposed to look for each trait, based on how LV traits are set up:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

trait_taa_egglayer_1 = {
    cost = {
        base = 2
        modifier = {
            add = -2
            has_country_flag = lv_cheat_mode
        }
    }
    potential_crossbreeding_chance = 1.0
    allowed_archetypes = { BIOLOGICAL PRESAPIENT LITHOID }
    custom_tooltip = trait_taa_egglayer_1_effect
    
    species_possible_remove = {
        exists = from
        from = {
            OR = {
                can_remove_beneficial_genetic_traits = yes
                has_country_flag = lv_cheat_mode
            }
        }
    }

 

In each instance, the "has_country_flag = lv_cheat_mode" was missing from those two places, which led to the cost canceling out. Also anytime there's an OR = { there needs to be at least two lines beneath, not just one line like this mod had.

I uploaded a fix for affected files, but I'm glad I caught it only 30 years into a game when I took a look at the "Galaxy Species" section and noticed that AI species were applying the most extreme traits at 0 cost. I'm just surprised my PC didn't burst into flames, with how many pops were growing (high even by LV standards).

I hope the mod author takes note and implements this fix on these traits (and any future traits) whenever they get around to updating the mod.

TAA_Fixed_Files.zip 4.87 kB · 15 downloads

 

Thank you!! 

 

Truly. I didn't see this post until now - nor did I run into this in the basic testing I've done - but I've implemented the fix you've mentioned, and will be pushing a hotfix soon (probably tonight). Most of the (limited) coding stuff I've done has been from referencing both LV traits and base Stellaris traits, frankenstein-ing the two together, and most of what I "know" are just assumptions. I'd assumed rather simply that the modifier was the cost that was applied during trait selection, and the base was the displayed cost. IE, a trait with a cost of 2 should subtract 2 from your trait points. Silly in retrospect, but hey, I gotta learn at some point.

This (hopefully) won't happen again.
 

On 2/15/2025 at 10:48 AM, R0amer-475 said:

Hey.

Sorry for this, but you made a mistake.

in the .mod file, the specified path is
- path="C:/Users/eliho/OneDrive/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/mod/The Abyss Above - Hyper"

I suggest you fix the path to
- path="mod/The Abyss Above - Hyper"
for people who don't know how to mod this game



Cheers!

 

 

Ughhhhhh I swear I somehow re-break this every single update. The aforementioned hotfix will also update that path.

 

22 hours ago, DCHY said:

With all due respect to the author of the mod and the people here, it seems to me that it is not worth doing modification too quickly. Paradox make bio DLC and change species system, next DLC will DEFINITELY break the system of genetic modifications and the menu of species. It will be a shame to fix everything that is broken

 

I get where you're coming from, however I doubt it'll be much of an issue for me at this stage:
#1 - I've got, like, seven .txt files and two .yml files at this stage. If anything breaks, there's not much to comb through and fix. Hell, 90% of the file size is just trait descriptions.
#2 - I forget if LL is anti-piracy, but I don't run a version of the game that can update, if you catch my drift. My copy will be 1.13 until I manually hunt down whatever update they drop next. If 1.14 ends up breaking everything, then I'll probably still be working on 1.13 content for a while and firming up my knowledge a bit before I try to convert the mod.

[R0amer-475]

20 hours ago, E V E said:

Ughhhhhh I swear I somehow re-break this every single update. The aforementioned hotfix will also update that path.

 

Yeah, I do not know exactly what the game's compiler does, but for easier linking it takes that "mod/ModNameHere" and turns it into a full path to make compiling easier.
I suggest you always keep a clean copy of the .mod file outside of the folder (for serious project, I would suggest you keep a separate copy of the mod on a secondary location (or better yet, create a git repository)).

Oh, and don't think you're making this mistake alone. The reason why I immediately saw it was because of how many times I made the same mistake (even pushing it into a repository for a project I'm on at one point).

