Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


Greetings Galactic Emperors, Rogue AIs, Humble Hiveminds, and Exalted Starfish,

Today is the 3rd Anniversary of Stellaris, the game that brought all of you together in a galaxy of conflict, friendship, primordial creatures, and everything else in between. To celebrate this and share our celebratory happiness with everyone, we are holding a Free Weekend so that anyone can download the base game of Stellaris and play!

This free weekend starts now on Steam and will be available until Sunday 12th May at 13:00 PDT / 16:00 EDT / 22:00 CEST.

Additionally, the entire Stellaris catalog is on discount now, with MegaCorp on discount for the first time! Check out the Steam store page to find out all the savings!

Finally, we’re going to be giving away the e-book version of Stellaris: Infinite Frontiers to everyone that signs up for the Stellaris newsletter with their Paradox Accounts. To receive this free gift, you can follow these easy steps:
  1. Create an account (in Stellaris or https://accounts.paradoxplaza.com/login)
  2. Sign up for Stellaris newsletter (make sure to tick the box alluding to "receiving news and offers from Paradox Interactive" (if you forget to tick this box, or have an existing account, please make sure you have Stellaris added to your newsletter preferences at https://accounts.paradoxplaza.com/settings)
  3. Confirm Account via the Confirmation Email
  4. Get e-book in email next week!
  5. Enjoy a good read!
We want to express our unending gratitude to you, our community, for joining us on this crazy journey. Happy 3rd birthday to Stellaris, and here's to many many more years ahead! We'll leave you now with our latest trailer for this celebration, featuring hints and references from the past three years of this awesome game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL0kemiI0yc

THANK YOU!
-The Stellaris Team
Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


Tickets for PDXCON are now available!
Join us for a weekend in Berlin, filled with games, people and all things Paradox and get a ticket now before they sell out!

Read more and get your tickets here: https://pdxint.at/pdxcontickets
Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


Hello everyone!

As promised last week, we’re back to talk about something old that’s new – which, as many of you correctly guessed, is about new precursors. Adding new precursors has been something we’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now, and we’re very happy that we can now finally provide what’s been asked for.

In the next DLC you will be able to explore the fate of two new precursors, namely the Baol and the Zroni. To not spoil too much, I’ll only give a basic description of their respective backgrounds and lore.

The Baol
The Baol Organism was once a sprawling interstellar Hive Mind comprised of trillions of psychically-linked plantoids. With their ability to slowly terraform a planet's ecosystem and atmospheric gases via centuries of sustained photosynthetic processes, the Baol civilization produced a plethora of rich flora and fauna on otherwise unremarkable worlds. The Baol Organism curated lush planetary gardens and arboretums across many systems, forming mutualistic symbiotic relationships with local alien wildlife.



The Zroni
The Zroni were possibly the most powerful psionics to have ever existed, or at least they were the first to discover the dimension which has come to be known as The Shroud. Once the Zroni population reached a certain critical mass it seems that their collective unconscious minds began to make contact with the proto-shroud in dreams, leading to mass lucid dreaming. Soon the phenomenon was studied and the Zroni discovered how to psionically project themselves into the Shroud, where they found that they could manipulate the very fabric of reality with their psionic powers. It wasn't long before the Zroni discovered they could physically enter the Shroud and live like Gods, transforming the dimension to suit their whims.

Precursor changes
One of the more impactful changes we’ve made is that we have now made the precursor spawns randomized so that they will no longer spawn in a specific part of the galaxy.

We have also added some more features and rewards to the old precursors. For example, after having found the Irassian home system, you can now spend minor artifacts to unravel some of the secrets of the Irassians. The new artifact actions aren’t the only new things though, and there’s some more cool things that you will be able to find.





Additional precursor plans
Some of you have been asking about archaeology and adapting some of the old precursor content to use the new system. In regards to that question I will say that it is something that I always planned to do, but due to other things taking priority we can’t promise that it will happen immediately. If those changes don’t make it into the next update, it's very likely they will appear in the next big update after that. Changing that content would of course still be a part of the base game.

---

To get involved in the discussions on this Dev Diary with our dev team directly, head over the official Stellaris forum thread here.

That is all we had to share for this week’s dev diary. Next week we’ll be back again, which also happens to be the 3 year anniversary for Stellaris :)
Apr 25, 2019
Stellaris - BjornB


Hello everyone!

