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[DEVBLOG#294] Vanilla Races Expanded - Starjack infographics (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-18 17:43:23
Imported:
2025-07

Content

Hey folks!

We have been hard at work when it comes to overhauling starjacks in Odyssey DLC. It's a really cool, orbit-oriented xenotype, but it feels a bit too 'safe', as if Ludeon was afraid to leap further with them. And maybe they were. But we aren't.

This mod will push starjacks to the extreme, making them extremely effective in space, and borderline useless on the surface.

I have now prepared the infographics, so you can dive in and see all the cool new genes coming in this mod.

It's also fully coded, so we are preparing for release now!

Without further a-do, let's take a look at the fancy images!

Let me know what you think, and while you do that, I will return to modding mines. Let's just say I've hit a huge vein of gravship-moddium. Need to mine that. Lol.

Files

Comments

Loofy

They should be alcoholics because he just looks like one

Jack Hazardous

NGL this is a better portrayal of them than the soyjaks I've seen them compared to lmao

Steelharbinger

This looks like quite the improvement! Would it be overkill to add the delicate gene to them? You’ve represented their low muscle mass in reduced damage, but taking extra damage might be appropriate too? (Unless it’s already on there and I’m misremembering which icon is which).

Computica

They are more like those people who were made to survive long distance travel on Foundation now.

Oskar Potocki

It'd tip their metabolism, so I don't think it's necessary. I imagine they can survive quite a lot, they just can't hit too hard.

Steven Hawkins II

Is there a way to pump air/oxygen out of rooms while on the surface? I feel like there should be a way to bring oxygen sensitive pawns with you and keep them safe while planetside. It would also make for an interesting kill box design...

Noah Neundorfer

Not sure if the the anomaly entity expanded plans are on a permanent pause, but any thoughts on adding new anomaly entities specifically for space/gravships?

dan surratt

It would be cool if there was a build that 'reduced the oxygen/airlocked' a enclosed room so you could build not as much settlements but bases around the surface of the planet, that and using them as a defense, though i imagine they would need to cost a lot to maintain. Think kind of like building roofed areas and changes to the way you plan out a colony when you have sangrophages expanded and extremely sensitive to sunlight pawns, plus a depressurized room is fun.

Oskar Potocki

Since they only have intense oxygen sensitivity, they’ll survive, but no, our check doesn’t actually check oxygen level (because it’s something only present in space) and instead simple checks whether they’re on the planet or on the surface. That’s the only way to code it.

Oskar Potocki

Hopefully Ludeon does it. It’s very VERY low priority.

dan surratt

I wanna preface with that i am a programmer but haven't worked on rimworld mods so i dont know what the coding space looks like, but i imagine it might be feasible to have a check for if on world or not, if not on planet surface use current system, if on planet surface do the following: check if in room (if so) apply relevant debuff and effect (if else) check current room and have a variable similar to how beauty or rich a room is but for oxygen level, then for that stat make sure the room is enclosed and if adjacent to a room with oxygen and has for example an open door or similar equalize the amount of oxygen between the rooms, if open to the map instead of equalizing just increase it rapidly (consider the outside having infinite oxygen)

Oskar Potocki

Thats… inventing a whole system with many potential fail points, and many checks that’d be bad for performance, having to be done almost all the time as rooms pressurize and depressurize. I don’t think it’s worth it. Simply use starjacks in space, or accept the drawbacks of them on the surface. I don’t think we need some complex oxygen system here for the planet.

ZenoLord

Will the oxygen sensitivity genes be affected by the vac resistance stat of the apparel worn by the pawns? I'd make sense that a sealed suit that allows its user to breathe in orbit without issues also nullifies the negatives on the ground. Most of the vac resistant clothing options already have a move speed debuff so there would still be a trade off. On the note of sealed suits, any plans for the health rework mod in that area?

Oskar Potocki

We’re looking into it but it’s unlikely. VacuumResistance on apparel is only a modifier to vacuum resistance of the pawn - and starjacks have 96% vacuum resistance. If we used the same system, they’d simply be immune to oxygen and lack of oxygen.

