Aug 7, 2018

Stellaris - demasiri_pdx

After spending the summer in beta without introducing drastic new issues, version 2.1.2 is now the official live version of Stellaris. Below are the complete patch notes.

VERSION 2.1.2

Free Features

Map modes now are able to show claims - diplomatic map mode shows claims of selected empire by default
Added the Kuiper Belt to the Sol system
Added several new event pictures
Ctrl-F9 now also hides system lines and navigation arrows
It is now possible to rename the currently selected faction in faction view by clicking its name

Balance

Re-enabled pre-sapient discovery Anomalies for the AI
Existing Horde fleets are now removed upon Great Khan's death and replaced by a fixed number of replacements
AI empires are now more likely to find L-Cluster insights after 100 years have passed
Increased levels of precursor anomalies across the board
Balanced anomaly levels according to QA and player feedback
Marauder empires are less likely to spawn close to an empire's starting system
Rogue Servitors & Assimilators can now once again pick World Shaper perk
Reduced frequency of terraforming candidates by about 50%
Reduced min distance at which Fallen Empires can spawn from other empires
Fixed some fallen empire tasks being able to target other fallen empires

Only ships that are docked in a starbase with upkeep reduction will now show as having a green orbit icon on the outliner, other ships in orbit around something but not receiving an upkeep reduction will show as yellow

Modding

It is now possible to set anomalies as should_ai_and_humans_use = yes which will allow them to be used by both AI and human empires (overrides should_ai_use)
Added on_added_pop on action for when a pop is added to a planet

Bug Fixes

Numerous OOS fixes to improve multiplayer stability
Fixed issue where acquiring an L-Gate and the L-Gate activation tech out of order would cause the L-Gate special project to fail to appear
Names for country designs are not duplicated anymore
Marauder raiding fleets are now always deleted a year after they start to withdraw to prevent rare situations where they get stuck
Added missing localization for Great Khan leader titles
Fixed template manager displaying wrong military power
Fixed event trigger preventing Rudimentary Robots chain from continuing once you colonize their planet
Fixed Colossus Tech being reverse-engineerable from debris
Federation requests between two empires belonging to the same species class should now present correct localisation
Fixed Curator cost checks to avoid truncation problems
The AI no longer considers fleets that are running away as support in their current endeavour
Fixed the AI thinking unreachable systems are the closest systems
Fixed Cloud Lightning being hidden and unavailable as a component
Impossible Organism Nivlac Empire should no longer be placed on a Holy World or in a hostile system
Fixed the bug where ships were losing health while merging
Fixed Pacifist Defensive Wars Only demand to trigger properly
Fixed issues with upgrading designs twice in the Template Manager
Fixed issue where ship designer would not show the difference after researching new tech
Fixed issue where players could change components on auto-generated designs
Auto-upgrade is now considered as an update and can be saved
Strategic Resources generated via events will now trigger the Strategic Resource discovery message
It is no longer possible to construct event ships from starbases
L-Cluster strategic resources will no longer appear on terraformed planets or Ring Worlds
Fixed nonsensical requirement to have a free Leader slot in order to buy L-Gate Insight from the Curators
Event text for opening the L-Cluster is now correct if only one L-Gate exists in the galaxy
Fixed typo in Great Khan dialogue
Limbobots can no longer be used to colonize worlds
Limbo can only trigger once per game globally
Fixed errors in Vechtar Zavonia event chain outcome
Fixed on_entering_system event not being fired in your own systems. This fixes bugs like the shrines to the old gods not being completable
Fixed non-sapient robots getting the wrong species rights in a Machine Empire
Fixed certain opinion modifiers from distant stars events not going away over time
Fixed defense platform cost not being correctly calculated
Fixed instances of fleets getting stuck
Fleets that cannot have their leader assigned or removed will now show this in the interface
Resolved an error where Fanatic Purifier style empires could get an alien scientist from an anomaly
Tweaked War in Heaven to generally have more AI empires picking sides among the Awakened Empires rather than staying neutral

Jun 28, 2018

2.1.2 Beta Patch Available (Full Patch Notes)

Stellaris - demasiri_pdx

Hello everyone,

We're happy to announce that we've now released the 2.1.2 opt-in patch with a couple of fixes listed in the patch notes below!

