Hello everyone!

Today we will be talking about a new feature coming with Stellaris: Federations – the Galactic Community!

The Galactic Community is very similar to a United Nations in space. Members can propose and vote on Resolutions, which are laws that affect all the member empires.


Resolutions
The Resolutions are intended to be divisive, so that even empires that are allies can have very different agendas when it comes to which Resolutions should be passed.


Resolutions exist in categories and have a couple of steps in each category.​


Go big or go home.​


Passing a Resolution
The first step to passing a Resolution is proposing it! Any member of the Galactic Community can propose a Resolution, but they can only have one ongoing. When a Resolution is proposed, it moves into the proposal queue.


The Galactic Community deals with matters of critical importance to the continued well-being of the galaxy and all of its inhabitants.​

Only one Resolution can be voted on at a time on the senate floor, and the proposal that moves into session next will be the proposed Resolution with the highest amount of Diplomatic Weight supporting it.


Senate in session, voting on a Resolution.​

When a Resolution is in session and is being voted on, empires can support, oppose or abstain. Voting for or against will add an empire’s Diplomatic Weight to either side, and when the current session ends the votes will be counted. A Resolution will pass if the Diplomatic Weight in favor of the Resolution is higher than the amount opposing it.


Diplomatic Weight
Diplomatic influence will be calculated using a new scoring system called Diplomatic Weight, and it will be composed of things like economy, technology, fleet power to name a couple of examples.


Cooperative Diplomatic Stance increases Diplomatic Weight by +25%.
​
There will also be a number of different ways to influence how much Diplomatic Weight you are getting from different sources. There are Resolutions that can modify how much Diplomatic Weight you gain from your economy, and there are Diplomatic Stances that increase how much Diplomatic Weight you gain from fleet power or other areas (more on Diplomatic Stances later!).

So as you can see, there are many different ways to make yourself more influential on a diplomatic, galactic stage!


Favors
For Resolutions, empires have the possibility to call in favors to strengthen their votes. An empire can owe another empire up to 10 favors, and each favor is worth 10% diplomatic weight. For example, if an empire calls in 10 favors, they can add 100% of the other empire’s diplomatic weight to theirs. Calling in favors this way will only affect votes on Resolutions. This also means that favors will work the same between player empires as it will between player and AI empires.


Calling in favors costs Influence.​

Favors can also be used to increase the likelihood of AI empires accepting diplomatic deals.

Favors can be traded through the trade diplomatic action.


Galactic Council
It is possible to reform the Galactic Community to include a Galactic Council. The council will be composed of a number of empires with the highest Diplomatic Weight. By default, the council will have 3 members, but the number can be changed through Resolutions.

The Galactic Council also gets access to special powers such as veto rights or emergency measures.

Veto rights allows a council member to veto a Resolution that is currently in the proposal queue.

While the galactic senate is in recess it is possible for Galactic Council members to declare a proposed Resolution an emergency. This will immediately put the senate into session and will initiate a vote on the emergency Resolution.


Galactic Focus
It is possible for the Galactic Community to set a Galactic Focus. This will mean the Galactic Community together have decided to achieve something or to deal with a crisis.

There will be Resolutions to declare the galactic invaders a threat to the galaxy, which means it will be against galactic law to have closed borders to any other Galactic Community member while the crisis is ongoing.

The Galactic Market is now founded through a Galactic Focus to “Found the Galactic Market”. When the Resolution to form the Galactic Market has been passed, the bidding process to be the market founder will continue as it previously did.


Creating/Joining/Leaving the Galactic Community

When an empire has established communications with half of the empires in the galaxy, an event will trigger to suggest the formation of a Galactic Community. This means that forming the Galactic Community will be similar to how it used to work to form the Galactic Market.

It is possible to join the Galactic Community (and to see it!) as soon as you have established communications with any member of it.

Leaving the galaxy community is something an empire might choose to do if they become the target of too many sanctions or if there are too many Resolutions that negatively impact them.

----

To read this Dev Diary on our forums, click here.

Next week we will be showing all the Origins!

