As we all know, Stellaris is full of strange anomalies and even stranger events. Sometimes those events can lead up to, well, not-so-pleasant discoveries. One may argue that unleashing a horror upon your planet by accident is an integral part of Stellaris gameplay. However, just in case you want to double-check what will happen in Don’t Count Your Planets event, we prepared this full guide with spoilers, and we will focus on whether you should Crack The Egg in this event or not.
Don’t Count Your Planets Event Chain
Printscreen: Stellaris Don’t Count Your Planets event
Stellaris Don’t Count Your Planets event has been added in Leviatan Stellaris DLC and is triggered by a discovery of a level 3 anomaly called Strange Mountain Formation. Basically, your scientists saw that the mountain range doesn’t seem natural and once you explore it, the event will be triggered. Scientists inform you that it’s not a mountain at all, it’s an “outer membrane of a gigantic egg“.
So you know, now it’s the decision-making time – should you crack it open or study it from afar? If you decide to study it from afar, you will get +4 Society Research deposit on the planet where the anomaly has been found, and that will be the end of it. But since we all know that’s no fun, let’s see what happens if we do the Stellaris Crack The Egg special project.
On a side note, if you are playing as a Devouring Swarm, you will be able to “Feast” and consume the egg, providing +10 food deposit on the planet.
Option 1: You get Galatic Omelet after you crack the egg
Printscreen: Galatic Omelet as a positive outcome for Crack The Egg special project
As the gods of Reddit claim, around 90% of the time a positive outcome will occur. We tested it ourselves and as it turns out this seems to be true – in 17/20 attempts we got ourselves Galactic Omelet for dinner. Well, not really for dinner but the scientists uncovered that there was no “infant titanic lifeform” inside, just some “genetic slop“.
It is useful anyway – Stellaris Crack the Egg positive outcome will provide +8 Society Research deposit on the planet, and you get a nice, random, tier 4 or tier 5 amount of stored Society research. If the planet is near your empire or if you plan to expand to this system, especially early on, this is a nice set of bonuses. Since the whole project took just a few months to complete and the anomaly was level 3, this is a rather neat set of rewards.
Option 2: A dimensional horror hatches from the egg
Printscreen: Gratitude as a negative outcome for Crack The Egg special project
If you are unlucky (or just someone who plays in Ironman mode and can’t load the savegame), you may have an encounter with a dimensional horror. It’s not going to last long though – the only thing you will receive from your science ship will be a panicked transmission that says “IT LIVES! IT LIVES AGAIN!“. Well, they will go on a bit longer as you can see in the printscreen above, but not for too long – the monster will destroy the ship and the scientist with it. You will still get a bonus of +6 Society Research deposit for the planet but that’s it.
The monster will not appear on the map nor on the surface – we tested by colonizing the planet but nothing happened. It seems that it just eats the science ship and vanishes into space after it. The solution is obvious here, you can either save the game before you research it or simply send a scientist that you don’t care about to investigate the special project.
Final Thoughts on Crack the Egg
Stellaris Crack the Egg event is one of the short ones and it doesn’t really have any dramatic outcomes. The best thing you can get out of it is a nice bonus to your Society Research and even if you fail, the worst thing it can happen is that you lose the scientists and the science ship but still get a small Society Research bonus. There are more important things that you can focus on in your game for sure, like optimizing your fleet by choosing the best Stellaris ship design – but we all know that the game would be no fun if strange things like this would not occur, right?