It's save game compatible with 2.1.1, as usual with minor updates :)

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.1.2 ###########################
#################################################################

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

* Map modes now are able to show claims
* Added the Kuiper Belt to the Sol system
* Added several new event pictures
* Ctrl-F9 now also hides system lines and navigation arrows
* It is now possible to rename the currently selected faction in faction view by clicking its name

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

* Re-enabled pre-sapient discovery Anomalies for the AI
* Existing Horde fleets are now removed upon Great Khan's death and replaced by a fixed number of replacements
* AI empires are now more likely to find L-Cluster insights after 100 years have passed
* Increased levels of precursor anomalies across the board
* Balanced anomaly levels according to QA and player feedback
* Marauder empires are less likely to spawn close to an empire's starting system
* Rogue Servitors & Assimilators can now once again pick World Shaper perk
* Reduced frequency of terraforming candidates by about 50%

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

* Only ships that are docked in a starbase with upkeep reduction will now show as having a green orbit icon on the outliner, other ships in orbit around something but not receiving an upkeep reduction will show as yellow

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

* It is now possible to set anomalies as should_ai_and_humans_use = yes which will allow them to be used by both AI and human empires (overrides should_ai_use)
* Added on_added_pop on action for when a pop is added to a planet

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

* Fixed issue where acquiring an L-Gate and the L-Gate activation tech out of order would cause the L-Gate special project to fail to appear
* Names for country designs are not duplicated anymore
* Marauder raiding fleets are now always deleted a year after they start to withdraw to prevent rare situations where they get stuck
* Added missing localization for Great Khan leader titles
* Fixed template manager displaying wrong military power
* Fixed event trigger preventing Rudimentary Robots chain from continuing once you colonize their planet
* Fixed Colossus Tech being reverse-engineerable from debris
* Federation requests between two empires belonging to the same species class should now present correct localisation
* Fixed Curator cost checks to avoid truncation problems
* The AI no longer considers fleets that are running away as support in their current endeavour
* Fixed the AI thinking unreachable systems are the closest systems
* Fixed Cloud Lightning being hidden and unavailable as a component
* Impossible Organism Nivlac Empire should no longer be placed on a Holy World or in a hostile system
* Fixed the bug where ships were losing health while merging
* Fixed Pacifist Defensive Wars Only demand to trigger properly
* Fixed issues with upgrading designs twice in the Template Manager
* Fixed issue where ship designer would not show the difference after researching new tech
* Fixed issue where players could change components on auto-generated designs
* Auto-upgrade is now considered as an update and can be saved
* Strategic Resources generated via events will now trigger the Strategic Resource discovery message
* It is no longer possible to construct event ships from starbases
* L-Cluster strategic resources will no longer appear on terraformed planets or Ring Worlds
* Fixed nonsensical requirement to have a free Leader slot in order to buy L-Gate Insight from the Curators
* Event text for opening the L-Cluster is now correct if only one L-Gate exists in the galaxy
* Fixed typo in Great Khan dialogue
* Limbobots can no longer be used to colonize worlds
* Limbo can only trigger once per game globally
* Fixed errors in Vechtar Zavonia event chain outcome
* Fixed on_entering_system event not being fired in your own systems. This fixes bugs like the shrines to the old gods not being completable
* Fixed non-sapient robots getting the wrong species rights in a Machine Empire
* Fixed certain opinion modifiers from distant stars events not going away over time
* Fixed defense platform cost not being correctly calculated
* Fixed instances of fleets getting stuck
* Fleets that cannot have their leader assigned or removed will now show this in the interface
* Resolved an error where Fanatic Purifier style empires could get an alien scientist from an anomaly
* Tweaked War in Heaven to generally have more AI empires picking sides among the Awakened Empires rather than staying neutral

Test it and tell us what you think. Most of the team will be going on vacation shortly, so we'll leave this up over the Summer.

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 "2.1.2_beta"

Jun 23, 2018

Meet the modders determined to add nudity to the least likely games

Starbound

The contents of this article are not safe for work.