Hi all, Jamor here, with the news that after a weekend in beta without new breaking issues being introduced, I'm putting patch 2.5.1 fully live right now.

It contains a number of bug fixes for the Lithoids release.

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.5.1 ##########################
#################################################################

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

* The tooltip for Livestock now mentions that Lithoid Livestock produce Minerals instead of Food
* Chat muting commands now work consistently between in-game and lobby chat

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

* Lithoid Empires with the Terravore civic should no longer occasionally end up blocked from social research
* Fixed so that players get the correct visual representation of chosen parts for the lithoid ships
* Fixed Lithoids wrongly getting unhappiness and growth penalties from negative food, this comes from negative minerals for them now
* Graphics options chosen in game launcher should actually apply in game now
* Launcher should correctly handle mods and game options on the Paradoxplaza version of the game
* Fixed a crash when network is disconnected

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

Save games shouldn't be adversely affected by the switch from 2.5.0 to 2.5.1, but just in case you do encounter issues, you can roll back to a prior version via right click on Stellaris in library -> properties -> betas -> choose the desired version.

If you want to do crossplay MP between Steam and our other release platforms (Plaza/GOG/MS Store), you need to opt in to the crossplay beta, stellaris_test, by the same method. If you have a 2.5.0 MP game that you want to finish before updating, roll back to the crossplay_rollback version.

We're going to aim to get as many bug fixes and improvements as possible as we continue work on Federations. Stand by for more information about that in future dev diaries.

Also, the new Paradox Launcher continues active development in parallel. If you have feedback or issues with the Launcher, please let my colleagues in the Launcher team know in this thread.

To read this post on our forums and give us feedback there, directly, go here.

Hello everyone!

It was great to finally reveal what we’re working on at PDXCON, and today we’re back with yet another dev diary where we will dive into some more details on the reworked federations.

The screenshots still feature a bunch of work-in-progress stuff, like every federation perk using a placeholder right now. Numbers and effects aren’t necessarily final either.

Federation Types
Like we mentioned at PDXCON, federation will now come in different Federation Types. Each federation type has a unique passive effect and can unlock federation perks as they level up.​


Certain federation types have requirements on what type of empire can suggest to form them, but there are no limitations on who can join a federation (except for killer empires & inward perfection). Yes, this also means that Barbaric Despoilers and Criminal Syndicate are no longer excluded.
​
Galactic Union
This will be a more generic type of federation that will fit most groups of empires. This federation makes it easier to cooperate with empires, as diversity of ethics will have a less negative impact on maintaining cohesion. This federation type will be available to everyone in the free patch.​


Fleet bonuses a plenty!
​
Martial Alliance
This federation type is focused around having a very large and powerful federation fleet. Only militarists can suggest to form this federation.​


Free and automatic research sharing!
​
Research Cooperative
Empires who wish to cooperate in achieving technological mastery should join together in a research cooperative. Only materialists can suggest to form a research cooperative.​



New trade policy!​


Trade League
If trade value is the focus of your empire, the Trade League is probably a very good federation for you to be a part of. The Trade League gets access to a new Trade Policy which combines the bonuses of all other trade policies. An empire needs to be a Megacorporation or have the Merchant Guilds civic in order to be able to suggest to form a trade league.


Did you know there is an Origin that lets you start as the president of a Hegemony?​

Hegemony
This federation type is built around one strong core member. The president gets most of the bonuses, but the bonuses for the members are also quite powerful. Only authoritarian empires may suggest to form a hegemony.

Federation Perks
Federations will get access to new perks when they level up, and the perks they get access to depend on their type. There are usually 2 perks that gives bonuses to every member and 1 perk that gives bonuses only to the president. However, the Hegemony flips this around by giving the president 2 perks and the members 1 perk (which does not benefit the president in this case!).


Hegemony member perk.​



President gets an additional Envoy.​

Each time a federation levels up, they will get access to 3 new perks.

Level Up & Cohesion
In order to level gain XP, a federation needs to have positive Cohesion. The amount of XP a federation gains (or loses!) per month is directly tied to its Cohesion, which is a value that ranged from -100 to +100.



