Hello everyone!

We’re back with yet another dev diary to showcase some more fruits of summer experimentation. As with the previous dev diary, this involved a lot of work carried out during the summer and involves something I’ve wanted to explore for a good while now.

Today we’ll be talking about empire sprawl and administrative capacity. Do note that these changes are still fairly young in their development, so numbers and implementation details may not be representative of what it will look like in the end.

As a background, I can mention that I have a grander idea of where I want to take these mechanics, but it will not all happen at once. These changes aim to mimic state bureaucracy or overhead created by managing a large empire. As a minor aspect I also wanted you to be able to experience the funny absurdity of having a planet entirely dedicated to bureaucracy. The movie Brazil is a great source of inspiration here :)

Empire Sprawl
We wanted to expand on how empire sprawl is used, so that it becomes a more interesting mechanic. The largest change means that pops now increase empire sprawl. Most things in your empire should be increasing empire sprawl to various degrees, to represent the administrative burden they impose.



Empire Sprawl can now be modified from its different sources, and as an example, the Courier Networks expansion tradition will now reduce empire sprawl caused directly by the number of planets and systems. As another example shows, the Harmony traditions finisher now reduces the total empire sprawl caused by all your pops.

We are also able to modify how much empire sprawl each pop contributes, and we’ve added a couple of new species traits that affect it. There are also machine variants of these traits.



We have also increased the penalty for the amount of empire sprawl that exceeds your administrative capacity. The goal is not to make administrative a hard cap, but we want to make it necessary to invest some of your resources into increasing your administrative capacity. More on that later.



The current plan is for machine empires to be more reliant on keeping their administrative capacity in line with their empire sprawl, so machine empires will suffer a much harsher penalty for exceeding their cap. We want machines to feel “centralized” and to perhaps favor a more “tall” playstyle.



Hive Minds, on the other hand, should be more tolerant of a sprawling empire where unmanaged drones are able to fall back on their instincts whenever they cannot maintain a responsive connection to the hive mind. Therefore, hive minds should be more tolerant of a “wide” playstyle.

Administrative Capacity
With all these changes to empire sprawl, what about administrative capacity, I imagine you asking? Well, since empire sprawl is becoming an expanded concept, administrative capacity will naturally be a part of that. Increasing your administrative capacity will now be a part of planning your empire’s economy.



For regular empires, the bureaucrat is a new job that increases your administrative capacity at the cost of consumer goods. This is also a specialist job, and has needs accordingly. Administrators are unchanged, and do not currently affect administrative capacity or bureaucrats.

For machine empires, the coordinators have changed roles from producing unity to now increasing administrative capacity instead, and they are more effective than bureaucrats. A new job called Evaluators now produce unity for machine empires.

Hive Minds currently have the hardest time to produce administrative capacity, but it has been added as a function of the synapse drone job.



Certain sources that previously increased administrative capacity by a static amount now increase is by a percentage amount instead. This doesn’t affect the output of the jobs, but rather increases the total administrative capacity directly.

Summary
Personally I’m very excited for these changes and I’m very much looking forward to taking it to its next step in the future. I hope you enjoyed reading about the changes that will come to Stellaris sometime later this year. As always, we’ll be interested to hear your thoughts.

As mentioned in last week’s dev diary, the schedule for dev diaries will now be bi-weekly, so the next dev diary will be in another 2 weeks.

If you want, you can also read this Dev Diary and comment on our forums: Dev Diary #153

Hello everyone!

Summer vacations are reaching their end and most of the team is back as of last week. Work has started again and we're really excited for what we have in store for the rest of the year.

While most of us have been away during most of the summer, we’ve also had some people who worked during July. July is a very good time to try out different designs and concepts that we might not otherwise have time to do, and today we thought it might be fun for you to see some of the experiments we ran during that period of hiatus.

Although we learned some useful insights, these experiments didn’t end up being good enough to make a reality.

Industrial Districts
As I have mentioned earlier, I have wanted to find a better solution for how we handle the production of alloys and consumer goods. I often felt like the experience of developing a planet felt better with an Ecumenopolis rather than with a regular planet. I think a lot of it had to do with their unique districts and that it feels better to get the jobs from constructing districts rather than buildings. Not necessarily as an emotion reaction to the choice, but rather that the choice perhaps feels more “pure” or simple.

