Royal Ascent (ending)

Royal ascent is an ending available as part of the Royalty DLC. One or more colonists can escape the planet on a shuttle to join the empire.

Briefing

Requirements:

• Have a colonist of Archon rank and not be hostile to the empire faction.
• Have a spare bedroom suitable for a stellarch at the time of acceptance (see Titles#Table of Requirements). Your Archon must also have a suitable bedroom.
• House the High Stellarch for 12 days, which is a controllable guest. Like the ship launch, you will be assaulted by a massive quantity of raiders. You can't just use a cryptosleep casket to preserve the stellarch until the end.
• You will also receive 4 cataphract-level soldiers (Stellic Wardens or Defenders). These soldiers can die without consequence. Like any other soldier guest, they will have the +12 On Duty moodlet. They are always nobles of Knight or Dame rank, so they will come with psycasts and be conceited.
• The High Stellarch must be kept above 25% average mood for the duration of his stay.

Failure conditions:

• High Stellarch dies.
• High Stellarch mood is too low for too long.
• The empire faction becomes hostile to you.

Your Archon does not have to stay alive in order to successfully complete the quest.

The Royal Ascent quest will be offered again periodically if it is failed. It takes roughly 22 days from failure to get this quest again. This quest technically fails if you abandon the colony it asks for, but it will refire again.

Housing the stellarch

The stellarch will come with the clothes necessary for his stature. You'll have to provide for the rest of a conceited noble's needs.

The noble requirements for stellarch are exactly equal to that of the archon rank. In specific:

Throne

A throne room can be shared by multiple nobles. This means that you can use the same room as your archon. However, each noble requires their own throne.

• Area 80, Impressiveness 160
• All fine floored
• Grand meditation throne
• 1x Piano, 6x column, 2x brazier, 2x drape

Bed

Couples can share a royal bed, but your archon and the stellarch will need separate rooms.

• Area 30, Impressiveness 80
• All fine floored
• Royal bed
• 1x Drape, 1x end table, 1x dresser

The impressiveness can easily be met by meeting the space/fine floor requirements, and using a few sculptures. The rest of the requirements don't need much explanation. For a comparison of the fine floors available to you, see Fine floor#Analysis. Ideally, you'll want the stellarch's rooms to be somewhat defensible, in case of drop pod raids. At the very least, have some avenue for escape.

Food

Lavish meals should be your go-to food for the stellarch, due to the +12 mood boost. Humans require 2 meals a day, so that's 24 lavish meals if none of your other colonists are eating them. You may want to set colonists (and the guards) to not eat lavish as a result. Chocolate is the other food that can be farmed and ingested safely.

Insect jelly, milk, and berries can be used in a pinch, but all come at the risk of food poisoning. Beer can only be ingested so much until you black out. Ambrosia cannot be farmed consistently. If required, fine meals will provide a net −3 moodlet when ingested.

Surviving the onslaught

The onslaught of raids will consist of 8 cycles of 1.5 days each. During each cycle, you may be attacked by either 1 or 2 raids, randomly. That makes the minimum possible number of Royal Ascent raids during the event 8 and the maximum 16. This is completely independent from, and in addition to, your storyteller, who will send their own raids on their normal schedule. Royal Ascent raids have a minimum of 500 Raid points.

• Raider AI is still the same.

For raiders, the stellarch isn't targeted any differently than a regular colonist. Against most raid types, keeping them inside a bedroom should be enough for the purposes of safety. Be prepared for any type of raid possible. Most likely, it will be drop pods that are the greatest threat to the noble's life.

• Use what you have.

The stellarch is a level 6 psycaster. The stellic guards can be up to level 3 psycasters. Use these powers. Don't shy away from bringing the stellarch in combat - just keep them in the backlines. Even low level abilities like Stun and Vertigo Pulse can be very useful, let alone staples like Skip, Berserk, and Berserk Pulse. Unfortunately, your guests are unable to use permits.
With the Biotech DLC, it is likely that some or all of the stellic guards will be hussars. This xenotype has its perks, such as superfast wound healing, reduced pain, and go-juice resistance, but they are psychically deaf, meaning no psychic powers are usable without xenogerm replacement. They also come with a dependence to go-juice, so remember to get some.