There are a number of things that will reduce Cohesion every month, such as every member, diverse ethics and opposing ethics. Federation members can counteract this by assigning Envoys to the federation, which will increase monthly Cohesion.

When Cohesion is at +100, the federation will gain +10 XP every month. If a federation loses XP and drops a level, they will lose access to their perks after a few months.

Federation Laws
It is possible for federations to customize some aspects of its rules. In some cases, federation types also have access to different laws at different points. A Research Cooperative can never have the highest level of fleet contribution, and they also require higher centralization to increase their Fleet Contribution.


There are a number of laws which define certain rules for the federation.​

Centralization
Many federation laws require federation centralization to be high enough. To increase centralization, a federation needs higher level. In fact, centralization is the only law locked behind federation levels right now.

Increasing centralization isn’t always easy though, as doing so will have a large negative impact on Cohesion. That means more Envoys will need to be assigned to the federation to maintain its Cohesion.


The Galactic Union federation type requires Medium centralization to have a 20% Fleet Contribution.​

Fleet Contribution
Most federations will not start with the ability to build a federation fleet, as their fleet contribution will start on “None”. The Martial Alliance and the Hegemony do start with a “Low” fleet contribution, however. The Martial Alliance is also able to change its fleet contribution law to “High” as early as Medium centralization.


Most of the other laws not visible earlier.​

Succession types
As you could see in previous screenshots there are a bunch of different laws for how federations can decide who becomes the president. Strongest is the empire with the greatest economy. Diplomatic Weight is the empire with the largest Diplomatic Weight (we talked about that at PDXCON, but more on that later). Rotation will rotate the president. Random will choose a president from a random member. Challenge succession type allows you to pick a challenge type for your federation.


Perhaps we’ll have enough psi-capable pops next time...​

There are currently two different challenge types:
Psionic Battle lets psionic pops battle it out over which empire should be president.
Arena Combat lets the rulers of competing empires battle it out. Certain traits for the ruler (both species and ruler-specific) will influence how large chance the ruler has at winning. The Chosen will of course be very hard to beat.

----

That’s it for this week, and we hope you survive the information overload! We realized there are so many details we possibly could share, but this should cover the most important parts.

Next week we will be talking about the Galactic Community, Resolutions and more!

Hello everyone, it's your friendly neighborhood Associate Producer, Obidobi. We've seen your feedback and have put together a small patch to fix some of the major annoyances. To bring it to you faster, we're putting it up on a beta branch in Steam as we continue our verification process in-house.

While this patch will be put as a Beta branch on Steam, we are setting it as default on both GoG and Plaza. This means that if you want to play Multiplayer with your friends on other platforms, you'll have to switch to the Steam beta branch.

Here's the full changelog for 2.5.1:

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.5.1 ##########################
#################################################################

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

* The tooltip for Livestock now mentions that Lithoid Livestock produce Minerals instead of Food
* Chat muting commands now work consistently between in-game and lobby chat

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

* Lithoid Empires with the Terravore civic should no longer occasionally end up blocked from social research
* Fixed so that players get the correct visual representation of chosen parts for the lithoid ships
* Fixed Lithoids wrongly getting unhappiness and growth penalties from negative food, this comes from negative minerals for them now
* Graphics options chosen in game launcher should actually apply in game now
* Launcher should correctly handle mods and game options on the Paradoxplaza version of the game
* Fixed a crash when network is disconnected

Please note that 2.5.1 is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch.

Also note that save file compatibility between versions is not guaranteed. If you have an important 2.5.0 game going, don't try to load the save in 2.5.1.

We are standing by for your feedback on the version. We've allocated people and time for post-launch support and we'll be following your comments closely. To give us feedback on our forums go here.


f you are having any issues specifically with the new launcher, please let our colleagues in launcher team know:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/about-the-paradox-launcher.1254011/

Hi everyone!

I’m Eladrin, Game Designer on Stellaris, and I’m one of the newer members of the Stellaris team. I joined the team during the development of Ancient Relics, and it’s been a blast. It was awesome meeting so many of you at PDXCON, and getting to hear so many ideas and excellent stories directly from you.