Today we’re back with yet another dev diary, which will build upon some of the things we revealed last week. Last week we outlined some information about Minor Relics, and how they can be useful. We didn’t mention specifically how they are usually found, but luckily that is something you’ll learn today!

Archaeology
In the next DLC you will be able to experience some new content related to uncovering and excavating archaeological sites. Sites can be discovered in multiple ways, be it either on survey, generated at game start, or perhaps generated by an event.



Sites that lie inside your borders can be excavated by a Scientist, and will consist of several different chapters. A site can have 1-6 chapters, in addition to an introduction/prologue. Each chapter will have its own narrative and a reward, and has to be unlocked before it becomes visible.


Excavation in progress. Spoiler-blurred text.

A chapter will be unlocked whenever the Scientist excavating the site gets a successful result at the end of an Excavation Phase – mechanically this works very similar to how sieges work in EU4. As the Scientist goes through phases, it will roll a dice and add modifiers to the result. The final result will then either do nothing, add clues, or make a breakthrough to the next chapter.

Game mechanics details:
Result = dice roll + Archaeology Skill + Clues - Difficulty

Result Outcomes:
0-7: Status quo
8-10: +1 clue
11-13: +2 clues
14+: Breakthrough


Chapter completed. Spoiler-blurred text.
A neat feature of this new system is that you can click previous chapters to go back and read what happened.

At the end of each Excavation Phase, it is also possible that the Scientist triggers a random event, which will inject some unpredictability and create opportunities for emergent storytelling.


Everything is fine.

Archaeology chapters commonly reward the player with minor artifacts – but it can also be resources, research points or other more unique rewards.

Design intentions
Archaeology becomes a way for us to express narrative in a more evolving and controlled manner, and every site it also tied to a location on the map. All of these things together should make it more enjoyable to experience the content, since we hope it becomes easier to build a mental model of what is happening where. In general I believe that having narrative tied to things you can see on the map makes for a better experience. It’s not uncommon for me to forget where on the map a previous event occurred, and that is something I’d like to improve over time. I really like archaeology because it lands well between mechanics and narrative.

------------

We hope you could dig today’s dev diary, and next week we’ll be back with something old that is new.
Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


PDXCON2019 is coming and we couldn’t be more excited to meet our community at the event - which takes place on October 18th - 20th, 2019. Tickets go on sale on May 7th, but we’ve got a secret to tell you…

If you head over to the PDXCON 2019 website at https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com/ you can sign up to the mailing list. Anyone that signs up will be given 8 HOURS early access before the public availability of the tickets to buy before everyone else! Sign up now and keep your eyes on the news we’ll be sending out because tickets will sell out.
Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


Hello everyone!

First of all, I’d like to follow up on last week’s dev diary by sharing some more things we’re trying out with Megastructures (and habitats!).

After all of that, we also have something new to talk about!

Let’s start from the beginning – which of course leads us to the Mega-Engineering technology itself.

As always, numbers may not be final and temporary things may be sighted.

Mega-Engineering
Mega-Engineering is still a rare technology, but will now be more likely to appear as you build more Habitats and Citadels. This means it is way more likely to appear if you are performing actions in the game that would lead you towards the route of building larger and more powerful structures.

Master Builders
The Master Builders ascension perk no longer unlocks mega-engineering or adds size to habitats, but instead increases the number of megastructures you can simultaneously build by +1. What about increased habitat size you ask? Well, keep on reading!



Habitats & Voidborne
Habitats are no longer locked behind the Voidborne ascension perk but is rather a technology that branches off from the Star Fortress technology. Habitats now have a default of 80% habitability. We’re also experimenting with that some of the habitat’s districts will depend on which planet they are built over. In case you build one above a planet with mining deposits, this could happen:




Voidborne ascension perk now increases habitat size by +2 and increases Habitat habitability by 20%. This should mean it becomes more of a choice for specialization, rather than feeling it is a non-choice.

As a final note on habitats, it might be worthwhile to reiterate my thoughts that I eventually want to add different levels/sizes to habitats. It is however not something for the immediate future, but a little further down the road.

Ring Worlds
We didn’t quite like how Ring Worlds ended up feeling like a vast farm, so we’re making some changes. Instead of being a size 50 with regular districts, we’re changing it to a size 5 with a unique type of districts – segments. A Ring World, as you know, has 4 planets. Each planet can now build 5 segments, which are very powerful districts with many jobs and a lot of housing.



Minor Artifacts

Some of you might recognize the icon for what was supposed to become arcane technology, that partially got into 2.2. It was something that I was personally working on, but that didn’t work out as I had imagined it, and that I didn’t get enough time to finish with other things taking priority.