An experiment I wanted to run was to see if it was possible to add an industrial district that provided Laborer jobs, instead of having buildings for Metallurgists and Artisans. Laborers would produce both alloys and consumer goods but could be shifted towards producing more of either.

This meant we added a 5th district, the Industrial District. By adding another district we also needed to reduce the number of building slots available. Since there would be no more need for buildings that produced alloys and consumer goods, this should still end up being similar.



A Laborer would consume 8 minerals to produce 2 alloys and 4 consumer goods, and that amount could be modified in either direction by passing a Decision. What I wanted was to have an industry that could have a military and civilian output, and where you could adjust the values between these outputs.

Having a laborer job that generates an “industrial output”, which could be translated into either alloys or consumer goods did feel good, but the specific solution we used didn’t feel quite right.

City Districts & Building slots
Another experiment was to see how it felt if city districts unlock building slots instead of pops. This experiment didn’t have a specific problem or issue it was trying to address but rather it was to investigate how that would feel and work. It was interesting but ultimately it felt less fun than the current implementation. It would have needed more time to see if it could be made to work.
​


This experiment did include increasing the number of jobs you would get for the building, so a research lab would provide 3 jobs instead of 2.

City District Jobs from Buildings
At the same time, we also tried a version where buildings applied jobs to city districts instead of providing jobs by themselves. One upside would be that you’d need less micromanagement to get the jobs, but the downside is that it would also be quite a large upswing in new jobs whenever you built a city district. In the end, it felt like you had less control and understanding of what a planet was specializing in.

Summary
Although these experiments were interesting, they didn’t end up quite where we wanted to, so they never became more than just experiments. We did learn some interesting things though, which we will keep in mind for the future. The industrial districts are still something I want to keep looking into, but we have to find a better solution.

Dev diaries will now be back on a regular schedule, but we will be looking into changing the format a bit this time around. For now, dev diaries will be coming bi-weekly, which means we will be back again in another 2 weeks with a similar topic.

You can also read today's Dev Diary on our forums here.

Hello everyone! We're ready to announce that we're releasing 2.3.3 with a few extra fixes as a live build before going on vacations. Below you'll find the traditional patch notes, with the extra fixes since the beta in underlined text.

We hope you enjoy the balances, tweaks and changes we introduced with this build!

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.3.3 ##########################
#################################################################

###################
# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
###################
* A number of archaeology sites have been overhauled to give more interesting rewards for completion, with new techs, empire modifiers, and ethics-based outcomes

###################
# General
###################
* Updated localisation for all languages

###################
# Balance
###################
* Further changed Precursor system spawning to always connect to an owned system, if possible, to reduce them appearing in inaccessible places
* More archaeological site events will grant minor artifacts
* Zroni chain grants Psionic Theory tech option for non-gestalts
* The Surveyor relic now has a chance to find multiple deposits during its activation time. It has also been reduced to a five year timer
* Adjusted the rate at which Admirals gain XP when patrolling and when in combat
* Daily patrolling XP is now based on the max piracy in a system rather than the current piracy
* Disengaged ship now also give xp, they have their own define: LEADER_ADMIRAL_FLEET_COMBAT_SHIPS_DISENGAGED_CONVERSION
* Zro is slightly more common
* Marketplace of Ideas trade policy unity per trade value increased from 0.15 to 0.25
* Grand Herald site is less common. When the Grand Herald is found it may be damaged to some degree, if so there is a special project to restore it to full power
* Finishing Arc Sites may yield Technology Research Options/Boosts
* Lowered the chance of archaeology sites being discovered when planets are surveyed
* Non-genocidal gestalt empires may now also seize the galatron from those who would withhold access to its glory

