Hi all!

We've been busy processing the results of the 2.3.1 version, and are ready to roll out the next batch of fixes, which I'm making available as the 2.3.2 beta patch right now. If you want to get in on the new version early, please read the notes and instructions below.

Please note that 2.3.2 is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> betas tab -> select stellaris_test branch.

The stellaris_test branch is also required if you want to crossplay with people playing on the Paradoxplaza or GoG versions of the game. 2.3.2 is the default version on those platforms.

Here's the list of fixes and changes:

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.3.2 ###########################
#################################################################

* Producer's note: in the interest of getting these fixes to you quickly, anything requiring new text is not yet translated in to languages other than English. We'll get localization done and in for the final 2.3.x version, never fear.

###################
# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
###################

* The random outcome "Archaeological Loop" in the "Déjà Vu Dig" Archaeology Site now has altered story text, and the outcome temporarily traumatizes the Scientist
* The random outcome "A Custom Job" in the "Cut To Fit" Archaeology Site now rewards the player with benefits to Terrestrial Sculpting tech research

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

* Added a new artifact action to discover a precursor artifact for 25 minor artifacts
* Reduced AI expansion distance to 2, for slightly less gruesome Balkan borders. It will still be more aggressive than before about trying to avoid being boxed in
* Nu-Baol Life-Seeding decision no longer has any cost, since the cost is paid for by activating the relic
* Ether Drake Trophy relic effect on unity increased from +10 a month to +10% a month
* Scales of the Worm relic effect on unity replaced with +10% physics research speed
* Rubricator relic effect on unity replaced with +20 society research per month
* The Surveyor relic activation cost is now 500 energy instead of 150 influence

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

* You now get a popup when resettling the last pop of a colony to make sure you want to destroy said colony
* Added the ability to toggle Steam rich presence on or off in settings, if you don't want your friends and family to know you're extinguishing all sentient life as a race of murderous Fanatic Purifier BDSM catgirls
* Fixed a draw issue on the Mechanocalibrator and pre-space Ratling worlds that would cause resources districts to display as a single gigantic box

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

* Fixed AI activating population control when it shouldn't
* Fixed colony automation spamming too many districts at once in multiplayer
* Lots of little tweaks to the AI's economic decision making

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

* Using brackets in loc in 'scripted triggers' and 'scripted effects' can no longer result in an infinite loop as it thinks it's supposed to be a macro

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

* Fixed colonies not being destroyed properly when emptied of population. Go forth and purge once more.
* Fixed barren worlds not terraforming
* Fixed armies mysteriously gaining strength, regenerating or disappearing without a trace during invasions
* Fixed synth ascended robots that were robomodded not being assembled on planets
* Fixed Gestalt empires starting with either unemployed drones or unmanned job slots
* Fixed a crash when a planet building a robot template changes owner
* Fixed unplayable have/has typo atrocity in the Grand Herald event
* Fixed a bug where Steam Rich Presence would sometimes fail to display you were a race of murderous Fanatic Purifier BDSM catgirls with too many ethics
* Fixed so that pops will not promote to specialists/rulers if there are unemployed pops from those strata already available. Get back to the acid mines, proles.
* Inscrutable Power achievement now properly looks for the Galatron relic
* Planets shouldn't start with unemployed pops anymore
* Habitat specific orbital deposits should no longer rarely appear on non-habitats
* The "Givernor" skill is no longer a thing
* Driven Assimilators may now properly have farming worlds to feed their hungry Cyborgs
* No longer possible to merge the salvage cruiser with normal fleets to prevent exploits with upgrades and resource refunds
* Fixed the Atomic Clock event annihilating primitives but leaving observations stations intact to observe...their irradiated cadavers, I guess?
* The Galactic Wonders Ascension Perk will now begrudgingly accept a Science Nexus as "complete" even if it doesn't have a brain in a jar. Your researchers will still know it's not really complete without one though, and that knowledge will haunt them in the lonely hours of the night.
* Fixed events like "A New Metal" spawning on worlds that already had science stations, and wrongly being collected by these
* Did some more smoothing of SFX volume spikes in new Ancient Relics content
* Fixed a case where the Rubricator world could wrongly spawn a second, entirely unrelated dig site
* Fixed being able to make a slave army from any species whatsoever so long as a single pop of any race was enslaved on the planet, even though it was an admirable display of class solidarity
* Prevented the Baol chain from spawning any digsites in the Sol system because that made even less sense than lasers making sound in space

Glad we were able to get this done in time for the weekend. Give it a spin, let us know your feedback, and we'll use that to help us improve the next build. Thanks all, and have fun.

Hi Everybody! After the weekend in beta test, with no drastic new issues introduced, we've decided to make the 2.3.1 patch fully live. It contains a ton of fixes that we wanted to get in everyone's hands, most important of which are out of sync fixes for MP.