In the next upcoming DLC, you will be able to come across Minor Artifacts. “Minor Artifacts” is a broad term that includes any smaller and nameless artifact left behind by ancient civilizations. They are never gained passively every month, but will rather have to be found.

What are they used for, I imagine you asking? Well, the basic functionality is that they can be consumed in so-called artifact actions. There are a bunch of different actions that can be performed by consuming Minor Artifacts, with varying effects for each.

Some of these actions will be locked behind a technology, which some may also recognize.



Arcane Deciphering allows you to consume Minor Artifacts for a random technology-related bonus.



------------

That’s it for this week! Happy Easter everyone! Next week we’ll be back again :)

P.S. Attaching an Easter present

Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


Hello everyone!

We are back with a dev diary outlining some of the changes we’re making to megastructures in a future update. We’ve recently felt that the Galactic Wonders ascension perk feels a little bloated when it unlocked up to 8 different things, in addition to it being a little awkward that you suddenly got access to so many vastly more powerful structures.

We didn’t like that Galactic Wonders became so much of a non-choice due to unlocking so many things, so it will now be possible to unlock most of the megastructures without having to dedicate an ascension perk for it.

Galactic Wonders
We are making some changes to Galactic Wonders so that it no longer unlocks all megastructures, but rather only unlocks the most powerful megastructures. In addition, they are also unlocked as technology options rather than as finished schemes ready for construction. This means that you will still have to research the technology to build a Dyson Sphere, which also means it becomes a choice if you want to first focus on the Dyson Sphere or the Matter Decompressor (they are both Physics technologies).



Megastructures
The other megastructures – Strategic Coordination Center, Mega Art Installation, Interstellar Assembly, Science Nexus and Sentry Array – are now instead of their own unique technologies. It is now possible to build these without having the Galactic Wonders ascension perk.



The megastructures are split into different research categories. Strategic Coordination Center, Mega Art Installation and Interstellar Assembly are all Society research. Science Nexus and Sentry Array are Physics. All of these new technologies have mega-engineering as their prerequisite.

At the same time we are also taking the opportunity to look over the placement rules for megastructures, as they were not entirely consistent. The 5 mentioned here above should now follow similar rules for placement.

------------

That’s it for this week! Next week we’ll be back again
Apr 4, 2019
Stellaris - demasiri_pdx


Version checksums ea03 and b1a8

Hi everyone! Just want to drop a line to inform you that 2.2.7 is now the official live version. It fixes a few gameplay and stability issues that came up with 2.2.6.

VERSION 2.2.7

UI
  • Fixed species ethics wrongly displaying the same for all empires in the empire selection screen

Bugfixes
  • Fixed assimilation
  • Fixed Machine and Hive world terraforming removing rare deposit types
  • Fixed crash in tech progress tooltip while in observer mode
  • Crashfix when invalid leaders are left in a country's leader pool
  • Fixed broken localization for crisis purge jobs in non-English languages
Mar 20, 2019
Stellaris - BjornB


Hi Everyone!

After its beta testing phase, the 2.2.6 patch is ready for its live release!
Since the latest beta build, we addressed 3 small, but important issues:
Fixed the end of year lag when big empires with lots of pops being assimilated convert them into proper citizen (shoutout to Glavius!)
Fixed a crash when editing UNE template ethics
Fixed the AI not utilizing fleet capacity


You can read the full update patchnotes below:

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.2.6 ###########################
#################################################################

######################
# 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ Free Features
######################

* Added a new, more user-friendly planet screen, with better organization and display of info and buttons
* Ship upgrading is now handled individually, on a per ship, per shipyard basis. This means if the process is interrupted part way, some of the ships will still be upgraded, rather than losing the entire upgrade progress. Also, alloy costs are now deducted one ship at a time, rather than for the entire fleet in one go, so you don't have to wait until you can afford everything to start the upgrade process
* Warrior Culture civic no longer reduces army upkeep, but instead makes Entertainment buildings replace Entertainers with Duelists. Duelists turn 1 alloy into 3 unity, 12 amenities and 2 naval capacity
* Added Logistical Corps tradition custom flavour text swap for Hive Minds
* Added Great Game tradition custom flavour text swap for Devouring Swarms
* Added new animation to Plantoid 13 (cactus) portrait. It will now have some butterflies as company!
* Added the Legion flag set with six new selectable flag emblems