Back in Diary 152 and Dev Diary 153, Grekulf mentioned some of the Summer Experimentation that we did - but in today’s dev diary I wanted to talk about one of the things I worked on during the summer - game mechanics for the Lithoids.



The Lithoids Species Pack is very sedimental to me. When I wanted to dig deeper into the systems and get my hands dirty in the code, I looked at the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” list, and saw “...Lithoids ate minerals instead of food?” up near the top. This seemed like a solid foundation to start with, and a gneiss stepping stone to get my feet on the ground that fit my apatite - it seemed like a pretty simple change after all.

Okay, I’ll stop with the rock puns.

There are fifteen Lithoid portraits (and one new machine portrait), some of which have appearances that resemble some of the other phenotypes so you can do some interesting things with Syncretic Evolution.


Look at me! I'm a sparkly space unicorn!​

The ships use a beautiful asymmetrical crystal design. Remember that the colors of your ships reflect your flag. You can use this to your advantage to make a pretty sweet looking fleet.


This is my favorite Titan in the game.​

There’s also a Lithoid Advisor Voice. I may have stopped with the puns for now, but there’s no force in the universe that can stop the Lithoid Advisor.

Changing the Lithoids to consume minerals was simple enough, but we also wanted to embrace the sci-fi trope of slow growing rock beings living in inhospitable climates. We started by giving them a massive boost to habitability which they still retain today, and a much larger pop growth penalty than they eventually ended up with. For flavor they receive a bonus to Army Health, and we increased their leader lifespans (but have their leaders start somewhat older as well).

Every little change leads to several more, however. If a species eats minerals instead of food, their homeworld should start with extra mining districts and no agricultural districts built. In fact, if a species evolved to eat rocks, their homeworld should probably by mineral rich and food poor. But wait, what about if they’re a Syncretic Evolution species, or if a Rogue Servitor wants to start with pet rocks? What about if they want to be a Devouring Swarm?

Many minor changes came along with what started as a simple economic change. Just a few examples include the Lithoids being tragically unable to be declared the most delicious species in the galaxy if there are any alternatives, loosening restrictions a bit on Bio-Reactors, modifying the Fleeting trait to be -25 years for Lithoids instead of -10, and a handful of Tradition changes. We also added a few Lithoid specific traits that allow them to generate small amounts of special resources every month.



After many rounds of qualitative feedback and a huge number of playdays, we ended up with the following as the Lithoid species trait:



The large habitability boost that Lithoids receive allow them to colonize worlds that would be marginal for other species, allowing them to work around their slower pop growth speed. Empires with a Lithoid primary species also begin with Lithoid Monolith blockers on their homeworld that can be removed at a large mineral cost for an additional Lithoid pop. (A Lithoid specific Origin in Federations modifies these a bit, and… we’ll talk more about that in another Dev Diary.)


So very sleepy.​

The Lithoid trait is automatically applied to any species that uses a Lithoid portrait. For the Xenophiles out there, Half-Lithoids generated by Xeno-Compatibility follow this rule as well, so if the portrait is a Lithoid it will consume minerals instead of food, produce minerals when purged, and so on.

We’ve exposed this ability so modders should be able to similarly add phenotype forced traits to species they create by adding trait = "trait_lithoid" to the species class entry. (Replacing the Lithoid trait with their own custom species trait, of course.) I look forward to seeing what you do with it.

As for the Lithoid Devouring Swarm… They don’t have precisely the same motivations as a regular Devouring Swarm. While they will still press organics inhabiting the worlds they take into nutritive paste for the Bio-Reactors, their hunger is a bit more ambitious. Renamed Terravores, they operate largely the same way as a regular Devouring Swarm, but once off their homeworld they have an additional planetary decision to consume the habitable worlds of the galaxy, leaving devastated husks in their wake:


Are you going to eat that?​

Terravores are barred from Terraforming (and thus do not have access to Hive Worlds) and cannot clear the devastation they leave behind, but other empires can clean up after them, though it takes a major effort.