I totally get why people jerk off to Skyrim. I'm not trying to be facetious here. From an objective, ontological perspective, I get it. If you're going to spend half a decade playing the same game—furnishing living spaces, brewing potions, brokering peace between the Nords and the Imperium—it makes sense you might also want your character to fuck.

"Other people enjoy an immersive experience but I'm not about that life, I'd rather just look at some boobs."
Hearthstone modder Whiskey_And_Cigars

This is an emphatically, painstakingly immersive role-playing game with real characters and real emotions. If Bethesda wasn't focused on selling their wares to as broad an audience as possible, there could even be some romantic, Hot Coffee-lite functionality built into Tamriel. Regardless, a truly prolific community of libidinous modders inevitably picked up the slack, constructing mods like "big naturals bodyslide preset" and "Whiterun Brothel Revamped," which empower the exact sort of fantasies you'd expect. It's a tale as old as time; where there are videogame communities, there are probably sexy mods for those communities.

All that being said, the existence of pornographic Hearthstone mods threw me for a loop.

Hearthstone is a wonderful game. It's also about the least sexy thing Blizzard has ever made. Yes, there's a small amount of world-building—something about a magical tavern where Warcraft characters play a CCG—but design-wise, it's about as removed as you can possibly get from the complex pageant that makes Bethesda RPGs so ripe for horniness. And yet, the world's thirstiest modders were undeterred. One of the top upvoted posts on the r/LewdGames subreddit (which is the primary bazaar for stuff like this) is called "An In Depth Guide to Lewd Mods For Hearthstone."

It's essentially a directory, written by Reddit user Whiskey_And_Cigars, that points us in the direction of Whorestone, which replaces the card-art in base Hearthstone with a set of nude portraits for Jaina, Tyrande, Scarlet Crusader, Nemsy, and pretty much every other female presence in the game. There's also Monster Hunt Additions, which does the same thing for the single-player content added with The Witchwood expansion, and Boards, which simply projects pervy images across the game's battlefield. It’s as if you were playing Hearthstone directly onto a Playboy pinup.

r/lewdgames

Keen to understand why a largely cartoonish card battler would provoke such feelings of desire in, well, anyone, I decided to speak with the modder in question. Whiskey_And_Cigars said he understood my confusion. He totally recognized why Skyrim, or Fallout, or The Witcher represented more traditional conduits for gamer lust—considering those are all games where you encounter other humanoid beings, instead of digitally rendered hunks of cardboard.

As it turned out, there was a simplicity to Whiskey_And_Cigars' doctrine that I couldn't help but appreciate: "While I do play Skyrim with [porn] mods, I just really like playing Hearthstone," he explained. "I see that other people enjoy an immersive experience… but I'm not about that life, I'd rather just look at some boobs."

"I'd rather just look at some boobs" is the defining aesthetic treatise of the lewd mod revolution—fundamental proof that such a basic desire can apply to just about anything, even the proverbial children's card game. Inevitably, this creative drive for constant titillation is not limited to Hearthstone. Shadowverse, one of the many other digital CCGs bobbing around the Steam marketplace, has attracted its own community of randy reskinners, who convert the already buxom anime girls in the card art into images that leave even less to the imagination. The person responsible for the Uncensored Shadowverse mod tells me he thinks most people use his work for "pinup" purposes. Meaning: they aren't actively whacking it in the middle of a tense match. "I try to keep the art I use in my mods as decent as possible," he says.

A whole galaxy of sex mods

I suppose there is some tradition here, when you consider the long history of murky backroom poker games and pool halls, with the walls paneled with torn-out centerfolds, and the cardbacks replaced with a calendar's worth of Playmates of the Month. Still, as I investigated further, the unlikely nude mod scene continued to subvert my expectations. I stumbled across a website called LoversLab, which Steven Messner wrote about in relation to Skyrim previously, and positions itself as a paradise for all sorts of niche porn mods.

A mod that uses the Sexbound modding API.

