Hello everyone!

We hope you are enjoying your time with 2.7 and the 4 year anniversary of Stellaris! It’s very fun to see how far the game has come, and just as interesting to imagine what the future can hold.

We want to make sure that Stellaris is well-prepared for more content in the future. Something we’ve learned, especially with CK2, is that a long tail of new content can make it very difficult for players to see what kind of DLCs are available for the game. As we recently announced, Stellaris has more than 3 million players, and we want to make sure that players – both new and old – have an easier time finding content that they might like.

In order to improve visibility, starting today and lasting for a couple of weeks, we’re going to be running a couple of experiments that will be looking at DLC visibility within the game. We will be running a controlled experiment that will split up the player base into different groups, where each group will get a slightly different experience (or no change, in the case of the control group). The experiment will only affect the main menu and empire creation/selection, and will not have any effect on the game as you are playing. The purpose of this is to gather some insights into what kind of visibility features are actually helpful.

Before you grab your laser-powered pitchforks and plasma-illuminators, and complain about development focus, rest assured that all of this work has been done by an external team (who has done a great job btw!) and has had no effect on the development of Stellaris as a game :)

I want to emphasize that even though we want to improve the visibility of content for the game, it will never come at the expense of the game experience itself, so you don’t need to worry about that. It is very important for us that our players are able to immerse themselves in the Stellaris universe and to have fun while they play.

And because a dev diary can’t be complete without pictures or teasers, here’s two icons related to some future content. What could it be..?

Stellaris 2.7 "Wells" Update is live now!
This update reinvigorates the galaxy for PC users, with New Visuals, Galactic Community resolutions, Federation Joint Operations, and updated Habitats.

You can read more about what the patch is about and a few thoughts from our Game Director in last weeks Dev Diary.

Two things to mention:
We have discovered and are aware of a performance hit in 2.7.1, and we are currently working on getting it fixed. So if you notice a slight dip, don't worry about it. We have our best people on it!

And we have removed an entry from last weeks changelog: "The enigmatic fortress doesn't regenerate once it's been disabled anymore". It turns out the issue still occurs, so as not to cause confusion we have removed it.

Save games shouldn't be adversely affected by the switch from 2.6.3 to 2.7.1, 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.

Once again, thank you all for playing Stellaris and happy four year anniversary!
PS. You can play Stellaris for Free until May 17th during our free weekend!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh9yZNrb62U&feature=emb_title

Hello everyone!

As we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the release of Stellaris, I thought we would take a look at what Stellaris is, and how much has changed since its release on May 9th 2016.

Stellaris was the studio’s first original IP in many years, so when we released the game we didn’t really know exactly what makes Stellaris. As a natural consequence of that the game has changed a lot since release as we explored what the game is really about, and which experiences we think are fun and valuable.

Stellaris is an exploration-focused space-fantasy strategy game that explores dystopian and utopian themes in a playful and light-hearted manner. There is no one “true” timeline and it's important that players are able to tell their own stories – every story is equally true.

The best thing we can do is provide more tools for storytelling, and of course new gameplay to make playing the game more interesting.

Stellaris has had time to really grow in these last 4 years, and I thought it would be fun to take a look back and see how far we’ve come.


In the last 4 years we have (in no particular order):

• Added a whole bunch of new anomalies to explore
  
• Tweaked the galaxy multiple times to feature more interesting things to discover
  
• Added a new Archaeology system
  
• Added Relics & Minor Artifacts
  
• Added terrifying Leviathans
  
• Reworked the economic system to feature jobs
  
• Added Civics & Authorities for more options during empire creation
  
• Added Traditions & Ascension perks for more customization of your empire while you play
  
• Added a whole bunch of new portraits for you to choose from
  
• Added Starbases and changed how you take ownership of star systems
  
• Added Hive Minds & Machine Intelligence empires
  
• Added bigger and bigger ships like Titans, Juggernauts, Colossi and Juggernauts
  
• Reworked Federations and added new Federation types
  
• Added the Galactic Community
  
• Added a whole bunch of diplomatic actions, such as federation associate, improve relations or defensive pacts
  
• Added Curator, Artist and Trader enclaves
  
• Reworked space combat & balance multiple times, and added new weapons such as the extra large Tachyon Lance or Mega Cannon
  
• Added a lot of megastructures such as the Dyson Sphere or the Mega Art Installation
  
• And so much more....