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

* Pop growth further adjusted to put less priority towards minority pops
* Battle Thralls can now take enforcer jobs
* Hallucinogen Removal special project cost reduced from 5000 to 3000
* Breaching the Shroud special project cost reduces from 50000 to 20000
* Transcendent Learning ascension perk effect on leader pool removed and replaced with Leader Experience Gain +50%
* Reduced the machine empire bonus to orbital station production to 10% (was 50%, which turned out to be rather OP)
* Rogue Servitor tweaks:
-Organic Sanctuary/Paradise no longer provide housing, instead Biotrophy jobs eliminate those pop's need for housing
-Artisan Drones produce 8 Consumer goods for 8 minerals (up from 6 of each)
-Biotrophy Jobs now also increase Complex Drone putput on their planet by 0.25% each
-Starts with 1 additonal Nexus District
* Driven Assimilator tweaks:
-Bio pop growth reduced by 40%
-1 fewer Replicator job per level of capital
-Now start with +100 food, and 100 less energy
* Ship upgrades are cheaper due to refund amount from old components being increased to 90% (was 50%)
* Pops have a wider possible range of Political power, so for example you can care less about unhappy slaves since it's not as though they can vote or anything
* Meritocracy Civic effect on leader pool size removed and replaced with specialist output +10%
* Clone Vats are no longer required to build Clone armies, they are now unlocked by the Gene Banks tech (resolves an issue where this tech had no benefit for assimilators)
* Technological Ascendancy ascension perk now also makes rare technologies 50% more common
* Shroud entities have been tweaked slightly. Corrupted Avatar now has lower total HP, but has increased regen. Shroud Avatar is now slightly stronger in its total HP and regen. End of Cycle entities have also been tweaked similarly
* Transcendence, Evolutionary Mastery, Synthetic Evolution ascension perk slot requirement reduced from 4th to 3rd
* World Shaper ascension perk slot requirement reduced from 3nd to 2nd
* Imperial Prerogative ascension perk no longer has any slot requirements
* Eternal Vigilance ascension perk no longer has any slot requirements, but instead requires the Star Fortress technology
* Eternal Vigilance ascension perk now also increases starbase hull points by 25%
* One Vision ascension perk now also reduces pop amenities usage by 10%
* Numistic shrine now costs 4000 energy to buy and 1000 minerals to build
* Clerks and Preachers job weights no longer care about being strong, weak, or proles
* Miner job weights DO care about being proles
* Synth Empires pay only alloys for Colony ships, like Machines
* Rogue Servitors start with another Nexus District

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

* Added missing modifier icons for mote harvesting traps and extractors, also updated old icon
* Added a bunch of shortcuts to the planet view
* Added shortcut "U" to upgrade starbase platforms button
* Added shortcuts for upgrade "U" and trade route "T" buttons in starbase interface
* Strategic resources summary on the top bar will now show in red to let you know if any are in deficit
* Fixing devastation progress bar reaching 100% and disappearing
* Fixed so that unemployment by strata icons are properly displayed and have a working tooltip
* Rogue Servitor complex drone output bonus from each Bio-Trophy was not being displayed due to lack of decimals showing, this is fixed

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

* Big rework of military AI making it a lot smarter and more aggressive in war: better selection and maintenance of the aim, better follow through on invading worlds they are bombarding, not so easy to kite with tiny decoy fleets, more willing to reinforce neighboring friendlies under attack, etc
* AI is not so maniacal about crime that it rush builds 3 precinct houses on every planet
* The sector AI should now be better at upgrading buildings relevant to its selected focus
* Improved the AI's budgeting of Alloys
* AI will now only consider enacting population control if it cannot produce more housing
* Sector automation will now clear blockers if able, and if it is not building a building or district at that moment
* Rogue Servitors Less keen on building organic sanctuaries unless bio-trophies need them
* Sector AI will now upgrade buildings if possible
* All Sector Focuses will now try to upgrade their colony capital buildings if there are no other pressing needs
* AI will no longer obsessively shuffle scientists from one role to another every few days
* Lowered the AI's mineral budget allotment for ground armies (they were producing way too many)
* AI empires with alternative cost types for colony ships will now budget the correct resource for it
* AI prefers City districts over Housing buildings a bit more
* Fixed some edge cases where the AI would attempt to build its way out of unemployment with districts and buildings that its pops can't work
* Fixed AI not repairing damaged branch office buildings
* Fixed AI fleets getting stuck when their target goes MIA
* AI will not build nanite transfusers without nanite income or build more than 2 per planet