Someone created an API for Starbound, the spacefaring pixel art building sim, called—of course—Sexbound. It "aims to enable creators to quickly and easily create prefab and custom sex interactions in Starbound." Here's a just a snippet of its description:

Please, note that the NPCs have been enabled to automatically climax. If your actors use the pregnant plugin, then you can expect a village's population to grow steadily over time. Remember, you can increase the "trimesterLength" in the core pregnant plugin to slow down population growth since it will take longer for an NPC to give birth.

If pixel art doesn't suit your fancy, there are other head scratchers, like a lesbian-oriented rework of Crusader Kings.

The most thrilling and beguiling discovery I found on the site was the shockingly active scene surrounding Paradox's Stellaris. For the uninitiated, Stellaris is a fairly buttoned-up grand strategy game set in the deep recesses of space—you colonize planets, you work your way through serpentine tech trees, you build a Dyson Sphere around a white dwarf and watch as the surrounding solar system dies a silent, frozen death. Safe to say, I have never gotten a boner while playing Stellaris. Which also holds true for Hearthstone, but at least Hearthstone is colorful and playful and doesn't force you to stare at line graphs.

An unusually SFW image of Stellaris's sex mod, which includes species traits like "high volume ejaculation" and "aphrodisiac cum."

Clearly, dear reader, I was not imaginative enough. I made contact with a mad scientist named TheMan221, who has constructed a mod called "Sexual Gameplay" (seriously), which literally morphs the mechanics of Stellaris into a game of carnal conquest.

I just like the combination of sci-fi and porn.
TheMan221

In his universe, each of Stellaris' space-faring races are bundled with a few "sexually-themed" traits, which can lead to a number of "interbreeding" events. For example, one trait enables you to lay eggs in the members of an unsuspecting rival clan, thus dropping their population rate. A perfect symbiosis of bizarre teratophiliac fantasy, and tactical gamesmanship. Finally, you can live out your oily intergalactic fantasies in grand strategy form.

"I still think a game like Stellaris is immersive, but on a different level. Making lewd mods for it fulfills certain niches that a game like Skyrim cannot, like commanding a civilization of nudists bent on conquering the galaxy (people like me have weird taste,)" said TheMan221, when I asked him why he's captivated by the titillating promise of an empire building sim. "I just like the combination of sci-fi and porn, as well as the larger scale that things are happening [on]."

I'd guess that Blizzard and Paradox aren't stoked that some of their beloved creations have become fuel for the latent libido that courses through the games community, but there's little those publishers can do, as these mods are unsanctioned and stay on the client machine—your Hearthstone opponent will never know you're looking at far more lascivious card art than they are.

There's a depressing but wholly unsurprising dude-ishness in wanting to play Hearthstone with naked ladies, and the mod scene is most definitely a boys' club—as evidenced by the telling lack of male nudity. But it's hard not to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and how brazen their compulsion to see smut at all times appears to be. You have to blow through so many red lights, so many well-intentioned warnings and concerns, to arrive at a Stellaris porn mod. That's a wicked dedication to horniness I can't help but grudgingly respect.

Blaze your own oversexed path. Colonize a planet if you must. Just be sure to clean up afterwards.

Jun 21, 2018

Dev Diary #119 - Niven Post-Launch Support (part 4)

Stellaris - candyalien

New
Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Now that we have officially released the 2.1.1 update, we are working on making another rolling beta patch that we expect to release to you guys sometime next week. This beta, with version number 2.1.2, will continue to focus on bug fixes, QOL features and improvements to performance/stability. We expect to keep the beta going through the summer and release it as an official update sometime after the team returns from vacations.

Claims in Diplomatic Mapmode
Something that's been highly requested by the community since 2.0 came out is the ability to see the claims of other empires on the galactic map. In 2.1.2, you will be able to see the claims of any empire you have communications with by going into diplomatic mapmode and selecting that empire, allowing you to easily get an overview of what systems they are interested in. Displaying claims is a scripted setting on a mapmode that modders will be able to add to any custom mapmodes they feel would benefit from it.

Creature/Fallen Empire Spawning
We're also spending some time tweaking the spawning radiuses of space creatures and fallen empires to try and ensure that they show up regularly even in densely populated galaxies. The spawning algorithm will still try to avoid boxing players in with Leviathans or hostile FEs, but hopefully there should be fewer instances of space creatures and Fallen Empires not showing up due to there being too many player empires on the map.