Modders will now be able to change the name and description of a civic out for another based on species class, similar to how traditions can be swapped.

I’m quite pleased with how the Lithoids turned out, I think they're a real gem. I hope that you all enjoy it just as much.

In a few hours the free 2.5.0 patch will be up and the Lithoids Species Pack will be available for shale, so pick it up, rock out, and leave the galaxy gravelling at your feet!


#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.5.0 ############################
#################################################################

###################
# Balance
###################
* The Pop Growth Reduction for Bio-Trophies now actually reduces their growth rate. Driven Assimilators now apply their organic growth penalty as a multiplier the same way as Rogue Servitors do, and is now also 50%
* Defensive Platforms placed on Outposts now provide 2 points of Piracy Suppression for their system. The Great Game tradition from the Supremacy tree now also reduces the cost to build Defensive Platforms by 33%


###################
# UI
###################
* Shift+clicking on ship count in the Fleet Manager now adds ships up to the nearest unit of ten, using ctrl fills up to the template max size (for realzies this time)
* The Shared Burdens civic will no longer appear by itself in the civics list when you select Gestalt Consciousness ethics but have not yet selected Machine Intelligence or Hive Minded authority
* Added a notification when one empire guarantees the independence of another

###################
# AI
###################
* Automated building now checks that upkeep cost is covered by income

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Fixed wrong save file being loaded from the resume button in the launcher, caused by a conflict between local and cloud saves
* Fixed the game complaining about mods not being in UTF8-BOM3 for no good reason
* Fixed a potential crash in AI when evaluating market values
* Fixed cases where planetary events could fire multiple notifications
* Odd Factories no longer sometimes block pops from getting purged, because you monsters should be free to purge whatever you want
* Mod load order is now the same as the order in which the mods are displayed


You can also read this Dev Diary and comment on our forums, here.

Hello Players!

The PDX Con 2019 is here and we have great announcements for you!

We're streaming the announcement show on Twitch! Join your fellow xenos here!

We start at 10a.m. CEST. In 30 minutes!

See you on the other side!

Hi all, Jamor again.

We're deploying a small, quick hotfix to address two issues we were able to solve today: inability of the launcher to display incompatible mods, and an economy bug related to artisan jobs and consumer goods.

Given that it's early yet and some may not have seen the original changes in 2.4.0, I'll repost those. Please note that due to a human error, namely this producer managing to transcribe fixes from the wrong dev branch in to the patch notes (!), a few of the listed changes in 2.4.0 are not actually present in the build. In the interest of getting the hotfix to you all with maximum speed, those will come in a future update when they can be properly merged and tested. I'll put them in the notes for reference, but crossed out.

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.4.1 ##########################
#################################################################

###################
# General
###################

* Added Launcher v2
* Updated all factions titans with panning light meshes. Updated vfx for ether drake’s wing attack (muzzle, projectile, hit effect)
* Caravaneer ship & station vfx update
* Added "/mute <user name>" and "/unmute <user name>" chat commands
* Cloud saving support added on GoG and Paradoxplaza versions of the game

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

* Hunter-Seeker Drone jobs now have a preference for pops who would actually be good at it
* The Pop Growth Reduction for Bio-Trophies now actually reduces their growth rate. Driven Assimilators now apply their organic growth penalty as a multiplier the same way as Rogue Servitors do, and is now also 50%
* Defensive Platforms placed on Outposts now provide 2 points of Piracy Suppression for their system. The Great Game tradition from the Supremacy tree now also reduces the cost to build Defensive Platforms by 33%

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

* Shift+clicking on ship count in the Fleet Manager now adds ships up to the nearest unit of ten, using ctrl fills up to the template max size
* Fixed improperly displayed text in the name of Galatron wars
* Protection war name list no longer includes machine uprising and war in heaven
* Removed unnecessary decimal precision in lacking resources tooltips
* Added some tooltips to the planet screen: close button, decisions, tab buttons, garrison and armies, planetary features
* Added a notification when one empire guarantees the independence of another
* Added a defense army icon to the Stronghold and Fortress buildings to help visually identify their effect, and updated the garrison tooltip
* Fixed a cut off display of the clearing cost for ruined arcology blockers
* Fixed incorrectly reversed "they get" and "we get" information showed in commercial pacts