Here's the list of changes:

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.3.1 ###########################
#################################################################


###################
# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
###################

* Increased variety of introductory images for archaeology sites
* Added some missing SFX to archaeology site dig stages and random events

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

* Added alert if planet automation is low on resources and monthly transfer is lower than 10
* Fixed missing loc string in Zro deposits
* Fixed the tooltip for machine pops being processed by a devouring swarm wrongly suggesting that you could get delicious food out of their soulless metallic husks somehow, instead of decidedly unappetizing alloys
* Grunur system spawn popup event now displays neighbouring system name instead of an empty string
* Fixed some missing text on the omnicodex arc site

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

* Improved AI's desire to aggressively produce alloy foundries to drive its fleets and expansion
* AI is much more willing to actually spend that alloy on ships
* Fixed AI wasting its Influence by constantly reforming government
* Fixed AI being only willing to spend rare resources on base construction, never upgrades or edicts
* Updated AI food, energy, mineral, and influence budgeting. It will now try to use them on decisions and edicts when able, instead of amassing huge, untouched stockpiles
* Fixed AI treating pirate occupied systems as total no-go zones even when it had more than enough fleet power to wipe them out (should help them expand without being blocked off)
* AI empires will now be willing to expand into systems up to 5 jumps beyond their borders, making it more difficult to cut them off at chokepoints
* Tweaked AI influence spending on edicts and campaigns so as not to activate ones with limited value (map the stars when most of the galaxy is explored, etc)

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

* Fixed failure to launch crossplay beta branch on Linux
* Fixed failure to launch the GOG version on Mac without using GOG Galaxy
* Fixed cases where victorious Force Ideology wars would not result in ethics shift
* Fixed an economy out of sync
* Fixed a potential crash in the cross-breeding game rule
* Fixed Zroni precursor sites being wrongly visible to all empires, not just the discoverer, allowing them to be ninja'd by others and leaving you stranded with an uncompletable chain
* Fixed core sector being named after the initial planet name, before any homeworld name is applied
* When you have multiple fleets selected, some with the Psi Jump Drive and some without, it will now show the longest combined jump they can make together, not the max range for just the Psi ships
* Fixed exploits related to jump drive use allowing fraudulent circumvention of cooldown times and max ranges
* Fixed unconscionable, unplayable typos and missing texts
* Fixed a hilarious one from last year where if one of your starbases came under enemy occupation in a war, you could still queue up defense platform construction there. Helpfully, the enemy empire would pay for this from its own resource stockpile
* Fixed cases where General leader traits were wrongly applied to armies
* Added missing special portrait for the Nu-Baol, feat. Fred Durst
* Fixed new Ancient Relics SFX playing at way too loud a volume


Don't be alarmed if a fix for an issue affecting you isn't in yet, we're not done. We are continuing to work on 2.3 post launch support and will push new beta patches followed by live versions in the coming weeks, so keep the productive feedback coming. We're logging your issues in our bug base and will continue to knock them off as we go.

If possible, your feedback is especially appreciated in this forum thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-team-2-3-1-patch-release-checksum-bcd1.1188440/

Hi everybody!

We just published a new beta patch for Stellaris 2.3 "Wolfe" and Ancient Relics, thanks to your speedy feedback!

We know that not all of you want to wait for the full verification process, so if you want, you can opt into it via the "betas" tab and by selecting the "stellaris_test" branch!

Patchnotes below.

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.3.1 ###########################
#################################################################


###################
# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
###################

* Increased variety of introductory images for archaeology sites
* Added some missing SFX to archaeology site dig stages and random events

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

* Added alert if planet automation is low on resources and monthly transfer is lower than 10
* Fixed missing loc string in Zro deposits
* Fixed the tooltip for machine pops being processed by a devouring swarm wrongly suggesting that you could get delicious food out of their soulless metallic husks somehow, instead of decidedly unappetizing alloys
* Grunur system spawn popup event now displays neighbouring system name instead of an empty string
* Fixed some missing text on the omnicodex arc site

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

* Improved AI's desire to aggressively produce alloy foundries to drive its fleets and expansion
* AI is much more willing to actually spend that alloy on ships
* Fixed AI wasting its Influence by constantly reforming government
* Fixed AI being only willing to spend rare resources on base construction, never upgrades or edicts
* Updated AI food, energy, mineral, and influence budgeting. It will now try to use them on decisions and edicts when able, instead of amassing huge, untouched stockpiles
* Fixed AI treating pirate occupied systems as total no-go zones even when it had more than enough fleet power to wipe them out (should help them expand without being blocked off)
* AI empires will now be willing to expand into systems up to 5 jumps beyond their borders, making it more difficult to cut them off at chokepoints
* Tweaked AI influence spending on edicts and campaigns so as not to activate ones with limited value (map the stars when most of the galaxy is explored, etc)