L-Cluster Improvements
As mentioned previously, we are still working on fleshing out the L-Cluster and adding more outcomes to it. We expect to get these improvements in at some point during the 2.1.2 rolling beta.

That's all for today! As July and vacation time is coming up, we're now going to go on a dev diary hiatus. There will likely be an update or two during this period to the 2.1.2 beta, but no regularly scheduled dev diaries. Dev diaries will return on August 9th, at which point we should be ready to start talking about what's coming next in terms of major updates and features. See you then!

Jun 14, 2018

2.1.1 patch is now live - Full Patch Notes

Stellaris - candyalien

Hi all, Jamor here.

After a good time in beta in which we were able to get confirmation that the L-Cluster related lag spikes were fixed, and no new critical issues introduced, I'm making 2.1.1 live now as the official version.

Spoiler: Full Patch Contents

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.1.1 ###########################
#################################################################

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

* Hyperlane density can now be changed to "full", which guarantees every possible hyperlane will exist
* You can now choose to start in a trinary or binary star system when creating your empire
* Experimental ETA feature put in for starship movement orders, telling you the approximate date of arrival
* Now possible to achieve partial victory in subjugation and liberation wars with occupied systems splitting off as a new subject or ally in the event of a status quo peace
* Put in greyscale versions of strategic resources icons, to indicate that you currently lack the technology to collect them

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

* Increased power usage of torpedoes
* Reduced frequency of gaining L-Gate Insights from unrelated anomalies by 70%
* A technology must now be researched after gathering all L-Gate insights before you can start the project to open the gates
* Reduced HP of missiles across the board, making point defense more potent
* The Prosperity faction will now be happier if you have war policy set to Defensive Wars Only
* The Imperialist faction is now also OK with ideological wars, and will only be angry if policy is set to Defensive Wars Only
* Reduced the chance of a Marauder Great Khan dying from noncombat causes
* Rogue Servitors can now allow organics to colonize planets
* Increased AI weight for naval cap & command limit techs
* Increased base weight of terraforming techs
* Reduced Materialist opinion boost towards Machine empires

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

* New icon for the L-cluster

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

* AI will now a wait some time before changing AI priority if it recently changed priority

###################
# Performance
###################

* Cached tile resource production for faster performance
* More border calculations optimization
* Borders are now only updated if they need to be, reducing unnecessary operations
* Removed useless recalculation of borders when planet change owners
* Bypass distance cache improvements
* Ensured Starbases owner modifiers are calculated only once, and parallelized that bit
* Parallelizing AI strategy monthly recalc and reducing the number of system evaluated
* More caching of tile related data performance - fixes a performance bug with previous caching of tile related data

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

* Moved scripted variables for buildings into the scripted variables file
* Saved Event Targets should now always persist through Special Projects
* Added is_event_design setting for event ship designs that should be blocked by fleet manager
* Improved performance of Global SavedEventTargets
* You can now define in a section template whether its components (turrets etc) should be drawn graphically or not
* Effects that take name (such as create_ship or set_name) can now extract name from scope, ie set_name = root will take the name from the root object (even if it's a different type of object, such as naming a ship after a leader)

