This week's developer diary (#250) is another big entry: It looks at 2 of the 3 new megastructures being added in
Overlord, the Specialist vassal/empire type Scholarium, Specialist holdings, and some new resolutions in the Galactic Community...
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-250-elevating-civilization.1520106/Orbital Rings are intended to further enhance both planetary defense and capacity. Given their relatively lower tech requirements and resource costs, they appear to be a "lesser" megastructure, similar to Gateways and Habitats (which also means they don't count towards your empire's megastructure cap).
Honestly, Orbital Rings feel a bit underwhelming to me at the moment, especially in contrast to their potential "cool factor". On the other hand, their relatively cheaper cost means you can build quite a few of them, and I suspect their versatility (being able to improve a planets defenses *and* capacity) is probably not to be sneered at. Plus, any system with multiple colonies -- all guarded by Orbital Rings -- would likely be a tough nut to crack.
On the flip side, the Quantum Catapult appears to be just what every overlord needs -- especially when you need to ship your fleet "Next Day Air" to a faraway destination:
The Catapult's only drawback is that due to some inherent accuracy issues, your fleet might not end up precisely where you intend... (Hopefully there aren't any Leviathans near your target destination!)
A closer look at the Scholarium. No prizes for guessing what they specialize in:
As expected, they get all sorts of research-related perks (two examples below):
Their overlord even enjoys a passive benefit (in addition to all the other potential perks):
Fascinating: Maxed-out Scholarium empires get a special science ship that nerfs AI-piloted vessels -- including ships with sapient AI combat computers...
The Galactic Community will see the introduction of two new sets of resolutions...
The "Intergalactic Directives" resolutions focus on improving the abilities of Specialist empires, as well as limiting what terms their overlords can impose on their vassals:
In contrast, the "Bureaucratic Surveillance" resolutions increase an overlord's influence & authority over their vassals, including alignment with the former's dominant ethics:
Finally, a word about the Specialist Holdings: Personally, I would say they're...nothing special, ironically. To be sure, they're all thematically appropriate, not to mention useful, but I wouldn't say there's anything particularly remarkable about them. (I'm hoping that experience with actual gameplay may change my opinion of that.)
One thing I am noticing about Holdings is that a lot of them -- a majority, in fact -- lower Loyalty in your vassals. Indeed, there seem to be quite a few things that can lower Loyalty. Given that, I'm curious as to what tools overlord empires can utilize to improve it...