Stellaris - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)

Travel beyond the limits of known space to a mysterious cut-off cluster in the new Stellaris DLC, the ‘Distant Stars Story Pack’, which could open up powerful shortcuts across space but miiight have been closed off for a good reason. But obviously you’re going to stick your spaceoar in and see what’s up. What are you, spacechicken? Distant Stars also includes new anomalies to investigate and new Leviathans to meet.

As is often the way with Paradox strategy game expansions, it’s accompanied by a free update which reworks parts of the base game. Expect new binary and trinary star systems, anomaly studies no longer having a chance to fail, and other tweakies. (more…)

Stellaris - candyalien


# Story Pack Features
###################

* Added many new Anomalies, increasing the total amount by almost 50%
* Added new Leviathan: Voidspawn
* Added new Leviathan: Tiyanki Matriarch
* Added new Leviathan: Scavenger Bot
* Curator Enclaves will now also spawn for Distant Stars owners, to help with the new Leviathans
* Added new unique systems to explore
* Added L-Gates and the mysterious L-Cluster outside the known galaxy, which you will have to investigate and research to access

###################
# Free Features
###################

* Galaxy generation has been reworked for more interesting hyperlane terrain: stars are now grouped in highly connected 'constellations' separated by thin 'highways', making for more strategic placement of natural chokepoints
* All hyperlanes are no longer immediately visible when starting a new game, but will be revealed through exploration. Hyperlane visibility extends roughly twice as far as your sensor range
* Added binary star systems
* Added trinary star systems
* Added new star classes
* Anomaly levels have been reworked to span levels 1-10 instead of 1-5
* Anomalies can no longer fail, but instead the time to research an anomaly will depend on the difference between scientist level and anomaly level, with high level anomalies potentially taking a very long time to research for a low skill scientist
* Some older Anomalies have been reworked and fixed to function properly
* Strategic Resources have been reworked so that similar materials have the same types of effects - crystals for ship damage, ores for ship defenses, gas for empire effects, etc.
* All Strategic Resources are now always visible, but most require specific Technologies to be mined
* Strategic Resource deposits are no longer distributed according to galaxy clusters
* Added new Aldar Crystals Strategic Resource
* Added Aldar Crystals tech
* Added Experimental Subspace Nagivation which allows science ships to go missing-in-action and travel to a selected system. This will allow them to bypass (but not enter) closed borders
* Added a new Alert for when establishing communications reveals a new Strategic Resource within another Empire's borders
* Establishing communications with another Empire that has a Bypass (Gateway, Wormhole, L-Gate) within its borders now counts as discovering that Bypass Type

###################
# Balance
###################

* Survey speed increase per Scientist level increased from 5% per level to 10% per level
* Most scientist level requirements for Special Projects have been removed, as they tend to be gated by anomalies anyway
* Decreased outer boundary distance for Fallen Empires (was preventing more Fallen Empires from spawning in large galaxies)
* Zro Distillation is now a Tier 3 tech (down from 4)
* Rebalanced Strategic Resource tech tiers to better fit their effects

###################
# UI
###################

* Situation Log has been reworked and will now also list anomalies
* Science ships now have a "Research Anomalies in System" right-click command on systems
* Renamed tile science modifiers from e.g. "Physics Output" to "Tile Physics Output" to better reflect what the modifiers actually do
* Scientist level is now shown in the outliner

###################
# AI
###################

* AI will retreat its Colossus if it is alone in combat, as even a planet destroying giant laser is cold comfort in the lonely depths of space
* Fixed an issue where the AI would incorrectly allocate too much budget to navies when it could not support any more ships, resulting in underdeveloped empires