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

* Fixed a bug where guaranteed nearby colonizable worlds sometimes did not appear
* Fixed pop_modifier out of sync in MP
* Fixed several other OOS causes with convoluted causes
* Fixed several crashes with similarly arcane origin stories
* Added Distant Stars ownership icon for MP setup
* Fixed an OOS related to ship armor stats
* Fixed missing ambient sounds for certain star classes
* Fixed missing brain slug traits for scientists and admirals
* Fixed getting brain slugs and other non-robotic traits for event-spawned robotic leaders
* Fixed "Asteroid Collision" anomaly awarding the wrong deposit type
* Fixed "...and Hope?" achievement for opening the L-Cluster not being awarded
* Fixed missing text description for the L-Gate insight technology
* Missing word added in Phase Disruptor tech description
* Fixed other typos rendering the game literally unplayable
* Fixed some Horizon Signal-related building tooltips
* Improved janky Tiyanki death animations, giving rise to a desire for a new 1930's dance craze
* Fixed cases where you would sometimes not identify Leviathans after meeting them, this should also fix Curators not having anything to say about them
* Fixed The Gray Tempest event having 2 choices with identical outcomes, because it was painfully close to much of real life
* Gestalt consciousness can no longer pick liberation wars policy as it did nothing for them anyway
* Phaseshifting planet now has edge case handling if a nation completes the project before researching the anomaly
* Pacification of Space Amoebas or Crystals now turns them neutral instead of friendly because come on guy, you don't know me like that
* Fixed Fanatic Purifier, Devouring Swarm, and Determined Exterminator Empires suddenly becoming socially presentable when talking to the Curators about L-Gates
* Fixed instances where Empires created after initial L-Gate activation would be unable to use the L-Gates
* Fixed a text overflow issue in the Anomaly tracker
* Fixed "Bunker-Bot" anomaly not generating an L-Gate Insight
* Fixed a crash when the gateway type doesn't exist (affected certain mods)
* Fixed an OOS due to Experimental Subspace Navigation
* Added missing modifier string for all languages
* Marauder neighbor events can no longer trigger for empires that have no communications with them
* Properly calculate cached values when ships are created, meaning fleet power is now displayed correctly
* Fixed a bug where freshly created ships would not benefit immediately from bonus hull point effects
* Addressed a couple of edge cases that might cause improper Strategic Resource tech weights
* Added Go To buttons to a couple of Anomalies
* Fixed a cause of ship stats OOS. Some code was executed in unsafe order somehow when recalculating for hot join
* Scriptable localization error logging fix
* Asteroids can now glow
* Fixed L-Gates that were opened in 2.1.0 being unusable in 2.1.1
* Minor loc polish and fixes to events
* Fixed broken repair costs for ruined buildings
* Fixed the Great Khan being stuck bombarding the planets of Satrapies
* Fixed issue with Ancient Manufactory that could leave the system's star without a resource deposit
* Hid display of weapons when inspecting space creatures, to prevent Amoebas with frickin' lasers attached to their heads
* Added missing check to prevent Sea of Consciousness tech gain exploit
* Fixed the bug where it was impossible to land troops on planets captured by titanic life
* Fixed ruined gateways blocking construction of megastructures
* Fixed construction time being calculated incorrectly for defensive platforms
* Machine Intelligences will no longer look down upon Synthetic Empires for being Artificial Beings
* Fixed ludicrously broken costs for starbase defense platform upgrades
* Added missing selection sound effects for ice asteroids and brown dwarves
* Fixed Gray Goo and Marauder fleets sometimes just idling instead of attacking nearby targets
* World Shaper ascension perk is no longer available to Machine Empires
* Fixed hyperlane detection range wrongly showing up in every ship-related popup known to sentient life
* Autonomous Ship Intellects is no longer marked as a dangerous tech
* Planned Obsolesence can no longer fire for non-materialist empires
* Fixed CTD on loading save game from in game
* Fixed "Asteroid Collision" anomaly awarding the wrong deposit type

It's too close to the end of the work week to do it right now, but the plan is to make a new 2.1.2 optional beta branch next week, containing more fixes and improvements. We'll get back to you with more on that shortly, but the key thing for us is to get the really badly needed lag fixes in the hands of the whole playerbase now that they have been confirmed. Thanks again for all your help making sure the release version was sound.

Save files from older versions should be compatible with 2.1.1, but just in case you need to roll back, here's how:

Steam library -> Right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas tab -> choose the version you want

Have fun playing this weekend!

Jun 5, 2018

2.1.1 Beta Patch updated with new fixes [checksum d173]

Stellaris - TheLetterZ

Hey lovely Stellaris players! We've got a new new Beta patch out for Stellaris 2.1.1 and we know a lot of you want to help us make it even better! Below are the patch notes for the current version as quoted from the forums, ORIGINAL THREAD HERE.
"Hi all, Jamor here.