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

* Fixed failure to launch crossplay beta branch on Linux
* Fixed failure to launch the GOG version on Mac without using GOG Galaxy
* Fixed cases where victorious Force Ideology wars would not result in ethics shift
* Fixed an economy out of sync
* Fixed a potential crash in the cross-breeding game rule
* Fixed Zroni precursor sites being wrongly visible to all empires, not just the discoverer, allowing them to be ninja'd by others and leaving you stranded with an uncompletable chain
* Fixed core sector being named after the initial planet name, before any homeworld name is applied
* When you have multiple fleets selected, some with the Psi Jump Drive and some without, it will now show the longest combined jump they can make together, not the max range for just the Psi ships
* Fixed exploits related to jump drive use allowing fraudulent circumvention of cooldown times and max ranges
* Fixed unconscionable, unplayable typos and missing texts
* Fixed a hilarious one from last year where if one of your starbases came under enemy occupation in a war, you could still queue up defense platform construction there. Helpfully, the enemy empire would pay for this from its own resource stockpile
* Fixed cases where General leader traits were wrongly applied to armies
* Added missing special portrait for the Nu-Baol, feat. Fred Durst
* Fixed new Ancient Relics SFX playing at way too loud a volume

Thanks for playing and keep the feedback going!

Uncover the ruins of long-dead civilizations in Relic Worlds to piece together the story of their rise and eventual downfall. Excavate their derelict cities and ships to unearth the truth, discover powerful relics and harness them for your own empire’s ambitions.

Ancient Relics is OUT NOW!

Stellaris: Ancient Relics includes:

• Ancient Relics: Collect valuable relics in your adventures as rewards for resolving game events or after completing a dig at a multi-stage archaeological site. Each relic gives significant benefits to your empire to aid in your interstellar escapades.
  
• Dig In: Hit the dirt on a variety of enigmatic and alien worlds with new archeology sites available for your empire to study… or plunder. Each site begins a story with between one and six chapters to investigate. Retrace the history to discover artifacts and relics that can be boons to your empire.
  
• Those Who Came Before: Encounter clues about two extinct Precursor civilizations, the Baol and the Zroni, the former a sprawling hivemind of plantoids, the latter some of the most powerful psionics to have ever lived. Players can investigate their home systems to understand who they were and, more importantly, what can be learned from their demise.
  
• Relic Worlds: Once home to vibrant, advanced civilizations, these Relic Worlds now lie dead, replete with desolate ruins and dormant mysteries. Players can excavate guaranteed archeological sites on these worlds and bring to light powerful relics and artifacts.
  
• Matter of Artifacts: Learning from history is much more than parables and antiquities, it can often be the key to understanding one’s own place in the galaxy. Utilizing archaeological research, discover Minor Artifacts, a new consumable resource type which can help empower one’s empire.

Hi team!

Today, Jaime has prepared full patch notes for the Ancient Relics Story Pack and its accompanying 2.3 "Wolfe" update, releasing on June 4th! The team has worked hard on new features, bug fixes, balance as well as performance and AI improvements!


#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.3.0 ###########################
#################################################################


###################
# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
###################

# Relics

* Collect Relics to show off the achievements of your empire. Display your glory by showing off your very own Omnicodex, Miniature Galaxy, and more. All grant powerful passive and active effects to their owner.

# Archaeology

* A system that allows multi-stage investigations of strange alien sites, with rewards for unlocking each stage. Find them, excavate them, make their secrets yours. Also added some new archaeology-themed scientist traits tying in to these.

# Two New Precursors

* Learn more about the ancient history of the Stellaris galaxy with two more Precursor races: the Baol, a peaceful plantoid hive mind, and the Zroni, a powerful psychic species that was the first to reach the mysterious alternate dimension known as The Shroud. Find their ancient homeworlds and hopefully learn from their demise.

# Relic Worlds

* Discover a new world type, a mausoleum on a planetary scale. The the dead civilizations that once dwelt here left behind a treasure trove of arcane technology, which you can excavate at archaeological sites.

# Minor Artifacts

* Ancient Relics adds a new rare resource, Minor Artifacts, which can be uncovered via archaeology and exploration. They can be spent to give powerful empire ethics-specific boons. Celebrate the diversity of life in the galaxy by displaying these artifacts in a museum, or destroy them to proclaim the superiority of your own eternal empire.

# Achievements

* Unlock the mysteries of the galaxy to get 10 new Steam achievements


######################
# 2.3.0 "Wolfe" Free Features
######################

# Prior Content Relic Rework

* Many things from previous game content have been reworked to use the new Relics system. Among several others, you can gain the Isolated Contingency Core or the Prethoryn Brood Queen as symbols of your triumph.