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

* Removed redundant double calculations related to end game crisis that caused them to very negatively affect late game performance
* Reordered some operations in the invasion calculations to make sure the most expensive are done last

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

* Added 'hyperlane_distance = { min max }' and 'hyperlane_jumps = { min max }' to system initializer 'neighbor_system = { ... }' block
* Pops now use the asset_selector again to choose their clothes
* Added new "is_scope_type" trigger that lets you know if you're a scope of a particular type: "is_scope_type = fleet"
* Removed the forced clothes index in pop categories and job types, to let the clothes selector do its magic
* There are now multipliers for previous job, previous tenants, survey and unemployment to the AI score used to fill in jobs

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

* Fixed edge case where multiple megastructures could be built in the same system
* Fixed missing missions for primitive observation posts
* Fixed planets still being colonized generating emigration push to other worlds. I know the offworld colonies weren't the paradise the holovid adverts made them out to be, but give them another generation or two...
* Fixed a broken string in the tooltip for the Egalitarian ethic
* Fixed guaranteed ideal nearby systems generating based on absolute distance rather than max jumps from homeworld, which could cause them to be isolated by unlucky jump lane network generation
* Fixed population controls disabling robot construction as well, so you can now improve the meatbag to metal ratio of your society
* Planets under colonization will no longer generate low stability alerts
* Fixed Strategic Resource notifications appearing for resources hidden behind Anomalies
* Winning an "impose ideology" war will no longer overwrite the defeated empires civics
* Impose Ideology war now properly creates an ally instead of a vassal
* Fixed a crash that happened when a ship was destroyed while being upgraded
* A lack of Nanites will now properly trigger a deficit warning and stop the resource production of Nanite Transmuters
* Fixed robots/synths being treated as organic when conquered by hive mind empires, and getting locked in the livestock job
* Fixed vassal integration wrongly costing no influence
* Fixed an issue where conquering Hive Minds could take over inappropriate buildings they have no use for, like Holo-Theatres
* Maintenance drones now correctly increase in priority when amenities are negative, and now don't have increased priority from traits when amenities are high
* Slave processing centers should no longer vanish when build anywhere but a Thrall-World
* Fixed some edge cases where the Life-Seeded Civic would not create a Gaia homeworld
* Head Researcher and Executive now have Amenity output modifiers and weights for several relevant traits (Repugnant, Charismatic, etc)
* Fixed Strong, Very Strong, Weak traits not being applied properly when playing as a gestalt empire
* Fixed displacement purge type wrongly applying the genocidal diplomatic opinion penalty
* Fixed "The Shattered Loop" event firing twice upon death of the Worm-in-Waiting
* Fixed a literally unplayable localization error in the Xeno-Compatibility tooltip
* Fixed Prikkik-Ti empire spawning on a planet without enough districts to support it
* Prikkiki-Ti will no longer spam player with multiple communications established messages
* Planets taken over by the Scourge or Contingency will now swap any capital buildings to a correct Machine or Hive capital
* Preferred habitability is no longer strictly tied to starting planet class if a civic changes the starting planet
* Fixed developing colonies being hidden in the outliner's Sectors group if on completion a new sector would be created
* Fixed pre-sapient policies disappearing if you purge all of them from your space, making fulfilment of certain faction demands impossible, because what are the screams of the innocent next to that sweet, sweet influence?
* Changed wording on the Strong/Very Strong traits. It was wrongly implying that is should affect the outcome of ALL worker strata jobs, not just basic resource extraction ones. Even if your clerks never skip leg day, they probably shouldn't benefit from these traits
* Added piracy suppression values to event generated ships that were missing them
* Fixed a few more cases of techs with the wrong specialty group assignment
* Fixed a minor discrepancy in the tooltip of the Sins of a Sun anomaly vs its actual in game effects
* Fixed a nasty exploit with downgrading fleets that could result in free alloys (thanks for the heads up on this, Reddit user nonium)
* Added missing torpedo components from the Spiritualist Fallen Empire Zealot-Class ship type
* Added a basic Zro income to Spiritualist Fallen empires to allow them to properly produce reinforcements for their damaged fleets
* The modifier for Refinery worlds should also now affect Gestalt jobs
* Fixed several ship weapons which had incorrect resource costs
* Energy/Culture Habitat districts should convert properly if a gestalt empire takes it from a normal empire, or vice versa
* Fixed a crash when a country gets a trade route that used to belong to someone else
* Fixed tooltip that hilariously claimed that setting a species to purge (except neuter) was a requirement for the Decent Living Standards
* Picking Life Seeded will no longer give automatic nearby ideal worlds that are also Gaia
* Randomized empires gets their starting planets, ethics and civics correctly set up when they start as life seeded or post apocalyptic
* Fixed OOS for diplomatic upkeep upon hotjoining
* Fixed some causes of country_resources OOS
* Restored non extermination types of purging
* Fixed script checking wrong resource for automated sector upgrading to research lab lvl 3
* Fixed Prethoryn purging primitives at an incorrect, too-slow rate
* Fixed the planet screen being cut off on the left side of the screen on certain resolutions
* Fixed empires in federations wrongly budgeting for Federation fleet ships as part of their own navy, and thus underdeveloping their own fleets
* Fixed a crash when gifting planets to a vassal
* Fixed a situation where replacing a district temporarily adds to the maximum numbers of built districts, as if you were building a new district
* Speed demon event will add the red/green traits even if your species is very strong/adaptive
* Fixed planets under colonization suffering low stability events
* Fixed Crisis purging yet again (for a galaxy-threatening menace they sure seem easy to dissuade from their mission of doom)
* Fixed the end of year lag when big empires with lots of pops being assimilated convert them into proper citizen (shoutout to Glavius!)
* Fixed a crash when editing UNE template ethics
* Fixed the AI not utilizing fleet capacity