###################
# Modding
###################

* Scripted variables rework: centralized all @values in \common\scripted_variables folder
* Scripted variables rework: centralized @values can be overridden by @values defined in individual files
* Anomaly rework: combined _anomaly_categories and _anomalies files into one file
* Anomaly rework: added "anomaly_event" effect with expected scopes for use in anomaly categories
* Anomaly rework: added a number of new features and updated syntax
* Added "exclusive_trigger" functionality to event descriptions
* Added "last_changed_species_rights_type" trigger
* Added "fleet_action_research_special_project" effect
* Added "remove_orbital_deposit" effect that removes the orbital deposit on planet
* Added picture parameter for set_planet_entity effect
* Added support for multiple asteroid belt types
* Added "create_saved_leader" effect
* Hyperlane Discovery Range is now separate from Sensor Range, and can be modded for ships, planets, megastructure, etc.
* Added "is_bottleneck_system" trigger
* Added scriptable bypass connections
* Added "delete_megastructure" effect
* Added HIDE_HYPERLANES_OUTSIDE_TERRA_INCOGNITA define to hide hyperlanes outside TI
* Added "add_tradition" effect
* Added support for sealed_wormholes as a bypass type for wormholes
* Added the ability to specify colonizer pop species when spawning a colony ship via create_ship
* Added a batch optimization effect for spawn_system

###################
# Bugfixes
###################

* Fixed issues with the pulsar Marauder system initializer
* Fixed edge case where Marauders would sometimes demand more tribute than they should
* Fixed a number of minor syntax issues (shoutouts to Dayshine)
* Pop production modifier no longer affect strategic resources
* Fixed more potential out-of-sync issues in multiplayer
* Fixed stability issue when a selected situation log entry is removed
* Fixed aborted special projects not disappearing from the situation log and blocking others from completion
* Fixing game text descriptions for planet classes
* Fixed the OOS when you ctrl-shift-click an enemy fleet
* Fixing the set location effect having a wrong angle for fleet position
* Withdrawal symptoms are no longer reset when changing species rights
* Bugfix for when deleted bypasses were not removed
* Fixed issue where the Strategic Resource tutorial mission could trigger for resources located inside other empires, because envy is the darkest emotion
* Fixed an effect attempting to link up already-linked wormholes (which would crash the game)
* Fixed issue where tutorial missions could sometimes trigger for Gestalt Consciousness empires, who really should know all this instinctively already
* Fixed issue where Remove Orbital Debris special project did not require a Science Ship
* Fixed Occupation tooltip always displaying 0 planets being occupied
* Planet picture override should now apply correctly
* Fixing the issue when context effect used in hidden effect caused assert
* Fixed more potential text overflows in Federation view
* Habitats no longer double dip on orbital deposits
* First Contact tutorial mission will no longer trigger when encountering primitives
* Fixed anomaly tooltips sometimes displaying incorrect value types
* Fixed issue where gateways were sometimes weirdly initialized, causing first gate activation to not activate a second gate
* Made it impossible to start building pops that cannot grow and will be removed next monthly tick anyway
* Starbase occupation now counted even if there are no occupiable planets in the system
* Fixed OOS on hot join due to fleet auto-moving
* Fixed CTD for survey console command in case of player is invalid
* Fixed erroneous tooltip in "Leviathan Down" anomaly
* Disabled the upgrade button of starbase defense stations when you can't afford to upgrade them
* Defense armies are no longer so morally affronted by cybernetic enhancements that they mass disband upon completing Synthetic Ascension
* Fallen empires will now avoid spawning at the edges of the galaxy
* In case a starbase is lost in a save game it will be restored
* Fixed the bug when jump drive didn't call the notification for entering the system
* Blocked the ability to pick a non-mergeable fleet for deploying newly built ships to prevent an exploit with fleets lacking a size limit
* Fixing the bug when it was possible to load save game in an ironman game, and the attendant confusion
* Planet having sapient pops during colonization no longer messes up interface and other things
* Fixed ironman UI being broken in setup GUI
* Made debris try to pick earlier tech available for research rather than having latest one
* Event ships can now be removed from fleet designs when they have been destroyed

Please be advised that 2.1.0 MAY BREAK SAVES from previous versions! If you have games that you want to complete, please do so before updating!

Stellaris - candyalien


Are you ready to return to the spirit of exploration at the heart of Stellaris?

Encounter new anomalies and strange beings in the depths of space with Stellaris: Distant Stars - Out now!

https://youtu.be/8sb_mLT1rO0
Stellaris

Stellaris: Distant Stars, the next story DLC for the grand strategy space game, will release next Tuesday, May 22, Paradox Interactive has announced.