As promised we've kept at work for the 2.1.1 beta patch. I've got a new batch of fixes ready. All those interested in trying out the patch before it goes live, please do so and give us your feedback. Please note that all new additions to the patch are in BOLD YELLOW (not yellow on Steam).

#################################################################
######################## VERSION 2.1.1b ###########################
#################################################################

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

* Hyperlane density can now be changed to "full", which guarantees every possible hyperlane will exist
* You can now choose to start in a trinary or binary star system when creating your empire
* Experimental ETA feature put in for starship movement orders, telling you the approximate date of arrival
* Now possible to achieve partial victory in subjugation and liberation wars with occupied systems splitting off as a new subject or ally in the event of a status quo peace
* Put in greyscale versions of strategic resources icons, to indicate that you currently lack the technology to collect them

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

* Increased power usage of torpedoes
* Reduced frequency of gaining L-Gate Insights from unrelated anomalies by 70%
* A technology must now be researched after gathering all L-Gate insights before you can start the project to open the gates
* Reduced HP of missiles across the board, making point defense more potent
* The Prosperity faction will now be happier if you have war policy set to Defensive Wars Only
* The Imperialist faction is now also OK with ideological wars, and will only be angry if policy is set to Defensive Wars Only
* Reduced the chance of a Marauder Great Khan dying from noncombat causes
* Rogue Servitors can now allow organics to colonize planets
* Increased AI weight for naval cap & command limit techs
* Increased base weight of terraforming techs
* Reduced Materialist opinion boost towards Machine empires

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

* New icon for the L-cluster

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

* AI will now a wait some time before changing AI priority if it recently changed priority

###################
# Performance
###################

* Cached tile resource production for faster performance
* More border calculations optimization
* Borders are now only updated if they need to be, reducing unnecessary operations
* Removed useless recalculation of borders when planet change owners
* Bypass distance cache improvements
* Ensured Starbases owner modifiers are calculated only once, and parallelized that bit
* Parallelizing AI strategy monthly recalc and reducing the number of system evaluated
* More caching of tile related data performance - fixes a performance bug with previous caching of tile related data

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

* Moved scripted variables for buildings into the scripted variables file
* Saved Event Targets should now always persist through Special Projects
* Added is_event_design setting for event ship designs that should be blocked by fleet manager
* Improved performance of Global SavedEventTargets
* You can now define in a section template whether its components (turrets etc) should be drawn graphically or not
* Effects that take name (such as create_ship or set_name) can now extract name from scope, ie set_name = root will take the name from the root object (even if it's a different type of object, such as naming a ship after a leader)