Aside from that, we’re keeping a 2nd 2.2.6 build in beta for crossplay support and to help us test our networking backend. As always, your help in testing the build is greatly appreciated!
Have fun playing!
Stellaris - BjornB
Hi all!

We’re continuing the work on the 2.2.6 beta patch, and we just updated it with a set of new tweaks and fixes! Big thanks to all of you helping us identify hidden bugs and issues!

For those of you who are using the “stellaris_test” branch, it will update automatically. This is the build you need to play with your friends on GoG! The live build version, remains the 2.2.5.

Jamor has summarized the new changes for your convenience (new entries are in bold):

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.2.6 ###########################
#################################################################

######################
# 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ Free Features
######################

* Added a new, more user-friendly planet screen, with better organization and display of info and buttons
* Ship upgrading is now handled individually, on a per ship, per shipyard basis. This means if the process is interrupted part way, some of the ships will still be upgraded, rather than losing the entire upgrade progress. Also, alloy costs are now deducted one ship at a time, rather than for the entire fleet in one go, so you don't have to wait until you can afford everything to start the upgrade process
* Warrior Culture civic no longer reduces army upkeep, but instead makes Entertainment buildings replace Entertainers with Duelists. Duelists turn 1 alloy into 3 unity, 12 amenities and 2 naval capacity
* Added Logistical Corps tradition custom flavour text swap for Hive Minds
* Added Great Game tradition custom flavour text swap for Devouring Swarms
* Added new animation to Plantoid 13 (cactus) portrait. It will now have some butterflies as company!
* Added the Legion flag set with six new selectable flag emblems

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

* Pop growth further adjusted to put less priority towards minority pops
* Battle Thralls can now take enforcer jobs
* Hallucinogen Removal special project cost reduced from 5000 to 3000
* Breaching the Shroud special project cost reduces from 50000 to 20000
* Transcendent Learning ascension perk effect on leader pool removed and replaced with Leader Experience Gain +50%
* Reduced the machine empire bonus to orbital station production to 10% (was 50%, which turned out to be rather OP)
* Rogue Servitor tweaks:
-Organic Sanctuary/Paradise no longer provide housing, instead Biotrophy jobs eliminate those pop's need for housing
-Artisan Drones produce 8 Consumer goods for 8 minerals (up from 6 of each)
-Biotrophy Jobs now also increase Complex Drone putput on their planet by 0.25% each
-Starts with 1 additonal Nexus District
* Driven Assimilator tweaks:
-Bio pop growth reduced by 40%
-1 fewer Replicator job per level of capital
-Now start with +100 food, and 100 less energy
* Ship upgrades are cheaper due to refund amount from old components being increased to 90% (was 50%)
* Pops have a wider possible range of Political power, so for example you can care less about unhappy slaves since it's not as though they can vote or anything
* Meritocracy Civic effect on leader pool size removed and replaced with specialist output +10%
* Clone Vats are no longer required to build Clone armies, they are now unlocked by the Gene Banks tech (resolves an issue where this tech had no benefit for assimilators)
* Technological Ascendancy ascension perk now also makes rare technologies 50% more common
* Shroud entities have been tweaked slightly. Corrupted Avatar now has lower total HP, but has increased regen. Shroud Avatar is now slightly stronger in its total HP and regen. End of Cycle entities have also been tweaked similarly
* Transcendence, Evolutionary Mastery, Synthetic Evolution ascension perk slot requirement reduced from 4th to 3rd
* World Shaper ascension perk slot requirement reduced from 3nd to 2nd
* Imperial Prerogative ascension perk no longer has any slot requirements
* Eternal Vigilance ascension perk no longer has any slot requirements, but instead requires the Star Fortress technology
* Eternal Vigilance ascension perk now also increases starbase hull points by 25%
* One Vision ascension perk now also reduces pop amenities usage by 10%
* Numistic shrine now costs 4000 energy to buy and 1000 minerals to build
* Clerks and Preachers job weights no longer care about being strong, weak, or proles
* Miner job weights DO care about being proles
* Synth Empires pay only alloys for Colony ships, like Machines
* Rogue Servitors start with another Nexus District