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

* The AI will now look at several Edicts and try to enact one of them, whilst still remembering the one they want the most and save towards enacting that
* AI will now wait at least a year before attempting to propose the same diplomacy deal to the same target
* Fixed AI not building enough defense platforms
* Automated building now checks that upkeep cost is covered by income

###################
# Stability
###################

* Improved performance by reducing the number of string copies in modifiers
* Parallelized some planet functions
* Optimized calculations done in frame rendering
* Bunch of caching and optimizations to planet job calculations
* Fixed a slowdown when viewing the slave market

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

* Fixed an incorrect scripted trigger which could sometimes result in the deletion of research labs when upgraded
* Fixed literally unplayable "the the" typo in ancrel.23.desc
* Fixed empires that have outlawed slavery not emancipating slaves on planets they conquer
* Fixed a possible crash when a planet has no pops
* Fixed an instant repair exploit when you dismantle a starbase module while it's under attack
* Fixed a bug that could cause rivalry declarations and closed borders enacted by you to make you instead the target of those things from the other empire
* Removed an exploit where when transferring, merging, and transferring ships again while paused, one could cheekily cause them to become invisible and untargetable in combat
* Fixed an overflow bug with relative empire power calculations
* Removed incorrect ability to completely depopulate primitive planets with raiding bombardment stance
* Fixed nonfunctional modifiers to colony ship build cost
* Fixed a potential crash in AI when evaluating market values
* Odd Factories no longer sometimes block pops from getting purged, because you monsters should be free to purge whatever you want



Please note that save file compatibility between versions is not guaranteed. If you have an important 2.3.3 game going, please roll back to that version before trying to load the save in 2.4.1.

Instructions on how to keep playing on older versions here.

You can also use this method to opt in to the stellaris_test branch on Steam, which is necessary for multiplayer cross play between Steam and the other stores we are available on. If you have a 2.3.3 crossplay game going on, that version is present on Steam on the crossplay_rollback branch.

Thanks for your feedback and issue reports. We'll keep at it but I wanted to get this to you as soon as possible before the weekend. We'll get the MIA fixes in as soon as we can.

If you want to comment on or read this post on our forums, go here.

Hello everyone!

As we mentioned in our last dev diary, this week we will be talking about some of the cool things you can be expecting to see at PDXCON 2019!

Announcement show
What: PDX will be announcing new titles and expansions. Stellaris will be featured.
When: Saturday (Oct 19) 10:00 CEST
Where: PDXCON main stage or Twitch

Stellaris talk
What: I will be holding a talk where I will be talking about future updates to Stellaris.
When: Saturday (Oct 19) 18:00 CEST
Where: PDXCON main stage or Twitch

Paradox Awards
What: Paradox celebrates its community by recognizing outstanding achievements in our community.
When: Saturday (Oct 19) 20:00 CEST
Where: PDXCON main stage or Twitch

Stellaris booth
What: Play new content, meet the devs, talk to other fans
When: Saturday (Oct 19) 11:00 - 20:00 CEST
Where: At PDXCON

Stellaris meet-and-greet
What: Meet the devs!
When: Sunday (Oct 20) 12:00 - 13:00 CEST
Where: Auditorium

Stellaris LAN
What: Play new content, meet the devs, talk to other fans
When: Sunday (Oct 20) 10:00 - 14:30 CEST and 16:00 to 20:30 CEST
Where: At PDXCON

PDXCON is next week, and we hope we’ll be seeing some of you there! The next dev diary will be in two weeks, after PDXCON. Once our big announcements are out in the open, we will resume the weekly dev diaries.

If you want to give us feedback on our forums, you can also read this schedule here.

Hi all, Jamor here, with some news for you just before our biggest event of the year, PDXCON.