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

* Fixed a bug where guaranteed nearby colonizable worlds sometimes did not appear
* Fixed pop_modifier out of sync in MP
* Fixed several other OOS causes with convoluted causes
* Fixed several crashes with similarly arcane origin stories
* Added Distant Stars ownership icon for MP setup
* Fixed an OOS related to ship armor stats
* Fixed missing ambient sounds for certain star classes
* Fixed missing brain slug traits for scientists and admirals
* Fixed getting brain slugs and other non-robotic traits for event-spawned robotic leaders
* Fixed "Asteroid Collision" anomaly awarding the wrong deposit type
* Fixed "...and Hope?" achievement for opening the L-Cluster not being awarded
* Fixed missing text description for the L-Gate insight technology
* Missing word added in Phase Disruptor tech description
* Fixed other typos rendering the game literally unplayable
* Fixed some Horizon Signal-related building tooltips
* Improved janky Tiyanki death animations, giving rise to a desire for a new 1930's dance craze
* Fixed cases where you would sometimes not identify Leviathans after meeting them, this should also fix Curators not having anything to say about them
* Fixed The Gray Tempest event having 2 choices with identical outcomes, because it was painfully close to much of real life
* Gestalt consciousness can no longer pick liberation wars policy as it did nothing for them anyway
* Phaseshifting planet now has edge case handling if a nation completes the project before researching the anomaly
* Pacification of Space Amoebas or Crystals now turns them neutral instead of friendly because come on guy, you don't know me like that
* Fixed Fanatic Purifier, Devouring Swarm, and Determined Exterminator Empires suddenly becoming socially presentable when talking to the Curators about L-Gates
* Fixed instances where Empires created after initial L-Gate activation would be unable to use the L-Gates
* Fixed a text overflow issue in the Anomaly tracker
* Fixed "Bunker-Bot" anomaly not generating an L-Gate Insight
* Fixed a crash when the gateway type doesn't exist (affected certain mods)
* Fixed an OOS due to Experimental Subspace Navigation
* Added missing modifier string for all languages
* Marauder neighbor events can no longer trigger for empires that have no communications with them
* Properly calculate cached values when ships are created, meaning fleet power is now displayed correctly
* Fixed a bug where freshly created ships would not benefit immediately from bonus hull point effects
* Addressed a couple of edge cases that might cause improper Strategic Resource tech weights
* Added Go To buttons to a couple of Anomalies
* Fixed a cause of ship stats OOS. Some code was executed in unsafe order somehow when recalculating for hot join
* Scriptable localization error logging fix
* Asteroids can now glow
* Fixed L-Gates that were opened in 2.1.0 being unusable in 2.1.1
* Minor loc polish and fixes to events
* Fixed broken repair costs for ruined buildings
* Fixed the Great Khan being stuck bombarding the planets of Satrapies
* Fixed issue with Ancient Manufactory that could leave the system's star without a resource deposit
* Hid display of weapons when inspecting space creatures, to prevent Amoebas with frickin' lasers attached to their heads
* Added missing check to prevent Sea of Consciousness tech gain exploit
* Fixed the bug where it was impossible to land troops on planets captured by titanic life
* Fixed ruined gateways blocking construction of megastructures
* Fixed construction time being calculated incorrectly for defensive platforms
* Machine Intelligences will no longer look down upon Synthetic Empires for being Artificial Beings
* Fixed ludicrously broken costs for starbase defense platform upgrades
* Added missing selection sound effects for ice asteroids and brown dwarves
* Fixed Gray Goo and Marauder fleets sometimes just idling instead of attacking nearby targets
* World Shaper ascension perk is no longer available to Machine Empires
* Fixed hyperlane detection range wrongly showing up in every ship-related popup known to sentient life
* Autonomous Ship Intellects is no longer marked as a dangerous tech
* Planned Obsolesence can no longer fire for non-materialist empires
* Fixed CTD on loading save game from in game
* Fixed "Asteroid Collision" anomaly awarding the wrong deposit type

Your feedback will help us get the best possible full release version, so please give it a try and get back to me.

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 "2.1.1_beta"

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May 31, 2018

Dev Diary #117 - Niven Post-Launch Support (part 2)

Stellaris - candyalien

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. As mentioned in last week's dev diary, we're currently in an extended post-launch support period, and so there won't be any feature dev diaries coming for a while. Today's dev diary will just be a quick update about a couple of the issues we're currently aware of and working on for the 2.1.1 rolling beta. This is just a select few items, not a comprehensive list of everything we're working on!

L-Cluster Variety
The first issue we're currently addressing is L-Cluster balance and variety. We've had some feedback from players who got a 'positive' L-Cluster outcome that it felt a bit underwhelming, and while we definitely do not want every L-Cluster outcome to be negative, we do acknowledge that we could have done more in regards to the flavor and detail of some of the outcomes. As such, we'll be doing an extended second pass on this feature, adding more flavor and more outcomes, and also looking into the balance of when the L-Cluster is accessible and AI-related issues for some of those outcomes. We expect to have balance and AI fixes with you sooner rather than later, with the second content pass likely a few weeks away as we have decided to invest a fair amount of additional time and resources into it.

Performance
Another problem we're aware of and working on is the issue some users are experiencing with decreased performance and stuttering in 2.1 compared to 2.0. All I can say about this at the moment is that our coders are looking into it and have already made some progress on the problem, and that we consider it to be a very high priority issue that we absolutely intend to resolve.

Finally for today, a picture showing off a little modding support feature we'll be putting into the rolling beta - when you name objects in script (such as naming a newly created fleet or using the set_name function) the script will now take a scope, meaning that you can for example create a ship named after a leader, or renamed a planet dynamically after the species living there.

That's all for today! Join us again next week for... you guessed it... more post-launch support!