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

* Added missing modifier icons for mote harvesting traps and extractors, also updated old icon
* Added a bunch of shortcuts to the planet view
* Added shortcut "U" to upgrade starbase platforms button
* Added shortcuts for upgrade "U" and trade route "T" buttons in starbase interface
* Strategic resources summary on the top bar will now show in red to let you know if any are in deficit
* Fixing devastation progress bar reaching 100% and disappearing
* Fixed so that unemployment by strata icons are properly displayed and have a working tooltip
* Rogue Servitor complex drone output bonus from each Bio-Trophy was not being displayed due to lack of decimals showing, this is fixed

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

* Big rework of military AI making it a lot smarter and more aggressive in war: better selection and maintenance of the aim, better follow through on invading worlds they are bombarding, not so easy to kite with tiny decoy fleets, more willing to reinforce neighboring friendlies under attack, etc
* AI is not so maniacal about crime that it rush builds 3 precinct houses on every planet
* The sector AI should now be better at upgrading buildings relevant to its selected focus
* Improved the AI's budgeting of Alloys
* AI will now only consider enacting population control if it cannot produce more housing
* Sector automation will now clear blockers if able, and if it is not building a building or district at that moment
* Rogue Servitors Less keen on building organic sanctuaries unless bio-trophies need them
* Sector AI will now upgrade buildings if possible
* All Sector Focuses will now try to upgrade their colony capital buildings if there are no other pressing needs
* AI will no longer obsessively shuffle scientists from one role to another every few days
* Lowered the AI's mineral budget allotment for ground armies (they were producing way too many)
* AI empires with alternative cost types for colony ships will now budget the correct resource for it
* AI prefers City districts over Housing buildings a bit more
* Fixed some edge cases where the AI would attempt to build its way out of unemployment with districts and buildings that its pops can't work
* Fixed AI not repairing damaged branch office buildings
* Fixed AI fleets getting stuck when their target goes MIA
* AI will not build nanite transfusers without nanite income or build more than 2 per planet

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# Performance
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* Removed redundant double calculations related to end game crisis that caused them to very negatively affect late game performance
* Reordered some operations in the invasion calculations to make sure the most expensive are done last

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# Modding
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* Added 'hyperlane_distance = { min max }' and 'hyperlane_jumps = { min max }' to system initializer 'neighbor_system = { ... }' block
* Pops now use the asset_selector again to choose their clothes
* Added new "is_scope_type" trigger that lets you know if you're a scope of a particular type: "is_scope_type = fleet"
* Removed the forced clothes index in pop categories and job types, to let the clothes selector do its magic
* There are now multipliers for previous job, previous tenants, survey and unemployment to the AI score used to fill in jobs