[ZeroOneOut]

really nice mod : D I don't know if it'd be possible, but it would be cool if the more extreme perks created visual changes to planet, such as the planet being visibly covered in breasts or eggs : P 

[SpaceRaven]

On 3/2/2025 at 6:07 AM, ZeroOneOut said:

really nice mod : D I don't know if it'd be possible, but it would be cool if the more extreme perks created visual changes to planet, such as the planet being visibly covered in breasts or eggs : P 

 

What you're asking is almost certainly impossible, or would require absurd effort to implement. There's no easy way to modify the graphical assets of a planet without entirely changing the planet type. Plus I don't think there is any way to have a planet change it's appearance based on what traits some species have.

Traits are relatively easy to create and don't have any visual impact on anything other than pops, and creating a mechanic were pops change their looks based on traits (such as the gender traits in LV) is already incredibly tedious as-is.

Edited March 3, 2025 by SpaceRaven

[schroecat]

On 3/4/2025 at 5:29 AM, SpaceRaven said:

 

What you're asking is almost certainly impossible, or would require absurd effort to implement. There's no easy way to modify the graphical assets of a planet without entirely changing the planet type. Plus I don't think there is any way to have a planet change it's appearance based on what traits some species have.

Traits are relatively easy to create and don't have any visual impact on anything other than pops, and creating a mechanic were pops change their looks based on traits (such as the gender traits in LV) is already incredibly tedious as-is.

It should be possible.  Ocean worlds can change their appearance on the screen to be underwater with Aquatic species iirc.  

[SpaceRaven]

1 hour ago, schroecat said:

It should be possible.  Ocean worlds can change their appearance on the screen to be underwater with Aquatic species iirc.  

 

Ah I didn't consider changing the BG art for planets, I thought they meant the actual appearance of the planet in the system view.

 

But still that BG art changes based on the specific type of species present, not the traits. No idea if it's possible to implement a similar system based on traits, but I don't imagine it would be very easy.

[schroecat]

1 hour ago, SpaceRaven said:

 

Ah I didn't consider changing the BG art for planets, I thought they meant the actual appearance of the planet in the system view.

 

But still that BG art changes based on the specific type of species present, not the traits. No idea if it's possible to implement a similar system based on traits, but I don't imagine it would be very easy.

You're right, changing the art in the system view would be much harder.

[E V E]

On 3/2/2025 at 9:07 AM, ZeroOneOut said:

really nice mod : D I don't know if it'd be possible, but it would be cool if the more extreme perks created visual changes to planet, such as the planet being visibly covered in breasts or eggs : P 

In an ideal world, absolutely. I know other mods have custom planet art, and I've seen at least one mod (I believe the piss kink mod that came out a few months ago) implement custom planet textures. It's definitely doable.

Though, as with many mods, texturing and art is the limitation here. I can brute force my way through something as simple as a trait icon, but anything more complex quickly scales beyond my artistic talents. I'm not going to steal art off of google, and I'm absolutely not going to use AI. So planet art, event art, archeology art, etc. is all pie-in-the-sky dream stuff for now.

 

It may happen someday, though. Who knows.

[voidlord3092]

I am just eagerly awaiting the patch that works on the Height traits.

[MasterZak]

I'm not clear on whether planet art alone can be changed without the planet class itself, but even if it can, I don't think changing it would be clean to implement since there would need to be planet graphics for each planet class (otherwise desert worlds would end up with some generic continental world picture, for example). It's not impossible, it's just undynamic. Modded planets would need patches or would be incompatible.

Simple planet modifiers or features would probably be better, if you ever get the chance to add that idea. Though the final stage of the breasts size and lube traits would probably necessitate a new planet classes going by their descriptions.

 

On another note, given that so many trait descriptions mention disasters and the need for servants, I think they need to have accompanying events that add devastation and maybe planet modifiers that add servant jobs based on the number of pops with those traits. Without that, the traits would be talking about things that aren't actually tangible.

[SpaceRaven]

On 3/5/2025 at 5:33 PM, E V E said:

I'm not going to steal art off of google, and I'm absolutely not going to use AI

 

Absolutely based AF

 

9 hours ago, MasterZak said:

I'm not clear on whether planet art alone can be changed without the planet class itself, but even if it can, I don't think changing it would be clean to implement since there would need to be planet graphics for each planet class (otherwise desert worlds would end up with some generic continental world picture, for example). It's not impossible, it's just undynamic. Modded planets would need patches or would be incompatible.

 

Yeah that's what I was thinking too about planet art.

