As expected, this week's dev diary looks at the features in the upcoming
Aquatics pack:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-229-aquatics-species-pack.1495333/
The Aquatic Species Pack will include:
15 new Aquatic Portraits
1 aquatic-themed Robotic Portrait
Water themed Ship Set
Here Be Dragons Origin
Ocean Paradise Origin
Anglers Civic
Hydrocentric Ascension Perk
Aquatic Species Trait
Aquatic Advisor, inspired by high seas adventure fiction
4 Aquatic Name Lists
To start off with the obvious, the Aquatic race trait costs 0 points, and only requires that you start the game with an Ocean world. The trait bestows some nice bonuses for when living on Ocean planets, but at the cost of higher penalties for living on cold & dry planets.
The Anglers Civic looks kinda cool, if not necessarily earth-shattering. Of note is that this civic will also be available to empires with the Corporate authority.
(I'm excited about this one...
) Aquatics is the first species pack to include an Ascension Perk. If you take this ascension perk, your Aquatic trait bonuses for living on Ocean planets are significantly increased...as are the penalties for living on cold/dry planets. You'll also gain access to the "Deluge" Colossus, if/when you take the Colossus Project ascension perk.
The Hydrocentric ascension perk also enables you to construct the Ice Mining Station on your Starbases, which...helps you do things. To be honest, I find this one a bit off (for a couple reasons), but hey, it improves your Ocean worlds, so sure.
The "Ocean Paradise" Origin essentially boosts your homeworld
up to eleven. I imagine that using this in conjunction with both the Aquatic trait and the Hydrocentric ascension perk can make for a nice bit of synergy.
The "Here Be Dragons" Origin is... Well, how would you like your home system to be guarded by a sometimes-demanding Leviathan?