# Sector Redesign and Automation

* Sectors have been greatly improved in 2.3, allowing the player more control over how and where they are formed, as well as giving more robust automation tools to let them run themselves if you want to focus on the bigger picture.

# Planet Designation

* You can now choose to manually set a planet designation (Agri-World, Forge World, etc), focusing production on different resource outputs. There is now a shared automated development stockpile that you can pay in to and allow planets to set their own build orders.

# Megastructure Improvements

* Habitats gain different effects based on the type of celestial body they inhabit. Ring Worlds gain specialized, highly efficient districts.

# Other Stuff

* 2.3 is now a 64 Bit application. Support for 32 Bits is deprecated, but you can roll back to 2.2 if you want to play on such hardware.
* Precursors no longer spawn in a preselected pie slice of the galaxy
* Added a menu option at game start to disable Caravaneer fleets if you don't want those sweet, sweet deals
* Added a randomize button when renaming planets
* Rogue Servitors can now build a variant of leisure districts on habitats to entertain their bio-trophies in space

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

* Thrall Worlds can now build Energy Grids and Mineral Purification Plants
* Terraforming worlds no longer re-rolls districts, blockers, unique deposits
* The Voor Technocracy prescripted Empire is now Fanatic Materialist/Authoritarian
* Technocracy civic now requires fanatic materialist ethics
* Rebalanced the Worm-In-Waiting to make it more of a real threat
* Habitats can now build food processing buildings, research labs, commercial zones, and holo theaters
* Adjusted costs of clearing Arcology blockers
* Habitats built over rare deposits now gain the associated deposits
* Mastery of Nature ascension perk requirement reverted, can once again be picked in the first slot
* Ecumenopolis districts now require rare resources build (50) and upkeep (2)
* Low habitability now also reduces pop growth and job output by 0.5% per missing habitability
* Gaia World terraforming time reduced from 7200 to 3600 days, cost reduced from 10000 to 7500
* Matter Decompressor Site alloy cost increased from 3000 to 5000, to be consistent with other sites
* Architectural Renaissance unity ambition now also increases megastructure build capacity by +1
* Dyson Sphere energy output increased from 250/500/750/1000 to 1000/2000/3000/4000
* Matter Decompressor mineral output increased from 250/500/750/1000 to 500/1000/1500/2000
* Consolidated placement rules for most megastructures, so that they are no longer inconsistent
* Interstellar Assembly now costs energy in upkeep instead of consumer goods, restoration alloy cost reduced from 20000 to 15000
* Mining Drone Home Base now also drops a strange device
* Gestalt races now also benefit from increasing the flow of Dark Matter from the Dimensional Portal
* Rogue Servitors start with another Nexus District
* Galactic Wonders ascension perk no longer immediately unlocks the ability to build Ring World, Matter Decompressor and Dyson Sphere, but instead adds them as research options
* Picking life seeded will no longer grant neighboring Gaia worlds, but rather a randomized starting planet class
* 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
* Inward Perfection empires can no longer form research agreements or commercial pacts

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

* Fixed a case where unneeded VFX were being rendered, causing a gradual game slowdown over time
* Reduced the delay when there is a big transfer of systems after a country surrender
* Fixed the end of year lag when big empires with lots of pops being assimilated convert them into proper citizens
* Improved faction threading, for performance and OOS safety
* Smoothed border calculations to reduce stutter
* Reordered threaded economics calc to avoid race condition of ships depending on planet resources depots
* Fixed a case where every pop would check for faction membership on every daily tick, creating a performance drain