NeverSink

I totally agree that the Starjack is a bit underwhelming, but I dislike the redesign as well. My core issue is that Xenotypes that are designed around the question of WHERE you play are inherently boring. This is far less interesting than let's say Hussars or your (excellent) phytokin mod or sanguophages that adjusts HOW you play the game. If I may, I'd suggest going even less safe with them. An example I could envision: - Vacuum exposure dependency: they're built for the cold vacuum of space. Their metabolism requires occasional exposure to extreme cold or the vaccum to function. On the ground they need a special cooling chamber to function. A special pill could be used alternatively/on the road. Going for a walk into space instantly satisfies this need (even with a vacsuit) - When they get exposed to the cold for the first time in a day they receive a major adrenaline boost (activating their unique genes and granting them strong benefits for a couple of hours). However, the boost expires after 4 hours. After that they suffer from hypothermia/vacuum damage like any pawn. This would benefit a spacer/orbit playstyle and would also work well with their background. They can be used for special operations, their benefits can be activated conditionally and they modify how you play in a (hopefully?) interesting way. PS: The Art for them is wicked though! PS2: I hope this is not being taken the wrong way, I don't expect anything to get changed and the quality of your mods is usually absolutely outstanding. Just voicing some concerns

narouge

Jeeze Oskar chill, i know you likely didnt have as much to art while mod updates happened, but its only been 9 days since then! Also the disgin seems cool, makes you want forgo alot terrestrial advantages, like more food acess, but dosent outright stop you from geting stuff, kike say landing for tradeing, or small farm for like herbal meds if its needed.

Steffen Lewis

These changes personally feel motivating for me to send any acquired starjacks up to orbit to create a second base there even if I am playing “standard” rimworld without a grav ship. Like using drop pods or a shuttle to move materials back and forth. Fun ideas thanks to you and the team!

Oskar Potocki

Gravships Expanded will really make them shine!

Rossum

Could it also check if the pawn is wearing a vacsuit or not? So that an oxygen sensitive pawn could wear a vacsuit and presumably adjust the suit's environmental systems to keep out oxygen. I'm imagining something like a Mr. Freeze type situation where normal environment is dangerous to them and so they need either a vacsuit or sealed power armor to stay protected. So normal pawns need vacsuits while in space and starjacks need vacsuits when on a planet. Also, since they are adapted for life in space doing maintenance, maybe they have a gene that makes them not sick of nutrient paste to go with the Indoor Dweller gene?

The Dragonborn

They should probably have a mutation that gives them a better vascular system, wounds in space swell an awful lot, if the gene increased blood surface tension via enzymes or something for increased heal rate Maybe a mutation that helps with radiation or cancer? That's a huge problem up there and it'd be the first thing we'd try to solve I read a book where people had bundles of something in their blood that helped with distribution of blood and such in a zero G environment, made them react faster, more perceptive, maybe that would raise consciousness?

Isaiah White

A melee buff in zero-g would be cool for them.

Steffen Lewis

Can’t wait for Gravships expanded!!!!

Dimitry Minchenkov

Looks amazing! Gravship Affinity is just an additional gene in the pool, or will expanded Starjacks have it? Currently it's not on their list. And I'm sure in release infographics we will see examples of astrogenes :)

Deggial

I have only two (for now) - admittedly superficial - thoughts that have less to do with the racial design itself: 1. Are you sure you want to represent ‘Astrogenes’ with a *globe* of all things? Wouldn't two or three stylised *stars* be more appropriate? 2. The oxygen sensitivity doesn't make much sense to me and seems to create a logical inconsistency. Don't we install oxygen pumps in our gravships to make them habitable for baseliners? They find low oxygen levels rather ... unpleasant. I think you could keep all the effects of the different oxygen sensitivities exactly as they are and rename them gravitational sensitivity. The Starjacks' weak constitution would simply not cope well with the oppressive gravity on the planet's surface and result in respiratory distress. (Ask real "baseliner" fighter pilots how breathing works at 9 G...)

G-Fiti

So with these genes can you make pawns not need oxygen at all? If not it would be cool if you could include such a gene, doesn't have th be on the starjack but it would be nice to have it as choice for custom xenytypes. :)

Deggial

Someone suggested making androids oxygen-independent. This sounds fitting! Not so much for living beings, though.

Stijn Witsel

Looks really good, especially the space jump thingy (moon jumps weeeeeeee) but it looks like a xenotype that’s hard to start with unless you do the gravship scenario

Oskar Potocki

Of course. It's a space-oriented xenotype. I don't think it's inherently a bad thing that they are crap on the surface of the planet.

Oskar Potocki

Androids are vacuum-immune already! Base game already has a gene that makes normal humans vacuum immune too, which means they don't need oxygen. Starjacks also have a similar gene. The Odyssey DLC one also makes them immune to toxic gas. The Starjack one doesn't.

Oskar Potocki

1. It's a background. Two or three separate elements would make it busy. It's actually a grid shaped like a planet, to represent orbit, so to say! 2. The thing is, on gravships, one could imagine oxygen to be adjustable by simply moving an imaginary slider. It's not hard to find a level of oxygen that works for both baseliners AND starjacks. After all, low oxygen is actually somewhat healthy from what I heard... somewhere. On the surface, however, the level of oxygen can't be easily adjusted. It burns the lungs of starjacks. Doesn't kill them, but makes them uncomfortable enough.

