Hello everyone!

Today we’ll be talking about some big stuff – namely the Juggernaut and the Mega Shipyard.

Both of these new behemoths are a part of the upcoming Federations expansion.

Juggernaut
Stellaris has been in development for many years and, and if there’s something we know for sure its that big ships are cool, and bigger ships are even cooler. With this flawless logic in mind, we obviously wanted to add something even bigger than a Titan.

Mobile starbases is something that we know has been widely requested, so why not hit two avians with one lithoid?


Visually, the Juggernaut has the shape of a giant pair of wings.
​
The juggernaut is as much a mobile starbase as it is a massive warship. Although the Juggernaut works like a mobile starbase in some regards, it will not project borders or control ownership or systems. A Juggernaut instead functions like a forward base of operations during offensive campaigns where you can repair your ships. The Juggernaut will not have starbase modules or buildings – instead it will count as always having 2 Shipyards (which means it can build, repair and upgrade ships).



The Juggernaut can be designed in the ship designer, and features 2 XL turrets, 6 hangar slots and 5 medium turrets.

​

In addition, the Juggernaut gets access to a couple of new and unique aura components.



The Juggernaut will be unlocked by a technology which requires Citadels and Battleships to be already researched. A Starbase will also need to have a Colossal Assembly Yard in order to be able to construct one. The Colossal Assembly Yard is required for (and unlocked by) both the Colossus and the Juggernaut.




The Juggernaut will have an empire limit of 1.

Mega Shipyard
New Megastructures are always nice, because we all want more ways to show off the glory and magnificence of our empires. The Mega Shipyard is exactly what it is, a giant shipyard that allows you to build a lot of ships really fast.



The Mega Shipyard will also provide ships with +100 starting XP, so that it will not matter where you build them. Generally speaking, are trying to avoid design that creates incentives for players to engage in more micromanagement that may not be fun. We believe the choice of where to build a ship (because it would cost less, or gain more XP somewhere) is an example of micromanagement that is not very fun. The only incentive is to avoid loss aversion, which is not a good. Incentives should generally be positive.



The Mega Shipyard is unlocked by a technology which requires Mega-Engineering (like the others). It’s found in the Society tree and belongs to the Military Theory category.



The Mega Shipyard will have 3 stages (in addition to construction site):
Mega Shipyard Framework - 10 Shipyards, +33% Ship Build Speed, +100 Starting Ship XP
Mega Shipyard Core - 20 Shipyards, +66% Ship Build Speed, +100 Starting Ship XP
Mega Shipyard - 30 Shipyards, +100% Ship Build Speed, +100 Starting Ship XP

The bonuses to Ship Build Speed will be empire-wide.

Keep in mind that these numbers are work-in-progress and may change.

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That is all for this week! Next week will be the last dev diary of the year, before the holidays, and we will be doing a round up of the year.

Also keep an eye on our social media channels, as we will be sharing some more screenshots of the Juggernaut and Mega Shipyard.

As always, you can also read this Dev Diary and comment on our forums.

Hello everyone!

Today we thought we’d talk about some of the smaller changes coming to diplomacy with the free 2.6 update. Although the Galactic Community and the reworked federations are sure to have a large impact on galactic diplomacy, it's also important to talk about the smaller things!

Envoys
One of the more important things we’ve added are the Envoys. Envoys function very similar to Diplomats in EU4, and they are required for certain diplomatic actions such as:

Improve / Harm Relations – it is now possible to send an Envoy to improve or harm relations which can affect Opinion by up to (-400 / +400 ). More on Opinion and Relations later.
Assigned to Federation (to increase monthly Cohesion by +1)
Assigned to Galactic Community (to increase Diplomatic Weight)

Improve Relations


In Federation


Galactic Community


Although Envoys are characters, they do not currently have any character-mechanics such as traits. We didn’t think it would be fun to have to micromanage and switch Envoys around to better fit certain jobs depending on their traits.

Diplomacy Interface Updates
We’ve finally gotten around to give a bunch of diplomacy-related interfaces a facelift! First up, let’s talk a little about the general diplomacy screen.