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

* Corrected misleading tooltip that falsely claimed it was not possible to set a species to Transcendent Awakening when it has Assimilation citizenship
* Queuing up multiple outpost constructions will now give the adjacency discount for influence costs where appropriate
* Fixed an issue when having multiple fleets selected including a colossus, right click orders menu on planets would be empty
* Rivalry influence production now displayed with modifiers in diplomatic view
* Diplomatic actions now display correct influence upkeep cost with modifiers
* Added entry to the fleet capacity tooltip explaining how many Titans you can build
* Fixed terraform button tooltip wrongly suggesting you can terraform gaia worlds
* Fixed some technology description texts overlapping with the tech specialization icon
* Fixed quite unplayable text spillout for guaranteed habitable worlds slider in multiplayer galaxy setup
* Fixed info about "Mass Produced" and "Custom-Made" modifiers for robot assembly being missing in the tooltip
* Fixed the reinforce fleets option in the Fleet Manager wrongly showing missing minerals rather than alloys, if you don't have enough of the latter
* Fixed text spillout of View Privacy Policy button in options (I'm looking at you, 23 letter German compound word)
* Fixed a heinous pixel error with Mass Driver I
* Fixed fractional costs of rare resources in ship designer displaying as 0, causing confusion
* Added tooltip to terraform button when it is disabled, detailing why
* Removed redundant repetitive redundant diplo offer duplication for peace offers
* Fixed an issue where the overall progress of a fleet upgrade order would visually reset to 0% after any single ship in the fleet completed upgrades
* Fixed observer outliner to be less broken, along with the hotjoin interface
* Fixed missing species portrait in the declining pop window, so now you can feel extra sad
* Fixed a display issue where replacing a built district would temporarily add to the number of built districts, sometimes causing overflows
* Replacing a planetary building now triggers a re-sort of building icons to keep similar types grouped together
* Removed the "has no FTL drive" part of the tooltip for stations when they are selected and you hover over a different system
* Fixed an issue where losing a building due to resettlement would show the pop requirements for all slots displaying as 5 lower than reality
* Even though devouring swarms can now purge inorganics for alloys, the tooltip wrongly stated they could not be processed...fixed
* Fixed so that unemployment by strata icons are properly displayed and has a working tooltip
* Now it is possible to add federation ships to a fleet design
* Fixed commercial pact diplo agreement wrongly inverting what the proposing and receiving empire will get from the deal
* Fixed visual issue wrongly showing zero tech progress until after first monthly tick
* Cornucopicturesque and Mineralistic event option tooltips no longer refer to adding tile deposits
* Fixed placeholder icons for Ascendancy Shipwrights modifier and Menial Drone Output (extra % produced by Coordinators)
* Fixed missing reference to influence gain reduction in the tooltip describing the result of losing a humiliation war
* Fixed unplayable overlap of the investigate button on unknown alien fleets
* Fixed bad text wrapping in federation fleet power display when the number was over 10000
* Machine empire Mineral Purification/Energy grid etc buildings no longer show the tooltip for raising district cap on inapplicable planet types
* Fixed tooltip that falsely claimed that setting a species to purge (except neuter) was a requirement for the Decent Living Standard
* Habitability map icon now considers all possible species instead of just owned ones
* Added descriptive text to the jobs screen to explain how favouriting jobs works
* Updated Corporate Dominion civic tooltip to refer to its new post-MegaCorp effect
* increased tooltip decimal precision on the complex drone output bonus Rogue Servitors gain from Biotrophies

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

* Implemented improved AI building selection weights (thanks to Glavius for awesome insight here)
* AI will now properly bombard and invade primitive planets rather than suffering last minute pangs of conscience about using orbital lasers on people armed with bronze daggers
* AI now checks for how many outposts are being upgraded to starbase status already when deciding if it can build more
* Fixed the AI considering federation ships as part of its own fleet capacity, causing them to drastically neglect their own fleet building
* Fixed a bug preventing sector automation ever upgrading research labs to level 3
* AI will not build nanite transfusers without nanite income, nor build more than 2 per planet
* Fixed AI fleets getting stuck with redundant attack/defend orders if their target went MIA
* The sector AI of Machine Intelligences and Synthetically Ascended Empires will no longer build food-producing districts or buildings unless they actually need food
* AI will now consider repairing ruined branch office buildings
* Fixed so that transports don't emergency FTL as soon as they take any damage whatsoever, because D-Day didn't stop when the first landing craft hit a mine
* 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
* AI prefers City districts over Housing buildings a bit more
* Machine empires will no longer build nonsentient, less efficient robot pops and unemploy their own citizens
* AI will now take more opportunities to repair damaged fleets when it has the chance
* Fixed AI bug caused by fleets unassigned to any group not being able to be added to one due to damage, instead just sitting idle
* Fixed AI not bothering to send its war-weary fleets home following a peace agreement

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

* The Archaeology system from Ancient Relics is open for modding use, to create your own multi-stage event chains
* Fixed a map distance cache bug that affected mods with non-random maps, causing each outpost to cause the maximum amount of influence
* Added GetAge, GetFirstName and GetSecondName to the leader scope in localization, to allow you to do events calling just first or second names, etc
* on_fleet_destroyed_xxx events will now happen only once. For example: the shattered loop
* Added num_owned_relics trigger
* kill_pop_chance now uses weights with Pop scope
* Added locked_random_list with predetermined effect for random colony automation
* added building/district specific building speed modifier "planet_<building/district>_build_speed_mult"
* Parallel Megastructure build/upgrade capacity can now be altered by modifiers
* Added effect "add_timed_trait" that lets scripts add a timed trait to a leader character. Usage: Scope Leader, `add_timed_trait = { trait = <trait name> days/months/years=<duration>"
* Fixed the "num_buildings" trigger to actually take the paramater "any" into consideration
* Added "show_prereqs" to megastructures to determinie if they appear or not in the tech that unlocks them
* Added "prereq_name" to change what name a megastructure shows when unlocked by a tech
* Added trigger last_activated_relic
* Added has_deposit_category for checking a category of a deposit
* Added has_relic trigger
* Added remove_relic effect
* Added add_relic effect