Oskar Potocki

Any gene can be an astrogene, hence it won't be shown on the infographic. Any gene that meets the criteria can appear as an astrogene. This means you can have a starjack that's super fast in space, or becomes beautiful in space, or suddenly can breathe flame in space etc.

Oskar Potocki

We need to remember that the xenotype needs to work in the context of the game we're playing and not real life. There's no radiation and cancer in space in Odyssey DLC. Adding genes to counteract things that aren't a threat in space would take up slots of genes that are actually useful.

Oskar Potocki

I'm personally not a fan of your suggestions, as they'd fit a more unique xenotype better. Starjacks will be plenty in space. What you suggest is almost a 'sanguophage-level' specific, and would make starjacks very hard to play with. It's okay to have some simpler xenotypes. It lets the more complex ones take the spotlight.

Oskar Potocki

It could, but we need to first design some more universal mechanic for that. If we simply check for vacsuit, we're inviting trouble. What if someone adds a modded vacsuit? What if someone wears a powered armor? Cataphract armor provides the same vacuum resistance as a vacsuit iirc. Many checks. Many patches. We don't want that.

NeverSink

I see your point and I can see how it would become too advanced for a 'common' xenotype. It's definitely a challenge to design a generic, yet interesting xenotype without making it too micro-intensive or a plain out binary stat-stick.

Baron Ned

This is very cool, It gives real Expanse vibes. Love it. I agree with the idea the Vanilla version is a bit safe.

Deggial

Ad 1: I see. And I agree. Ad 2: I see. And I disagree. But that's fine - it's your mod, after all. I'll just squint my eyes, pretend it says 'gravity', and let my head canon cover the rest.

Thomas Pyke

Looks interesting - I definitely felt like Starjacks were just "baseliners but bad with resources" in base Odyssey, so it's good to see some complexity added to them, and it makes logical sense that someone adapted to space would struggle on the surface - even real astronauts need to put serious effort in to not lose muscle mass after a couple weeks or months in space. Now, back to modder purgatory! *cracks whip*

Brutus Albion

Wait, they have smooth tails? Also like others have said the idea that they are weaker on the earth because of oxygen makes little sense when you can theoretically just give them a vac helmet and solve the issue in reality. They have 96% vacuum resistance. Why not simply do the inverse for them while on the ground? They will slowly get hyperoxia poisoning unless they have at least some apparel item that increases their vacuum resistance to 100%? This will force you to keep spacejacks in some kind of apparel that protects them from the environment. Kind of like how Quarians are forced into their protective suit the whole time to prevent them from foreign agents. This means they are more maintenance heavy while on the ground in order to keep them optimal and if you ever run out of power armor or vac suits they suffer heavily because of it. They'll have to married to some vacuum resistance apparel while on the ground in order to not suffer their oxygen problems. This method would be incredibly mod friendly as well as safe to code me thinks. Hell add an oxygen mask for them as an item that can be made that takes up the face slot to solve the issue. Overall new starjacks are a cool idea <3 (just a little shy on the oxygen mechanics).

Sync

If Gravship Affinity is a purely positive trait, why does it come with a positive metabolic efficiency? Vacuum Efficiency also seems pretty nuts to have as a positive metabolic gene. I like the changes, but the gene values seem like quite the reach to make an OP Xenotype metabolically balanced.

Oskar Potocki

0.65x modifier to work speed on the surface does make them quite useless when not in orbit. The gravship affinity is actually a mistake on my part. It was meant to be -1.

Oskar Potocki

It’s proven tricky because there’s no way to just reverse the stat. Apparel has vacuumResistance, same stat they already have at 96%. We can’t just use this stat on the surface as they’d also be immune to atmosphere too with how the game is coded. We can’t reverse the stat either because itd mean that the higher their vacuum resistance the more fragile they’ll be on the surface, which also makes little sense. We’re looking into our options and adjusting the mechanic now before we release.

Brutus Albion

No I didn't mean to invert the stat mechanically like that. No weird spaghetti code like that. I meant conceptually, not literally. basically, give spacejacks a gene that causes them to suffer from hyperoxia hediff while on the planet's surface that scales with the vacuum resistance stat. The higher the vacuum resistance stat, the slower this effect impacts them and with 100% it is negated. Effectively since they don't have perfect vacuum stat at 96%, you can exploit this 4% mechanically, they will still be affected by hyperoxia naturally unless they use a vacuum resist boosting apparel item to get to >100%. Thus all apparels that boost vacuum stats will function for them, modded or otherwise, and the mechanic would only affect spacejacks while they are on the surface because the gene's hediff effect only works while on the surface, this would be the ideal way to code it I think. Lightweight and minimal ways the code could fail) The vacuum stat then accurately represents how well a pawn is insulated from external environmental conditions. On the surface a spacejack would always need to wear some sort of vacsuit helmet or a power armor to help them get past their troubles breathing on the surface. You get what I am saying now? It's basically vacuum exposure (but renamed to hyperoxia) for spacejacks while on the surface that is non fatal and scales with vacuum resistance stat.