Today we are releasing version 2.4.0 “Lee”. The primary objective of this version is to get our new Paradox launcher in to Stellaris:



Why are we doing this? There are two main reasons: Firstly, as you know, Stellaris is available on Steam, Paradoxplaza, GOG, and as of today, the Microsoft Store. Currently, there are hoops that someone has to jump through if they want to do a multiplayer game with users on another platform, involving opting in to beta branches. Our long term goal is to unite all Paradox gamers under one universal MP umbrella, so everyone can play with anyone they want at any time, on any release platform, with a minimum of fuss. To do that, a single unified launcher for all our of various platforms is a key prerequisite (just to clarify, this is the end goal, it does not change how you play Stellaris in multiplayer today). The launcher also has its own dedicated personnel which means it is a time saver for each game team at Paradox, letting us focus exclusively on making and improving the game itself. As a producer, I gotta tell ya, anything that lets us focus more on our core mission is most welcome.

The second big reason for the move is that this new launcher will become a much more feature-rich hub for all things related to the game. We plan improved presentation of announcements and dev diaries, mod management with player control over load order, mod support for non-Steam users via PDX Mods, the works. A low key but nice convenience feature that's in right now is the addition of a “resume last save” button right at the top, letting you start up your most recent game with one click. Our ambitions for it are high.

Here’s some more details from my colleague Anders, the Product Manager for Launcher Team:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/about-the-paradox-launcher.1254011/

The launcher has benefitted from user feedback from prior releases on other PDS games, and will be continually developed by the launcher team. In that regard your input is very helpful. It is self patching, which means updates to the launcher can be deployed without the game version needing to change. It is a separate binary that is used by all PDX games employing it, meaning it only installs once per computer.

Without diminishing the effort of the core dev team working on <redacted>, we were also able to incorporate some fixes from the development branch, which are included in 2.4.0:

#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.4.0 ##########################
#################################################################

###################
# General
###################

* Added Launcher v2
* Updated all factions titans with panning light meshes. Updated vfx for ether drake’s wing attack (muzzle, projectile, hit effect)
* Caravaneer ship & station vfx update
* Added "/mute <user name>" and "/unmute <user name>" chat commands
* Cloud saving support added on GoG and Paradoxplaza versions of the game

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

* Hunter-Seeker Drone jobs now have a preference for pops who would actually be good at it
* The Pop Growth Reduction for Bio-Trophies now actually reduces their growth rate. Driven Assimilators now apply their organic growth penalty as a multiplier the same way as Rogue Servitors do, and is now also 50%
* Defensive Platforms placed on Outposts now provide 2 points of Piracy Suppression for their system. The Great Game tradition from the Supremacy tree now also reduces the cost to build Defensive Platforms by 33%

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

* Shift+clicking on ship count in the Fleet Manager now adds ships up to the nearest unit of ten, using ctrl fills up to the template max size
* Fixed improperly displayed text in the name of Galatron wars
* Protection war name list no longer includes machine uprising and war in heaven
* Removed unnecessary decimal precision in lacking resources tooltips
* Added some tooltips to the planet screen: close button, decisions, tab buttons, garrison and armies, planetary features
* Added a notification when one empire guarantees the independence of another
* Added a defense army icon to the Stronghold and Fortress buildings to help visually identify their effect, and updated the garrison tooltip
* Fixed a cut off display of the clearing cost for ruined arcology blockers
* Fixed incorrectly reversed "they get" and "we get" information showed in commercial pacts

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

* The AI will now look at several Edicts and try to enact one of them, whilst still remembering the one they want the most and save towards enacting that
* AI will now wait at least a year before attempting to propose the same diplomacy deal to the same target
* Fixed AI not building enough defense platforms
* Automated building now checks that upkeep cost is covered by income

###################
# Stability
###################

* Improved performance by reducing the number of string copies in modifiers
* Parallelized some planet functions
* Optimized calculations done in frame rendering
* Bunch of caching and optimizations to planet job calculations
* Fixed a slowdown when viewing the slave market