Another equivalent I can think of that I know for a fact is possible (and a lot easier to make) in the current build is creating some new planet modifers that show up once there are enough pops with that trait (like the various synergy traits in LV). That way you could add an icon in the planet view that shows whatever art you want, but doesn't mess with the actual BG that are dependent on planet class. Ofc there's no guaranteeing it'll show up if you use mods that add a ton of new planetary modifiers/deposits like Planetary Diversity, or Guilli's Modifiers, but that's a separate issue

[E V E]

On 3/6/2025 at 5:51 AM, voidlord3092 said:

I am just eagerly awaiting the patch that works on the Height traits.

The height gain traits are ~50% done, and I haven't touched the shrinking ones. Regarding the height gain traits, the hard part's actually done. They need editing, but I've got trait descriptions finished for all of them. The roadblock there is figuring out what kind of buffs/things they should impact. Height (growing) is probably going to be military/army buff focused. But height (shrinking)? I'm kinda stumped.

 

So they're upcoming on the chopping block, but not planned for the next update.

[MasterZak]

On 3/15/2025 at 8:26 AM, E V E said:

The roadblock there is figuring out what kind of buffs/things they should impact. Height (growing) is probably going to be military/army buff focused. But height (shrinking)? I'm kinda stumped.

There's a mod called Trait Diversity on Steam that adds height traits too.

I think they just range from tallest being really powerful militarily but also really expensive to maintain and house, while the small ones are weak militarily but really cheap to maintain and house.

Maybe they can also affect leader lifespan? Learning speed? Pop growth rate? Tall traits raise lifespan but lower learning and pop growth, and short traits the inverse, perhaps? Or small ones could just increase specialist output because small size means higher attention to detail. 

Just a few suggestions.

[CyberSnerg]

please dear god i need a synth version of this for synths

[Talamaeus]

I wonder if there will be an image reflection of these traits. Text is fun, but a visual component could be cool too. But I know THAT would be WAY down the pipeline. So my question is, are you looking to do that at some time?

[E V E]

22 hours ago, Talamaeus said:

I wonder if there will be an image reflection of these traits. Text is fun, but a visual component could be cool too. But I know THAT would be WAY down the pipeline. So my question is, are you looking to do that at some time?

Probably not ever beyond event images. I think it's possible to make an event that'd change your species's portrait set - I vaguely remember another mod doing that - but IMO not only would the work needed be pretty intense for even a single route (4-8 sprites with 4-6 stages, meaning 16-48 character portraits minimum) but you'd ideally have several variations of every single tree, and at that point the work requirement becomes astronomical.

Though, to be honest, I don't think event/species/planet art is necessarily the way I want to take this mod.
 

I've been trying to keep everything as gender neutral, species neutral, and sexuality neutral as possible. LV is a great mod, but I know whenever I play it that most of the erotic scenarios and art is heterosexual. Which undermines a lot of the kinks for me. It's difficult to explain, but the tonal dissonance between playing an all-female authoritative breeding superiority empire, and every event being frail cis white women being bred by an off-screen buff guy sucks. So, I try to avoid that in my own mod. If someone wants to play as men with hyper breasts or a genderless hyper breeding hivemind, I don't want to interrupt that fantasy with *boom* event with cishet human x alien Mass Effect fan art. Again, not a jab at LV, it's just a personal taste thing.

 

TL;DR - Maybe event art and planet art someday, but likely no species portraits. And even then, event and planet art is up in the air because 1) This is at like alpha 0.5 and I'm slow at updating it and 2) I'm worried that artwork might limit others enjoyment of the mod.

[Blooda]

On 3/15/2025 at 3:26 AM, E V E said:

The height gain traits are ~50% done, and I haven't touched the shrinking ones. Regarding the height gain traits, the hard part's actually done. They need editing, but I've got trait descriptions finished for all of them. The roadblock there is figuring out what kind of buffs/things they should impact. Height (growing) is probably going to be military/army buff focused. But height (shrinking)? I'm kinda stumped.

 

So they're upcoming on the chopping block, but not planned for the next update.

 

That's an easy one here's some suggestions off the top of my head:

Height (Growing)
+Army Buffs (as you mentioned, maybe scaling collateral damage?)