###################
# UI
###################
* Added MP DLC ownership icon for Ancient Relics
* Fixed line break in Zro Deposits causing unnecessary truncation of text
* Fixed displayed Army Recruitment time not including build speed modifiers
* You should no longer be able to see the orders of the fleets of other empires
* Fixed the resources going haywire in the trade view. Hopefully for the last time
* Added a country modifier to remind you that you can safely colonize Holy worlds as the chosen of Zarqlan

###################
# AI
###################
* Fixed so that the AI uses their idle science ships to assist research rather than just drawing salaries and doing nothing like typical freeloading intelligentsia
* AI empires will finish tradition trees before starting new ones
* Changed AI weight for consecration decision, so that it's actually used
* AI will now build city districts on planets if needed even if not many pops live there
* AI no longer juggles leaders back and forth, and also makes sure there is always at least one leader assigned to a ship
* Fixed the AI declaring war on empire they can't reach, or empires on the other side of the galaxy
* AI no longer needlessly upgrades starbases if they still have unused module or building slots
* Removed ostensibly arbitrary pop requirement for research buildings, also capped holo-theatres to one per planet
* Increased alloy expansion budget to allow machine empires to do early expansion
* AIs in federation have finally discovered ship types other than "corvette"
* AI will no longer maniacally press the "build army" button in order to make armies building faster


###################
# Modding
###################
* add_anomaly effect now adds the anomaly to the scoped country instead of the first country to survey the planet
* Added "min_jumps" and "max_jumps" parameters to the "spawn_system" command for better control of where and to what world spawned system appear
* min_jump and max_jump now use -1 to be ignored, so that you can make systems that attach directly to your base system
* Added `steal_relic = { target = TARGET_COUNTRY relic = <all/random/RELIC_NAME>` effect
* The `on_arrival_effect` is now properly called with a fleet scope
* Replaced hard texture limit with hybridarray for people that have excessive amounts of textures due to mods
* Added 'is_last_lost_relic' and 'is_last_received_relic'. Both trigger return true if the relice passed as a parameter is the last (lost/received) relic by the country from the scope country scope: is_last_lost_relic = <relic_key> / is_last_received_relic = <relic_key>

###################
# Stability
###################
* Fixed a freeze when editing trade routes from a system you stole
* Fixed a crash when using mature galaxy in observer mode

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Colony automation now has a 3 day cooldown after a building completes in order for recently completed constructions to take effect
* Increased weighting of favorited jobs so that they're properly prioritized
* Made the logic for buy/selling slaves better. AI is now more likely to both buy and sell slaves, wrote someone in the 21st century
* Fixed automation not working on planet capitals or new colonies if you don't change the designation
* Conquered habitats will now convert districts that are not permitted by their new empire type
* Fixed so that rogue servitor AI will no longer just build organic sanctuaries
* All non-Exterminator Machine Intelligences should now be able to make Farming Colonies
* In MP only the first player to discover the Baol or Zroni precursor will begin their chain. Others are free to discover different precursors
* Fixed overflow issues in AI diplomacy due to relative strength calculations
* The result of "Reverse-Engineer Minor Artifacts" is now properly randomized
* Disabled map-ping for finished arch sites
* Admiral XP is based on the total cost of ships instead of just minerals
* Fix for all buildings swapping issues
* Secrets of the Irassians will no longer sometimes give machine intelligences a tech they can't use
* Changed so that arch sites and certain events use the correct GFX files
* Fixed Growth species disappearing every other month in some cases
* Ship build speed modifiers are no longer applied twice
* Fixed Build Speed modifier being applied twice to buildings
* Fixed some new Tutorial Lines not playing VO (VO for a bald eagle flying out of an explosion with a pistol grasped in its beak didn't arrive in time for today, alas)
* The Caravaneers roam space once again instead of sitting in orbit ringing your doorbell for all eternity with an "offer you can't refuse"
* Deficit modifiers are properly applied again
* Master Builders no longer ever affects Habitat size
* Rare resource tech will also be researchable if any planet you own contains an Industrial sector deposit
* Primitives living on Ring Worlds will no longer build normal districts on them when invaded, enlightened, or if they naturally develop spaceflight, because inscrutably we have created a game where apparently such things are possible
* Maintenance Drones again have a positive weight for the Emotion emulators trait
* Fixed ships not going MIA when they can't return because they don't have access
* Presapients can now be found again to be uplifted/exploited/devoured as your whim decrees
* Upgraded buildings are no longer moved after ruined buildings
* Fixes the rubricator system appearing without hyperlanes
* Pop Growth is now based on the pop growing rather than the fastest growing species on the planet
* Gateways and habitats can now built while other megastructures are being built
* Fixed Habitats and Ring worlds getting modifiers meant for non artificial planets
* Fixed planet view not changing image correctly after planet class change
* Add modifier effects to planet class tooltip
* Reduced the late game stutter
* You can now steal relics when you're not in the galatron war, rather than only during the galatron war, though why you would steal any relic other than the Galatron is beyond me.