You are now able to more clearly see things such as Civics, Origins, Relative Power breakdowns, your ongoing diplomatic agreements, and also the new diplomatic stances!


This Hegemonic subordinate was kind enough to act as a model for the new diplo screen!​


Declaring rivalry never looked so appealing.​



The diplomatic offers are now a bit more clear on what is going on (not final text). A downside, however, is that it's now much harder to fool colleagues into becoming your vassal in our internal multiplayer sessions.

Diplomatic Stances
Sometimes we like concept that our colleagues have put into some of our other games, and the diplomatic stances from Imperator: Rome were a good example. Although not exactly the same, we like the general idea. We wanted empires to be able to set a diplomatic stance that dictates their behaviour towards other empires on a galactic stage.



Diplomatic Stances are Policies and can be changed once every 10 years. There are a bunch of different stances, and some may also be unique to certain empire types (e.g. Isolationist is called Mercantile for Megacorporations).



Stances are designed to be quite different, and to facilitate different playstyles. Perceptive readers might notice that the Belligerent stance seems very similar to Supremacist, and that is true, except that Supremacist stance is designed for all empires that want to be “a big player”. Supremacist empires will dislike other empires with the same stance, so it is almost like a soft rivalry of sorts.

Stances also have some effect on internal politics, as some of your factions may have certain preferences when it comes to your foreign policy.

Relations and Opinion
We wanted an easier way to measure how the diplomatic relations between two empires is doing, so we’ve added a new aggregate value called Relations. Relations exists in different levels ranging:

Terrible <- Tense <- Neutral -> Positive -> Excellent

They do have an effect on which type of diplomatic actions that are available.

We want diplomacy to be less fickle, and more mechanical. Players should now have more ability to influence what other empires’ opinions are of them. Overall diplomacy should feel less static and more prone to evolving over time.

Form Federation requires Excellent Relations, and pacts like Migrations, Research or Commercial require Positive Relations. Similarly, Rivalries require Terrible Relations. This is also the case in player-to-player diplomacy, so it’s important to maintain a good standing.

Some of these restrictions can be bypassed by having an Envoy to harm or improve relations.



Favors
Finally we want to talk about Favors. Although Favors were primarily added to give players agency within the Galactic Community, they can also be used to influence the AIs likelihood of accepting certain diplomatic agreements.



Favors is a new mechanic that allows you to increase your Diplomatic Weight for certain votes or proposals in the Galactic Community. An empire can owe another empire up to 10 Favors, and each Favor will increase Diplomatic Weight by “10%”.

For example – Empire B owes 10 Favors to Empire A. Empire A spends influence to call in all 10 Favors and adds 100% of the Diplomatic Weight that Empire B has. Empire A will add the Diplomatic Weight from Empire B, for a specific vote, without Empire B losing their Diplomatic Weight.

In effect, Favors allows an empire to manipulate vote results towards their point of view. It is not possible to Call in Favors when an empire is already voting the same way as you are. Multiple empires can call in favors from the same empire, and it's designed in this way to reduce the complexity of having to figure out which favors should have priority, or which favors should matter more.


Pretty please. You owe me.​

In addition to the Galactic Community, Favors can also be called in to increase acceptance chance by +5 when offering certain diplomatic deals.

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That is all for this week! Next week we’ll be back with some more details on the Juggernaut and the Mega Shipyard.

Remember, you can always read this Dev Diary and comment directly on our forums.

Hello everyone!

For this week’s dev diary we chose to switch the order of a couple of dev diaries to be able to give you some updates earlier rather than later.

The Stellaris brand has understandably been under more scrutiny than usual for the last few months, and we want to address situations related to work-in-progress art in Federations. As an example, we had some UI design mockups (shown during PDXCon) that contained placeholder art. We want to make clear this is not how the game will appear in its final version.

Moving on to Federations: During PDXCON 2019 we said that we would give more information on the expansion later during the year – and today we want to share some news that Federations is targeted for release in early 2020. Although we understand that some of you might be disappointed that Federations will not be released in December, we want you to know that we are taking more time to make sure that the next update is going to be amazing.