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

* Fixed a case where Prethoryn Infestors would not infest habitable worlds
* Fixed a case where the L-gate chain could get stuck, with pointless repeating techs to gain insights, if another empire finished the chain first
* Fixed nonfunctional "upgrade all" button for defense stations
* Migration controls will now actually control migration, like it says on the tin
* Fixed a case where choosing to fight the Worm could spawn another one, that could also be farmed for rewards
* Fixed broken starbase designs for Awakened Fallen Empires that prevented them from expanding
* Fixed a host of display and stability issues relating to constructing robots from a template rather than the base type
* The Caravaneers will no longer offer the Bunk Beds and Food Containers deals to empire types that cannot use them (Gestalts, etc)
* Put in safeguards to prevent game events dependent on contact with another normal empire (The Prince, Legible, etc) from firing before you've made first contact with any
* Cybernetic pops should now be able to survive (poorly) on Machine Worlds, which now have a base habitability of 0 (offset somewhat by their +20% tolerance)
* Fixed organics being assimilated not being put in a proper job/stratum leading to no assimilation progress at all
* Fixed a bug when pop growth penalty due to low habitability was not applied
* Fixed certain binary and trinary star systems with planets visually inside a star
* Fixed the bug when state of truce was not force-opening borders
* Fixed unintended case where borders force-opened by a peace deal could have trade routes sent through them, creating weirdness like piracy in gestalt empires, etc
* Fixed ironman cloud saves being overwritten if you play the same empire in separate games
* Fixed the "Old With Defects" event tooltip stating it would grant progress in one technology, instead applying it at random to one the player already had available to research
* Fixed a crash on Mac when attempting to load a game with the resettlement screen open
* Fixed literally unplayable typos
* Null void beams no longer wrongly appear outside of the Portal event
* Fixed synthetic empires not getting the project to stop the Ghost Signal
* Replaced placeholder icons for certain ship/station types in fleet combat results, etc
* Fixed Volatile Mote production jobs for machine empires so they are now properly complex jobs with higher priority for pop assignment
* Added a research cost to the "Cracking it Open" event, also changed it to be an engineering project
* Added a research cost to "Breathe In, Breathe Out"
* Fixed a case where you couldn't build an outpost in a system with hostile primitives because it counted as enemy territory, nor could you invade and subjugate them to rectify this situation because they weren't inside your borders, creating a weird catch 22
* Fixed a confusing visual issue when using manual ship design where going to the ship designer would automatically show newly researched components, even if your ship doesn't actually use them
* Fixed the penalty for going over your starbase cap only being applied once you were 2 starbases over the limit
* mature_galaxy and advanced_galaxy console commands are functional again
* Fixed a crash on game save
* Fixed a free alloys exploit with downgrading defense platforms
* Fixed planetary features with blockers that are cleared by an event not granting districts properly until after a game reload
* You can now choose to station military ships at things like wormholes the same way you can with civilian ships
* Fixing a mysterious Linux crash when colonizing a planet and the species somehow gets invalidated before finished
* Crashfix when invalid leaders are left in a country's leader pool
* Fixed a low stability warning on game start that disappeared after the first daily tick, because the apparatus of control and repression cannot be relaxed for even an instant
* Fixed some cases where special projects could get stuck
* Fixed an uncanny crash with clicking on the ethics icons of the UNE when editing the default empire template because your utopian, egalitarian ideals aren't as universal and immutable as you think, hippies
* Added missing piracy suppression values to Caravaneer-granted ships
* Fixed weird cases where genetically modified subspecies could unintentionally be enslaved with certain ethic/civic combinations
* Fixed unusually slow purge speed when the Prethoryn conquer a primitive world
* Failing to Preemptively strike the Underground civilization as a homicidal race will cause them to invade you rather than just do nothing
* Fixed a crash when giving away systems
* Fixed the trade window sometimes becoming crazy until reload/restart
* Speed Demon event will add the red/green traits even if your species is very strong/adaptive
* Fixed OOS for diplomatic upkeep upon hotjoining
* Fixed a hilarious one where marauders could demand the outrageous tribute sum of zero resources
* Fixed the Odd Factory event creating incorrect worker strata jobs instead of drone jobs for gestalt empires
* Ships will no longer use unexplored wormholes when trying to pathfind
* Fixed a bug where ruined buildings could be downgraded, repairing them, even though it's true that sometimes you have to destroy in order to create
* Fixed Life Seeded not granting proper Gaia world preference
* Changed "The Planet that Was Not There" event wrongly targeting guaranteed habitable worlds, nor on gaia planets or those with special deposits
* Fixed at least one instance of the country resource OOS
* Ecumenopolis preference no longer called AI world preference
* Crime event no longer fires for non-sapient robots, and also waits until the planet has >3 pops
* Fixed a Mac crash when trying to remove a build queue item from a starbase
* Fixed slightly misleading description text if the first gateway related site you discover is the L-Gate
* Randomized empires gets their starting planets, ethics and civics correctly set up when they start as life seeded or post apocalyptic
* Fixed breaking commercial pacts not incurring a negative diplomatic modifier
* Fixed the mining restoration project failure result giving a scientist trait to an admiral. England expects every man to do his duty.
* Fixed Machine and Hive world terraforming removing rare deposit types
* Fixed a wild one where multiple research point consuming special projects could put your research output in to negative, and block all station or building construction for some reason because of "missing resources"
* Fixed missing event image for the Nanosand anomaly when spawned on a desert world
* Fixed a crash when a country gets a trade route that used to belong to someone else
* Fixed planets under colonization wrongly generating unrest warnings
* Impose Ideology war now properly creates an independent allied empire, instead of a vassal
* Fixed terraforming candidates not being terraformable into Gaia worlds