Oskar Potocki

This could be a solution, but we already have something simpler in store. In modding, simple is always better as it’s less prone to weird bugs.

Brutus Albion

But the method I propose is incredibly simple and robust mechanically and doesn't cause the weird artificial weakness of them having trouble breathing while on the surface. Why should spacejacks have trouble breathing while wearing a vac suit helmet or environmental gear that is designed to help them survive tough environments?

Oskar Potocki

They won't, Sarg already coded some method to keep them safe on the surface without any performance impact. As long as they're wearing apparel that provides at least 80% vacuum resistance, they will be fine on the surface. 80%, because we want to ensure players don't just slap a powered armor helmet on them and call it a day. We want players to use Vacsuit on the surface.

Brutus Albion

Ah I see, that's a fair compromise then. I would think a power armor helmet alone would have been enough by itself which is what would have been possible using the method I suggested but at least there's a way to avoid the debuff with sarges method too even if I feel it is a bit excessive to demand 80%. Though full power armors would suffice I suppose since it provides >90% by default or something. Thanks for the headsup and clarification.

Oskar Potocki

We need to remember Starjacks are not a surface xenotype. We don’t want to encourage taking them to the surface. If you’re playing them on the surface, you’re playing them wrong - just like playing with sanguophages during the day. We greatly encourage utilising them in space and not on the surface. Vacuum efficiency with faster work and movement in space, and two completely random positive genes that are only active in space, plus the ability to traverse space by jumping, these are all the carrots. Oxygen sensitivity is the stick. If you want to get around the stick, it shouldn’t be easy.

Brutus Albion

25% work speed bonus in space isn't that big of a deal in my opinion. That can be achieved with 2 bionic arms and from the infographic this seems to not be affected by oxygen itself but by the presence on the planet's surface or not. So is oxygen the stick there or the surface itself? I do get that it needs to be balanced though and the astrogenes can potentially be extremely powerful. Are those in anyway limited in what category they can be picked from or are they entirely random per spacejack (as long as they meet the metabolism / complexity conditions in the infopanel)? That wasn't entirely clear ... Finally the most important and ignored question so far, they have smooth tails? (the infographic shows they have smooth tails as part of their geneset, is that just to boost their manipulation or do they actually have tails lorewise? (would probably be pretty useful in space honestly lol). Space monkeys!

Oskar Potocki

Ive actually changed smooth tail just now into a different kind of smooth tail that gives them the ability to jump. It’s inspired by a race of ousters from Hyperion books, who had prosthetic tails to help them navigate in zero G.

Codi Snow

My only "complaint" is the space jump. Like they get a skill to jump? I mean couldn't literally anyone jump in space and it carry you further than on earth cause of gravity and the lack of it you know. I mean it's neat that they get additional abilities in space but the jump ability just seems like a "I didn't want to spend more time on thinking about the idea of an ability, so I just stuck with it" kind of thing. That's not meant to be an insult at all, before anyone takes it like I'm talking smack about the team. To be completely fair, as I'm writing this I can't think of a better option for an ability, I just wanted to point out my thoughts on it. Also if they have tails, I hope that they're toggleable or removable. I don't like tails all that much honestly, except for like on the cat people and yttakin types.

Oskar Potocki

There has been a slight chance in the mod design since I posted the infographics. The tail is what gives them the ability to jump. It’s a dexterous fifth limb that lets them not only propel themselves over long distances but also stick the landing by grabbing onto something. This means that it’s the tail that allows them to jump, further than any normal human could. Tail won’t be toggleable but the xenotype editor will let you remove it, but with it, the jump ability.

Grammer Ghost

Is it a error that it shows that the starjack doesn't come with gravship affinity

Codi Snow

See, that kind of takes all the weirdness away from it for me. Good to know, about the xenotype editor too but idk I'll probably just suck it up. Thanks for the info and I'd like to take the chance to say that the VE mods are what's kept me locked into Rimworld for so long and so many hours. They're just so expansive and always keep me on my toes looking out for new installments. So good job VE team and thanks for the almost 7 thousand hours of enjoyment of Rimworld, without you it wouldn't have been possible. (I am literally off by 57 hours, darn)