A new video, above, breaks down all the things you can expect from the DLC, which will cost $9.99. They include boosting the number of anomalies in the game by 50%, lots of new systems to explore, and three new leviathans. Two of those leviathans will function similarly to the space dragons from previous expansions, but the third will be "quite different".

The biggest addition is a new cluster of stars called the L-Cluster, which is separated from the rest of the galaxy. Paradox isn't saying much about it, other than you have to find and fix malfunctioning L-Gates in order to reach it.

Paradox will also release the game's free 2.1 Niven update alongside Distant Stars. Niven, which I wrote about here, overhauls anomalies and the way you travel between stars and systems.

Stellaris - candyalien


Hi all,

Just want to let you know that after a good while in beta in which no major new issues were observed, I'm now making 2.0.5 the official live version. It is a targeted strike against out of sync issues in multiplayer (don't be alarmed if gameplay fixes you're after are not there, we're always working on those and will push them when they're ready, as usual).

Patch contents are super simple:

- more fixes for out of sync issues in multiplayer

Save compatibility with 2.0.4 shouldn't be affected, but just in case you need to roll back, the 2.0.4 branch is there.

Steam library -> Right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas tab -> choose "2.0.4"

Stand by for exciting Stellaris news from PDXCon this weekend!
Stellaris - candyalien
We are back for Season 2!

Longer episodes and more epic fun! Who will survive?

Alex the Rambler, Lionheartx10 and GamingFTL are all back and this time they are joined by veterans Marbozir Jays Gaming and ConflictNerd (as well as the deviously awesome A_Spec ).

https://youtu.be/AT0pP-Iq3Rk
Stellaris - candyalien


Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to continue talking about the Distant Stars Story Pack that will be accompanying the 2.1 'Niven' update, on the topic of exploration and new things to find in the galaxy. As with the previous dev diary, we're going to be fairly light on the details to avoid spoilering too much of what's out there to explore in Distant Stars.

New Anomalies
Distant Stars adds several dozen new anomalies to the game, with everything from simple discoveries to complex event chains (including the opportunity to make a new and very different kind of friend...) Overall, Distant Stars increase the anomaly count of the game by about 50%. We've also taken the time to go back and improve some old anomalies and fix up others that did not spawn correctly, so that even those without Distant Stars will be able to experience new discoveries in the Niven update.

You can read the full Dev Diary here.
Stellaris - BjornB
Hi all,

After a reasonable span in beta testing I'm happy to say that 2.0.4 is now the official version, in time for the long weekend.