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# Bugfixes
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* Fixed edge case where multiple megastructures could be built in the same system
* Fixed missing missions for primitive observation posts
* Fixed planets still being colonized generating emigration push to other worlds. I know the offworld colonies weren't the paradise the holovid adverts made them out to be, but give them another generation or two...
* Fixed a broken string in the tooltip for the Egalitarian ethic
* Fixed guaranteed ideal nearby systems generating based on absolute distance rather than max jumps from homeworld, which could cause them to be isolated by unlucky jump lane network generation
* Fixed population controls disabling robot construction as well, so you can now improve the meatbag to metal ratio of your society
* Planets under colonization will no longer generate low stability alerts
* Fixed Strategic Resource notifications appearing for resources hidden behind Anomalies
* Winning an "impose ideology" war will no longer overwrite the defeated empires civics
* Impose Ideology war now properly creates an ally instead of a vassal
* Fixed a crash that happened when a ship was destroyed while being upgraded
* A lack of Nanites will now properly trigger a deficit warning and stop the resource production of Nanite Transmuters
* Fixed robots/synths being treated as organic when conquered by hive mind empires, and getting locked in the livestock job
* Fixed vassal integration wrongly costing no influence
* Fixed an issue where conquering Hive Minds could take over inappropriate buildings they have no use for, like Holo-Theatres
* Maintenance drones now correctly increase in priority when amenities are negative, and now don't have increased priority from traits when amenities are high
* Slave processing centers should no longer vanish when build anywhere but a Thrall-World
* Fixed some edge cases where the Life-Seeded Civic would not create a Gaia homeworld
* Head Researcher and Executive now have Amenity output modifiers and weights for several relevant traits (Repugnant, Charismatic, etc)
* Fixed Strong, Very Strong, Weak traits not being applied properly when playing as a gestalt empire
* Fixed displacement purge type wrongly applying the genocidal diplomatic opinion penalty
* Fixed "The Shattered Loop" event firing twice upon death of the Worm-in-Waiting
* Fixed a literally unplayable localization error in the Xeno-Compatibility tooltip
* Fixed Prikkik-Ti empire spawning on a planet without enough districts to support it
* Prikkiki-Ti will no longer spam player with multiple communications established messages
* Planets taken over by the Scourge or Contingency will now swap any capital buildings to a correct Machine or Hive capital
* Preferred habitability is no longer strictly tied to starting planet class if a civic changes the starting planet
* Fixed developing colonies being hidden in the outliner's Sectors group if on completion a new sector would be created
* Fixed pre-sapient policies disappearing if you purge all of them from your space, making fulfilment of certain faction demands impossible, because what are the screams of the innocent next to that sweet, sweet influence?
* Changed wording on the Strong/Very Strong traits. It was wrongly implying that is should affect the outcome of ALL worker strata jobs, not just basic resource extraction ones. Even if your clerks never skip leg day, they probably shouldn't benefit from these traits
* Added piracy suppression values to event generated ships that were missing them
* Fixed a few more cases of techs with the wrong specialty group assignment
* Fixed a minor discrepancy in the tooltip of the Sins of a Sun anomaly vs its actual in game effects
* Fixed a nasty exploit with downgrading fleets that could result in free alloys (thanks for the heads up on this, Reddit user nonium)
* Added missing torpedo components from the Spiritualist Fallen Empire Zealot-Class ship type
* Added a basic Zro income to Spiritualist Fallen empires to allow them to properly produce reinforcements for their damaged fleets
* The modifier for Refinery worlds should also now affect Gestalt jobs
* Fixed several ship weapons which had incorrect resource costs
* Energy/Culture Habitat districts should convert properly if a gestalt empire takes it from a normal empire, or vice versa
* Fixed a crash when a country gets a trade route that used to belong to someone else
* Fixed tooltip that hilariously claimed that setting a species to purge (except neuter) was a requirement for the Decent Living Standards
* Picking Life Seeded will no longer give automatic nearby ideal worlds that are also Gaia
* Randomized empires gets their starting planets, ethics and civics correctly set up when they start as life seeded or post apocalyptic
* Fixed OOS for diplomatic upkeep upon hotjoining
* Fixed some causes of country_resources OOS
* Restored non extermination types of purging
* Fixed script checking wrong resource for automated sector upgrading to research lab lvl 3
* Fixed Prethoryn purging primitives at an incorrect, too-slow rate
* Fixed the planet screen being cut off on the left side of the screen on certain resolutions
* Fixed empires in federations wrongly budgeting for Federation fleet ships as part of their own navy, and thus underdeveloping their own fleets
* Fixed a crash when gifting planets to a vassal
* Fixed a situation where replacing a district temporarily adds to the maximum numbers of built districts, as if you were building a new district
* Speed demon event will add the red/green traits even if your species is very strong/adaptive
* Fixed planets under colonization suffering low stability events
* Fixed Crisis purging yet again (for a galaxy-threatening menace they sure seem easy to dissuade from their mission of doom)

When testing the new 2.2.6 beta build, remember we always welcome constructive feedback! Your reports, especially on o
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