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# Bugfixes
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* Fixed an incorrect scripted trigger which could sometimes result in the deletion of research labs when upgraded
* Fixed literally unplayable "the the" typo in ancrel.23.desc
* Fixed empires that have outlawed slavery not emancipating slaves on planets they conquer
* Fixed a possible crash when a planet has no pops
* Fixed an instant repair exploit when you dismantle a starbase module while it's under attack
* Fixed a bug that could cause rivalry declarations and closed borders enacted by you to make you instead the target of those things from the other empire
* Removed an exploit where when transferring, merging, and transferring ships again while paused, one could cheekily cause them to become invisible and untargetable in combat
* Fixed an overflow bug with relative empire power calculations
* Removed incorrect ability to completely depopulate primitive planets with raiding bombardment stance
* Fixed nonfunctional modifiers to colony ship build cost
* Fixed a potential crash in AI when evaluating market values
* Odd Factories no longer sometimes block pops from getting purged, because you monsters should be free to purge whatever you want

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Please note that save file compatibility between versions is not guaranteed. If you have an important 2.3.3 game going, please roll back to that version before trying to load the save in 2.4.

Instructions on how to keep playing on older versions here.

You can also use this method to opt in to the stellaris_test branch on Steam, which is necessary for multiplayer cross play between Steam and the other stores we are available on.

To read this Dev Diary on our forums and give us feedback at the source, go here.

Stand by for the big reveal of [REDACTED] October 19th on the big stage at PDXCON, along with more fixes and improvements from the main dev branch as they get tested and merged. In the meantime, happy gaming, and you’ll hear from us again soon.

Hi team! It's time for another Dev Diary and our Game Director Daniel has a cool new feature to share with you today! :)

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Hello everyone!

I have just returned from a belated vacation in Japan, and although I had a great time there it is also fun to be back to work. Today I want to talk about some of the cool things happening with Stellaris this year. As many of you have probably guessed, Stellaris will announce a new expansion at PDXCon this year. This expansion will feature a lot of cool new things, most of which will be revealed at PDXCon. But I do also have something really neat that I want to share with you now!


Good ol’ civics. Gotta love ‘em.​

Back in Utopia we introduced a lot of cool new features to improve how you could customize and specialize your empire. Civics were a great addition to the game (in fact I consider them to be one of the best), but they are also awkwardly split between “backgrounds” like Syncretic Evolution and “institutions” like Distinguished Admiralty or Imperial Cult. Civics have added a lot of really cool options to how you can play the game, and that is something I want to expand upon – this is where the Origins come in.


Materialistic, mechanist, mushroom madness?
​
Origins is a new feature that is very similar to Civics, and will now represent your empire’s background. An empire can only select one Origin, and an Origin cannot be changed. We will be adding a bunch of new Origins (some of them are really cool!) and we will also be changing some Civics into being Origins instead. Examples of Civics that will be converted into Origins are Mechanists, Post-Apocalyptic, Life-Seeded and Syncretic Evolution.


Life-Seeded Origin, now open to hive minds.​

Certain types of empires were previously unable to access some of these backgrounds since they have their own set of Civics (Gestalts and Megacorps for example). Because some of those Civics have been turned into Origins, those backgrounds will now be available to more types of empires. This means that it should now be possible to have a hive mind with the Life-Seeded origin or a Megacorp with the Mechanists origin. We know this is something people have been asking for for a long time now, and it’s really great to be able to add Origins to the game.

Like I mentioned earlier, we will also be adding a whole lot of new Origins that will add interesting starting positions for your empire. Right now we have 16 in the current version of the game, and we will probably see a few more until it's finished. I think Origins will be a great addition to the game that will surely help to facilitate a lot more player stories and player fantasies.

We won’t be showing all of these yet, but it will probably be immensely hard for us to not tease a few every now and then ;)


Who isn’t curious about Remnants and Scions?​

PDXCon is rapidly approaching and Stellaris fans will have a lot of cool things to look forward to! In two weeks we will be back again with another dev diary, where we’ll talk a bit more about PDXCon.

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As always, remember you can also read this Dev Diary on our forums and give us feedback in that thread: https://pdxint.at/DD155