################################################################# ######################### VERSION 2.0.4 ########################### ################################################################# ################### # Feature ################### * Added confirmation popup to the "clear user directory" function in the launcher, to avoid unintentionally deleting files * Added new events to notify you when the construction of Gateways has concluded * Added Will to Power unity ambition that gives +5 influence/month * Fleet view now consolidates ships into their ship size (with breakdown of ship classes available in tooltip) rather than showing each design individually, making fleet view less of a visual mess and not misleading players with numbers like 20/0 corvettes * No longer possible to decrease ship design count in fleet manager when a ship is waiting for upgrades * Scaled difficulty is now a separate setting from difficulty, so a game with Scaling and Grand Admiral will have AI empires start at no bonuses and scale up to full Grand Admiral bonuses at the end-game start date * Colossus now shows progress for charging weapon in the outliner * World Cracker can now be test fired on uncolonized habitats, ringworlds & tomb worlds * Ion Cannons no longer auto-upgrade (as they are designable) * Winning a force ideology war will now pull the target out of any federation they are a member of * Ideology war goal text now informs you of Ruler resigning and being forced out of Federation * Max hyperlanes is now 2.0x, as there was functionally no difference between 2.0x and higher * The Erudite trait now helps multiple leader types in different ways, similar to Psionic or Cyborg ################### # Balance ################### * Increased ship upkeep reduction for Fallen/Awakened Empires * Increased primitive Sol spawn chance * Ion Cannon no longer has a power cost for its weapon component * Reduced firing speed on Colossus from 90 to 30 days. Reduced weapon charge time on Colossus from 270 to 90 days * Raised hard cap on command limit from 200 to 500 * Trickster admiral trait now gives shorter emergency FTL cooldown instead of sublight speed bonus * Piracy risk is now rounded down to the nearest whole percent * It is no longer possible to use a Total War wargoal as your defensive wargoal against an attacker that isn't also using a Total War wargoal * Disabled Starbases no longer inhibit FTL of hostiles * Awakened Empires now get more resources but also more effect from decadence * Assimilators can no longer have rivals, and get tradition swaps for traditions relating to claims or rivals * Ground combat collateral damage now has a higher chance of adding blockers * Reduced damage output and raised cost of Xenomorph armies * Festival of Worlds now costs 5000 energy rather than energy, minerals & influence * Psionic Shields are now stronger than Dark Matter Deflectors, rather than the other way around * Added some food when Fallen Empires awaken, to prevent early starvation # Traditions * Master Builders now only gives +50% megastructure build speed (down from +100%) but increases the size of any Habitats owned by that empire from 12 to 15 (retroactively applied on any habitats of size <15 built before taking the perk or later conquered by the empire with Master Builders) ################### # UI ################### * Fixed certain multi-effect Strategic Resources (e.g. Living Metal) causing text overflow in the Strategic Resource list * Fixed ironman UI being broken in setup screen * The war summary now shows how many ships and armies were destroyed, as well as the number of systems and planets occupied * Clicking on a ship design to add it to a fleet template that already has it now increases the counter for that template * Fleet view now only shows template counts for your own fleets ################### # AI ################### * Subjects will now follow their overlord with all fleets * Fixed AI using jump drive in some cases where it shouldn't do so due to enemy superiority ################### # Modding ################### * Added a free_pop modifier to species rights that can be used for citizenship, living standards and military service to apply a modifier only to non-enslaved pops * Defaulted the operator of on_tech_increased trigger to >=, so that the trigger works at all * Added on_system_first_visited on action, which triggers when you first get intel on a system through any means ################### # Bugfix ################### * General fixes and improvements to the Fleet Manager * You will now be properly able to use gateways you've built even if you didn't encounter one before * Added missing localization for new features added in 2.0.2 * Fixed a bug where empires could appear without visible borders * Overlords can no longer get CBs against their vassals * Fixed issue where Gateways could not be used despite having the necessary technology * Fixed corrupted Looped Syzygy display model in Ship Details view * Fixed federation fleets created by an ally empire not being added to your fleet manager when you become federation president * Fixed a case where ships trying to find the nearest starbase to perform upgrades would ignore the one in the system they are in * Fixed the Unbidden always treating their home system as conquered, even when there were colonies blocking them from leaving it * 'Does not Compute' event will now also trigger when the final machine world is destroyed by a Colossus * No longer crashes when 'intel' or 'sensor' commands are used as an observer * Fixed some other crashes * Fixed an endlessly spamming threats from Fallen Empires about encroachment, if you have a wormhole that exits inside their territory * Planet having sapient pops during colonization no longer messes up interface and other things * Ships can now properly upgrade at the stations of allies * Added some missing tooltips * Synth Leaders in a non-synth ascended empire can now also suffer malfunctions * Which empire takes control of a disabled starbase in a war is now consistent between Starbases that were already disabled and ones that had to be disabled through force * Fixed the 'Captive Star' achievement triggering from building a Dyson Sphere construction site * Fixed a case where clicking on an obsolete ship in the fleet manager would not show the updgrade options * Event-spawned ships can now be removed from fleet templates when they have been destroyed * Claims on systems that become unowned (due to owner disbanding the outpost) are now deleted * Fixed Marauders demanding nothing in tribute when empire income was >250 minerals, because even lunch money counts * Fixed accidentally disabled mega engineering tech unlock * Fixed a bug where you couldn't build multiple gateways at the same time * Ships will now use captured enemy shipyards to upgrade during war rather than pathing all the way back to friendly territory * Fixed pre-sapients not getting pre-sapient traits * Planetary edict expired messages now will properly open planet view instead of country edicts view * Fixed Awakened Empires not being able to use the demand subjugation action * Fixed successful battles against starbases where your attacking fleet takes losses showing as a defeat in the war summary screen * Fixed a bug where establishing contact with an enclave would silently give you comms with all other empires known to the enclave * 'Stay on Target' achievement will now also trigger if the colossus is in the process of charging its weapon * Fixed issue where anomalies could overwrite modifiers in Precursor systems * Event triggers were reworked to prevent some events spawning massively far away from the player, because the game thought they were close due to a wormhole or gateway * Fixed issue where the Extradimensionals would sometimes end up owning a planet * Fixed Unbidden sometimes spawning without diplomatic contacts * Fixed leaders being able to get both Chosen One and Psychic if they were elected to or out of office * Fixed incorrect tooltip for Devouring Swarm * Pop happiness modifier will no longer increase cost of colony ships * Proper total war CB is now given when you have a colossus, but you can still make claims (was wrongly locked out before) * Disabled custom ship design when auto-generate design is on, to prevent a bunch of bad bugs with upgrading * Fixed sectors wrongly ignoring their resource storage limit via monthly income * When an empire changes their ethics, the 'go to' button on the notification event will now work properly * Fixed some species getting the wrong living standards set when citizenship was changed * Fixed AI not building Starbase buildings/modules * Fixed broken/missing graphics, sound, and starship components * Fixed occupation armies spawning mid-invasion/bombardment * Fixed enlighten primitives action giving you low-level intel of the entire galaxy, despite their weird primitive all-seeing animist wisdom