The stellaris_test version is still there as 2.3.3 (checksum: 70ef), the only difference being it uses our experimental crossplay MP layer. Steam users need to be on stellaris_test to crossplay with GoG and Paradoxplaza. The stellaris_test version also has the "Legion" flag set as a thank you to people helping us test the mp layer.

You can check the forums patch thread here.

With this, and without further ado, we wish you all, on behalf on the Stellaris team and all of Paradox, a great summer, full of new fanatic friendships and platypi!

Hello everyone!

We’ve been working on the 2.3.3 patch, but before we put anything live we will release it as a beta version as usual. To try the beta, right-click Stellaris in your Steam Library and select Properties. In the BETAS tab there should be a drop down list where you can find stellaris_test. Set your beta opt in to stellaris_test to try the 2.3.3 beta.

Save file compatibility between versions is never guaranteed. If you need to roll back to a previous version, do this: go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> betas tab -> select the version you want.

The beta has a couple of known issues, but they are also things we will address before 2.3.3 goes live.

Known Issues:

• Robot empires are a bit slow to expand with outposts.
  
• We have added a Relic stealing feature, but it only works while in a Galatron war instead of when not in a Galatron war

Here are some highlights of changes in the 2.3.3 beta:

Admiral XP
We’ve tweaked how admirals get XP from patrolling and combat. Admirals will now get XP according to the max piracy value as opposed to previously only checking current piracy. XP from combat should also be increased due to fixing a bug with how ship value, in terms of XP, was calculated. Disengaged ships now also provide some XP, not just destroyed ships. In general it should now be easier to level up your admirals.

Archaeology Site Rewards
We’ve improved a lot of rewards for the archaeological sites to make them more unique, more fun and in some cases stronger.

Grand Herald
Although we like how the Grand Herald can change the game quite a lot, we think it was a bit too common and too easy to get so early on. The Grand Herald site now spawns less frequently and the site difficulty is higher. When you complete the site, there is a chance that you find the Grand Herald in a weakened state. In that case it will be possible to restore it to its full glory.

Full patch notes here.

stellaris_test is the version you need to be in to crossplay between Steam, GoG, and Paradoxplaza versions of the game.

Our goal is to fix whatever issues may arise and be able to set 2.3.3 live next week before we disappear on summer vacation.

Hey everyone!

With a weekend of beta testing on 2.3.2 behind us, it is now fully live. We're going to keep working on 2.3.x, in particular we are aware of some issues with presapients, overflows, and an energy deficit bug. We'll get fixes for those out as soon as we can, but given that 2.3.2 is overall a much better version than 2.3.1, we want to make it a part of the live build while we keep working on the remaining issues.

Full changelog below:

#################################################################
######################### 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 site 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


The stellaris_test version is still there as 2.3.2, the only difference being it uses our experimental crossplay MP layer. Steam users need to be on stellaris_test to crossplay with GoG and Paradoxplaza.

We'll get a new beta version with more fixes for your reported issues. In the meantime, enjoy, and we'll see you shortly with a new beta patch!

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

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# UI
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* 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

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# AI
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* 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)

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# 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!


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######################### VERSION 2.3.0 ###########################
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# Ancient Relics Story Pack Features
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# 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


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# 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

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# Balance
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* 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

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# Performance
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* 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

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# UI
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* 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

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# AI
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* 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

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# Modding
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* 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

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# Bugfixes
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* 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!