* Lots of general crash, OOS, stability fixes


See you all on release day, on June 4th!

It is the last chance to get 20% off your ticket with the Early Bird bonus! The discount ends on 31st May so if you already know that you're going to be joining us for PDXCON, now is the time to save on your tickets!

Visit https://pdxcon.paradoxplaza.com

See you in Berlin!

Hi everyone, this week we put Moah in the driver's seat of the Dev Diary. If you don't know who he is, he is the Tech Lead on Stellaris and today he will be talking to you about the free 2.3 "Wolfe" update that will release alongside Ancient Relics, and what it brings to the table in terms of tech!

Stellaris is going 64-bit

People have been clamoring for this for a while now, and various factors have led us to finally do this for this patch. I should temper your expectations though: while many have claimed that this would be a miracle cure for all their issues with Stellaris, the reality is somewhat more tame.

What does it mean?
The one solid benefit is that Stellaris is no longer limited to 4gb of memory, and won’t crash anymore in situations where it was reaching that limit. For people who play on huge galaxies, with many empires, many mods or well into 3000s, this will be a boon.

In terms of performance, though, it doesn’t change much. Without drowning you in technical details, let’s just say that some things go faster because you handle more data at once, some things go slower because you have more data to handle. In the end, our measurements have shown no perceptible difference.

Finally, the last effect of switching to 64 bits is that the game will no longer playable on 32 bits computers or OSes. We don’t think this will affect many people, but there you have it.

What about Performance?

I know that’s everyone’s favourite question, so let’s do our best to talk about it. First, let me dispel some notions floating around in various forums: Stellaris does use multithreading, and we’re always on the lookout for new things to thread. In fact between 2.2.0 and 2.2.7, a huge effort was made to thread jobs and pops, and it’s one of the main drivers of performance improvement between these version.

Pops and jobs are indeed what’s consuming most of our CPU time nowadays. We’ve improved on that by reducing the amount of jobs each pop evaluate. We’ve also found other areas where we were doing too much work, and cut on:

• Ships calculating their daily regeneration when they’re at full health
  
• Off-screen icons being updated
  
• Uninhabitable planets doing the same evaluations as populated planets

Why do these seemingly pointless things happen? Well, we generally focus on getting gameplay up and working quickly so that our content designers can iterate quickly, and sometimes things fall through the cracks. Some of these systems are also quite complex and the scale of the new code is not so easily apparent. Sometimes, not limiting the number of targets is good enough because you’re not doing much but then, months later, someone adds more calculations or the number of objects explodes for unrelated reasons, and suddenly you’ve got a performance issue.

Modifiers
One thing that sets Stellaris apart from other PDS title is how much we use (or abuse) modifiers. Everything is a modifier. Modifiers are modified by other modifiers themselves modified by other modifiers, and sometimes by themselves. It’s quite hard to follow, and leads to every value being able to change at any time without your noticing.

“Why don’t you just compute jobs when a new one appears?” has often been asked around these parts. Well, a short answer to that is it’s really hard to know when a new job appears. You can get jobs from any modifier to: country, planet, pops. Each of these can get modifiers from ethics, traditions, perks, events, buildings, jobs, country, planets, pop, technology, etc.

Until now we were trying to calculate modifiers manually, forced to follow the chain in its entirety: when you recompute a country modifier, you then calculate their planets modifiers, and then each planet would recalculate their pops modifiers. Some of our freezes were just that tangled ball of yarn trying to sort itself out.



This is our modifier flow charts. It’s not quite up to date, but gives you an idea of the complexity of the system (Unpolished because it’s a dev tool, and not made for the article).

No More!
For 2.3 “Wolfe” we have switched to a system of modifier nodes, where each node register what node they follow, and is recalculated when used, following the chain itself. We have modifiers that are more up to date, and calculated only when needed. This also reduces the number of pointless recalculations.