It should be updating now/soon for everyone on Steam. If it doesn't trigger right away, verify file integrity or a restart of your Steam client should do it. For those who were in the 2.0.4 beta, just opt out of all beta programs and you'll revert back to retail version.

ALSO, WE ARE MAKING A NEW 2.0.5 BETA AVAILABLE

The only change from 2.0.4 official is a fix we found late in the week for out of sync on hotjoin issues in multiplayer. The reason I'm not rolling it in to the live version yet is we've not had a full test cycle to verify it, but I wanted to put the option out there for those who'd like to give it a try over the weekend. If you're planning an MP I'd appreciate your feedback on how it goes with this version. Checksum is 6d3e.

Please note this is an opt-in patch. You have to choose to activate it.

Steam library -> Right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas tab -> choose "2.0.5_beta"

You can also roll back to an older version by the same method if you want to finish an ongoing game.

Hope everyone has a fun weekend. If 2.0.5 works in the wild we'll look to make it the official version soon.

Read original post by Jamor
Stellaris - candyalien


Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today, we're going to be covering the headline feature of the Distant Stars Story Pack that will be accompanying the 2.1 'Niven' update.

The L-Cluster
In Distant Stars, some Black Hole systems are home to mysterious "L-Gate" structures that the player can find while exploring the galaxy. Originally part of the regular Gateway network, these L-Gates were heavily modified shortly after the initial construction of the network. The gates are operable but stuck in perpetual maintenance loops, possibly due to intentional sabotage. L-Gates cannot be activated by the usual Gateway technologies, instead requiring the collection of insights relating to subspace and the nanite technology used to activate the gates. Insights can be collected in a wide variety of ways - from anomalies and exploration, from defeating certain enemies, and from researching a repeatable technology that becomes available once your empire is sufficiently advanced to conduct independent research on nanites.

You can read the full dev diary here.
Stellaris

Hot on the heels of its anomaly-overhauling, multi-star system-flaunting 2.1 update reveal, Stellaris has unveiled its latest story pack. Named Distant Stars, the as yet undated narrative expansion targets exploration and discovery.

To this end, intrepid space surfers might uncover new anomalies, or encounter strange beings. They might unearth "hidden traces of an ancient gateway network" or unique solar systems ripe for research. And they might happen upon "unique gargantuan creatures"—who may come in peace or insist that you leave in pieces. 

Here's a trailer:

On that, Paradox's official line reads: "Distant Stars will add new content and features to Stellaris including a sealed jump lane in the gateway network leading to a mysterious sector entirely outside known space, but players must be quick as the mightiest empires of the galaxy are all racing to find the secret to unlock it." 

I recently returned to Stellaris for the first time following its comprehensive 2.0 patch. Like Phil, I enjoyed the 4x-meets-grand strategy venture's early game promise at launch, but struggled with its mid-late game lulls. It's in a much better state now, which sets up Distant Stars nicely. The new DLC is without a hard release date for now, but will cost $9.99/your regional equivalent when it lands.

For more genre reading, check out our list of the best strategy games on PC

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