• Don't anger the empire.

Friendly fire can occasionally lower goodwill with the empire. A poorly aimed Berserk Pulse or Neuroquake can make the empire hostile. Ideally, you should use caravans or drop pods to send gifts until you reach +100 goodwill, and then prepare extra pods filled with goodies just in case.

Mood (Stellarch & Colonist)

In practice, the mood of the stellarch shouldn't be too much of an issue - so long as your base is intact. Lavish meals, a suitable throneroom and bedroom, extremely impressive dining/recreation rooms, and a constant recreation/sleep schedule means that a well-off colony shouldn't even have to worry about minor mental breaks. However, things are bound to go wrong with so many raids. A few splatters of blood can make a bedroom unsuitable for a noble. Ideally, you should be avoiding any mental breaks - the minor break threshold is 35% for a regular pawn, which is greater than the 25% requirement for the quest.

Because keeping mood is important for everybody, both general purpose and (practically) stellarch only methods of increasing mood are included.

Ways that don't hinder combat:
Mostly transposed from the Ship Launch section

• Clean stuff up. Dirt and blood will quickly lower the Impressiveness of any room they are in.
• Set up a polyphasic schedule. This means alternating between Recreation and Sleep, and only Recreation and Sleep (ex. repeat 3 hours sleep, 5 hours recreation, three times). Colonists will still be able to work once both needs are satisfied, or if you prioritize the work task. The stellarch can't work at all, so there's no reason not to have constant recreation or meditation.
• Have lavish meals for everybody. For colonists and guards, fine meals will stack with lavish meals. Meals can be eaten regardless of how full a colonist is. You may want to assign colonists and guards to fine meals by default, and manually order them to eat lavish once a day.
• Use drugs. Nobles can get addicted, and you won't get penalized.
  • Beer, psychite tea, and ambrosia (if you have it) all give positive moodlets at 0 risk of death.
  • Use wake-up if you need stuff done *immediately*, such as repairing the outer walls of your colony. It also gives a +5 moodlet and restores Rest.
  • Mind-numb serum makes it easy to prevent mental breaks meet the mood requirements, and only 6 are required to keep the stellarch happy for the entire duration.
• Watch out for ideoligion. The empire's ideoligion will be different than yours. Don't expect to butcher humans and not peeve off the stellarch. Unless you've edited the empire's ideoligion accordingly.

Ways that hinder combat:

• All the drugs. Get blackout drunk. Smokeleaf becomes a valid option. Yayo and Flake are "safe" - overdoses are technically a positive, since they render a pawn unconscious. Just beware of the tiny chance of death from a major overdose.
• Joywires. Installing a joywire is not considered a harmful operation, and gives a permanent +30 moodlet. The consciousness penalty does make the target easier to kill, however.
  • However, word of joy is considered harmful, despite being the exact same effect. It gives a −25 goodwill penalty with the empire, increased to −30 if it is towards natural goodwill. But because it lasts for 7 days, word of joy can still be viable to use.

Even in the base game, there's always a chance that the stellarch is a teetotaler, so plan ahead. And with the Ideology DLC, the empire's ideoligion will often contain the Drugs: Medical Only or Drugs: Medical / Social precept. This precept can be removed at the start of the game, but otherwise cannot be circumvented. This precept also makes waster and hussar pawns unhappy taking the drugs they need to survive.

Conclusion

You've escaped on the Imperial shuttle! The high stellarch will now welcome you into the Imperial flotilla as an honored noble party. You might stay in the Imperial court and jockey for political power. Perhaps you'll avoid the drama and focus on enjoying ultratech luxuries. Or, you might even buy a ship and set a course for your long-lost home. The choice is up to you.

— Endgame text after the shuttle containing the Stellarch departs with at least one colonist from the colony inside.

Once the onslaught is over, an imperial shuttle will come pick the stellarch and your colonists up.

While the shuttle's actual loading screen can only fit 2,000 kg, you can load infinitely many colonists by selecting the colonist, right clicking the shuttle, and clicking "get in the shuttle". The stellic guardians do not need to be loaded into the shuttle, even if they are still alive.