This system has shown remarkable promise, and cut the number of “big freezes” happening around the game (notably after loading, for example). It has some issues, but as we continue working with it, it’ll get better and help both with performance and our programmers’ sanity.

So, what’s the verdict?
In our tests, 2.3 “Wolfe” is between 10% and 30% faster than 2.2.7 right now. Hopefully it’ll stay that way until release, but the nature of the beast is that some of these optimizations break things and fixing the issues negate them, so we can’t promise anything.



Measurements provided by sabrenity, using detailed info from the beta build. It’s worth noting the “SHIPS_SERIAL” purple line has since been eliminated.

AI
Another forum favorite, we have done some improvements to the AI. First, with @Glavius ’s permission, we’ve used his job weights to improve general AI job distribution. We’ve also done the usual pass of polish and improvements, and of course taught the AI how to use all our new features.

What else is new?
We’re also getting a new crash reporter that will send your crash report as soon as they happen rather than next time you start the game. We’ve improved our non-steam network stack for connectivity issues, etc.

All right, enough of my yammering. This has turned into a GRRM length novel, and even though there are many more areas we could cover, we’ll just turn this for your perusal.

Hello everyone, we have a new Dev Diary from grekulf!

As most of you probably know, the next upcoming DLC for Stellaris will be the Ancient Relics Story Pack. Last week I also promised I would show something awesome, by which I meant the headline feature of the story pack – the Relics themselves.

We announced Ancient Relics on Tuesday and we also streamed a lot of stuff that will be coming with Ancient Relics and the free 2.3 update that goes with it. If you haven’t seen the stream yet, you may want to check out the summary on YouTube.

Relic Worlds
A smaller part of Ancient Relics are the Relics Worlds. It is a new planet class that is essentially a planet entirely covered in ruins. If you find a Relic World, it's very likely that you will be the first to get to excavate its archaeological site. An archaeological site found on a Relic World should have many chapters and have a high difficulty.



A Relic World can be restored to an Ecumenopolis, but it will lose its unique deposits and archaeology site if there is one.



The homeworld of the First League precursors have been changed into a Relic World. We felt that this fits way better thematically and we also felt that finding a “free” Ecumenopolis was too strong. You will now have to work a little harder to restore the ancient city planet.

As mentioned before, we haven’t quite had the time to refresh the old precursor content, but this is something we want to do over time, so eventually it's quite likely you’ll be able to find more Relic Worlds and associated archaeological sites.

Relics
The Relics are a really cool new feature to Stellaris. Relics are very powerful artifacts and trophies that you can collect. Every Relics has a passive effect as well as an activation effect. All Relics share the same activation cooldown, so you will have to choose which one you will want to activate. The activation cooldown is 10 years.



Most relics will have an Influence cost for the activation cost, but in some cases this will be different.



The Relics system itself will be included in the base game, and you will be able to find a few Relics from previous content. Each crisis will have a Relic tied to it, and owners of MegaCorp will be able to get The Galatron. Owners of Apocalypse will be able to take the Khan’s Throne and owners of Leviathans will be able to take a trophy by defeating the Ether Drake.



Ancient Relics will feature a whole bunch of new Relics that you can collect. In total you’ll be able to find 20 of these new Relics.

The system is very moddable, and since the Relics system itself is free, mods will be able to use the system without requiring its users to own Ancient Relics. We’re very much looking forward to seeing what cool new Relics the community can conjure up!

Relics Design Intentions
I started as the first UI/UX designer at Paradox Development Studio over 6 years ago now, before switching over to purely doing game design and now eventually taking over as the game director for Stellaris. EU4 was the first game I worked on, and the macro builder is what I see as my first large contribution to our games. I’ve always thought that the UI/UX design and game design need to mesh really well for a solid experience. Although we can’t always get it right (my faults included), it's really fun to do something different here.

With the Relics I wanted us to start experimenting with more visual rewards. I wanted something that would be so cool to find, collect, and look at, that you almost didn't care about what the effects of the thing were. I wanted large icons with a slight animation, kind of like golden Hearthstone cards. Originally we only planned to have passive effects for them, but in order for the player to experience the visual rewards more often, we had to create incentives for them to open the UI and look at them. That is how the active effects came into play. By giving the Relics a really cool activation effect, players will open the UI more often and get those “feel good” moments by looking at their Relics.

From a design perspective, I am very happy with how the Relics turned out. We’ve made a really nice-looking UI with a thematic background that really fits the art style. We’ve also made awesome and animated relic icons that are really rewarding to collect and look at. The activation effects for a lot of the Relics are also really cool.

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Ancient Relics is turning out to be a really cool addition to Stellaris, and it's going to be really great seeing how you guys react to the content once you get a chance to try it out.

That is all we had to share for this week’s dev diary. Next week we will be back with something different, technically speaking.