+Worker Output (Easier to yank minerals out of the earth when you can operate larger machines with more of a gung-ho attitude.)

-Specialist Output (It becomes substantially harder to make things like circuit boards or to analyze things on smaller scales, ect)

+Housing Required (Because BIG)

-Migration Speed/Pop Migration (It's an increasingly larger hassle with size)

+Resettlement Costs (See above)

+Pop Upkeep (Eat More, Need larger consumer goods)

 

Height (Shrinking)

-Army debuffs (Other than swarm tactics they require complicated machines to give themselves the ability to defend themselves)

-Worker Output (Requires large (relative to their size) and complicated machines or special accommodations to do worker jobs)

+Specialist Output (Creative solutions comes to those with disadvantages, assembly of smaller and more intricate parts becomes easier)

-Housing Required (Because SMOL)

+Migration Speed/Pop Migration (The smaller you get the easier it is to store a city in a air conditioned shipping container)

-Resettlement Costs (See above)

 

Optional(Either or)

+District/Building Maintenance? (Beyond a certain point you'll have to design/redesign areas for people above a certain size)

Positive Events? (To balance out the fact it won't be the best trait)

+Sex Output (The bigger the size difference, the more exotic for fetishists the higher the output)

+/-Milk Output

-Pop Upkeep (Eat less, need smaller consumer goods)

 

I wouldn't touch growth speeds since I think you can easily be abstract it into the pop upkeep and assume 1 'pop' of small pops is roughly the same mass as 1 'pop' of big pops, and at certain extreme levels maybe you can touch pop growth.

 

Keep up the good work!

 

 

[ArgentBlue]

A little fyi, I noticed that the version mentioned in the change log (0.0.4c) doesn't match with the version number of the available file (0.0.4b).

 

Thank you for your work.

[E V E]

Eve Check-In

Hey all, it's been a while so I figured I'd pop in and give an update on the mod!

 

What's been going on?

TL;DR - Another little storm of delays and issues. I needed to get - and luckily have since gotten - a new pair of glasses, Biogenesis and 4.0 had me hold off until they were both released, and scattered throughout were some more personal things. The last few months have been busier than I expected. Though, there's good news too. I managed to get a little extra cash, and I've got *most* DLCs on an official copy of the game! Still missing a bunch of story packs and the newest two (Machine Age and Biogenesis) but this is a big improvement. I'll now be able to test my mod on the most recent version of the game, and - at least for now - I'm able to test interactions with most DLC mechanics.

Because of all these delays, this has caused 0.0.5a to grow to quite the feature list...

 

What's going to be in 0.0.5a?

Confirmed, will absolutely be in the patch:

* Three new trait trees (height [growing], ass size and cum volume) along with all the previous traits being updated to 4.0.
* First few attempts at adding custom technologies to the game! Food additives will increase pop growth rates, generators that use HYPER energy as actual energy, and reinforced clothing that will lower pop amenity usage.

* Thumbnail icons for several existing trait trees.
* A handful of new anomalies to investigate. A moon covered in strange little marbles, a planet with odd bands of fossils, a cluster of unidentifiable asteroids, the remnants left behind by a previous civilization that'd unlocked HYPER technology, and more.

 

Possible, may be in the new patch or in subsequent updates:

* Up to three new archeological sites, including a temple from which a constant stream of milk flows.

* Potentially two new precursor event chains.

* Two new traditions, one focused on "subtly" modifying your species to be hornier, and one focused on monetizing your newfound HYPER modifications.

 

When will 0.0.5a drop?

As of right now, I'm not promising anything. However I'm hoping to update this mod sometime in the next week or two. Whether that actually happens or not depends on whether my brain allows me to stare at visual studio without going cross-eyed. Time will tell, but yes. I am still here!

[Hupfer3]

Great news! Can't wait to read the first anomalies from your mod! Hope the archeological sites follow soon.

Btw, on which platform did you buy stellaris and its DLCs?

Edited June 9, 2025 by Hupfer3

[Hupfer3]

Is there an update on the ETA of the next patch?

[Djinman]

Hey, I hope things are going okay.

I'm really excited to play the new version as it's been weird not having your traits to aim for as an end-game empire.

Good luck with the VS demons!