In addition, to give us the best chance of improving some of the pain points you’ve shared with us, we have assigned some of our team members to focus solely on trying to improve performance and AI. It is very important to us that 2.6 does not compound any of the current issues with the game, and that we can take the time we need to address some of the issues remaining from 2.2. It’s important to remember, however, that working on these kinds of issues is not a sprint, but a marathon – it's something that is constantly being worked on over longer periods of time.

If you want to read more about performance, and how we work to maintain it over time, we shared some more information on this topic in Dev Diary #149.

While we have been unable to give concrete information or specifics related to these issues, we can say that it is very important to us. With that said, it's important for us that you know that your feedback is not being ignored, even if we have no news to share.

We want to thank you for being such a dedicated community and helping us by providing feedback and reporting issues with the game. We appreciate this to no end and encourage you to continue voicing your thoughts to us.

From the beginning of next year, we’ll be doing a series of dev diaries dedicated entirely to answering questions related to specific topics each week. The schedule for those dev diaries will be released later in December when we’ll summarize and round up the year.

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That is it for this week! Dev diaries will resume their regular schedule, and as promised last week, next week we will be talking about some of the new things affecting diplomacy, such as Envoys.

P.S:
Since this dev diary had no pictures I felt it was necessary to add something, so here's a picture of the premade Lithoid empire that some of you have been asking us to add to the Lithoids Species Pack! (Will also be updated with 2.6)



As always, you can also read this dev diary and give us feedback directly, on our forums.

Hello everyone!

In our previous dev diary #155 we talked about Origins, and today we will be returned to the topic by going through Origins again, but in more detail.

Please note that although this is a pretty exhaustive list, there is no guarantee that these Origins will necessarily match what will be in Federations once it is released.

What are Origins?
Origins allows you to pick a background story for your empire. An empire can only pick one Origin.​


Prosperous Unification is the “default” Origin.​

There are currently 18 Origins in the game, where some of them were converted from previously being Civics. Origins that were converted will be unlocked by the same DLC that they were unlocked by when they were civics.

The Origins
Prosperous Unification: Start with 4 additional Pops and 2 additional Districts. (Available to everyone)

Mechanist: Start with 8 Pops being robots, and the ability to build more. (Utopia)

Syncretic Evolution: Start the game with 12 Pops being of another species. (Utopia)

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Life-Seeded: Start on a Gaia World. (Apocalypse)

Post-Apocalyptic: Start on a Tomb World. (Apocalypse)

Remnants: Start on a Relic World. (Federations)

Shattered Ring: Start on a Shattered Ring World. Your empire lives on the only intact section of the ancient megastructure, and it is possible to repair most of the other sections. (Federations)

Void Dwellers: Start on a Habitat above your destroyed, former homeworld. Adept at living in habitats, and start with the technology to build new ones. (Federations)

Scion: Start as the vassal of a Fallen Empire. (Federations)



Galactic Doorstep: Start with a dormant Gateway in your home system. (Available to everyone)

Tree of Life: Only for Hive Minds. Start with a powerful Tree of Life on your homeworld. Disastrous if you would somehow lose control of it. (Federations)



On the Shoulder of Giants: Start with an Archaeological Site related to a mysterious benefactor. (Federations)

Calamitous Birth: Lithoid Only. Start with a Massive Crater on your Homeworld. You are also able to build Meteorite Colony Ships, which colonize planets in a more dramatic fashion. (Lithoids)

Resource Consolidation: Machines only. Start with a Machine World as your homeworld. (Synthetic Dawn)


Comfy federalized start.​

Common Ground: Start with as the leader of a Galactic Union federation, and with The Federation tradition unlocked. (Federations)

Hegemon: Start with as the leader of a Hegemony federation, and with The Federation tradition unlocked. (Federations)



Doomsday: Your homeworld is doomed and it will explode after 64 years, so you need to find a new home for your species. (Federations)

Lost Colony: Another empire with the same species as you will exist somewhere in the galaxy. (Available to everyone)

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That is it for this week! Next week we will be back and we will be talking about some of the new things affecting diplomacy, such as Envoys.

Remember you can also read this Dev Diary on our forums.

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%.
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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.

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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!
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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.

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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/