We have come a long way since the release of Stellaris, and our story has just barely begun. I think we have a lot to be excited about for the future, as Stellaris has almost infinite potential.

Let’s take a look into the future together!




To celebrate these 4 years, and to take another step into the future, we will be releasing the free 2.7 ‘Wells’ update next week on Tuesday the 12th of May!

For this update we’ve been looking at a lot of your feedback from 2.6 Federations, and added a couple of new features and made some tweaks to already existing ones.

We will be releasing 2.7 ‘Wells’ as 2.7.1.
If you wanna read the full pach notes, have a read in the forum post here.


Thank you all for your continued support! We’re very thankful for being able to work on such a great game and to have such an engaged and great community!

Let’s celebrate many more anniversaries to come!

Hello everyone!

Today’s dev diary will show you some of the improvements we’ve made to federations for the upcoming free update!

Federation Voting
Since the release of Federations and the 2.7 update we’ve wanted to make some improvements to how voting in federations is handled. Most of the improvements are related to UI and better feedback, but there’s also been some changes to functionality.

You are now able to use Favors to increase the acceptance chance for your AI-controlled federation members.



You are now able to use Favors to increase the acceptance chance for federation law proposals.

We’ve also changed how AI acceptance works for federation laws, so that it is more transparent and more consistent with other features in the game. We look at the AI attitude a lot more now, and it will affect which laws the AI is attracted towards. For example, militaristic empires, or those with either Honorbound Warriors or Federation Builders personalities will be more likely to accept a higher fleet contribution law.

Generally speaking, the best way for you to pass new federation laws is to get the Federation Cohesion to 90 or above, and then suggest a new law change.

When it comes to suggesting changed, the AI will still not attempt to suggest changes very often, unless they are the federation president.



The AI will generally not want to increase Centralization unless Cohesion is 90 or higher. Cohesion also directly affects the acceptance chance by a factor of x0.25 (100 cohesion equals +25 acceptance).




The UI for voting on war declarations has received a face-lift. It’s now more clear which war goal is used, and you can see a summary of the target of the war, and which their allies are. This should hopefully make it easier for you to decide if you are in favor of the war or not.



Whenever a federation law has been voted on, you will now get a pop-up that clearly informs you on what the results of the vote were, and how your federation allies voted.



We’ve also improved the feedback you get whenever your federation unlocks a new level.

Something we wanted to do, but couldn’t do for 2.6 due to lack of time, was to add some more flavor events to federations. We had some cool ideas for things we wanted to try, and we’re very happy that we’ve been able to add some events for the upcoming 2.7 update.

Joint Operations are events to which each member of a federation can contribute, and the types of events will depend on your federation type.

Research Co-operatives have the chance to engage in a joint archaeological dig across their region of federated space. Galactic Unions and Research Co-operatives alike may also find themselves dealing with strange new stellar phenomena at their federation capitals. Hegemonies will have the option of a grand project to celebrate cultural uniformity – and to see who’s still willing to tow the line. Military Alliances can partake in a joint training exercise, while Trade Leagues may seek to improve their collective worth through harmonized logistics.

In all cases, collaboration will bolster cohesion within your federation – however members may sometimes be tempted by individual gains, and further challenges may arise if the federation does not act as one.



A small change we’ve made, albeit probably a welcomed one, is to make it far less likely for the leader of a Common Ground or Hegemony start to be blocked off by their federation members. It’s very likely that they will have at least one open hyperlane to an unexplored star system.

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That’s it for this week! Next week we’ll be back with some more information regarding the upcoming free update!

Greetings!

Today we’ll touch upon a subject dear to the hearts of many galactic rulers - namely Edicts!

Background
Edicts are meant to be a way for your empire to focus on certain issues without necessarily taking a permanent stance on them. More permanent stances on issues would be covered by Policies.

Although we felt that Edicts do fit this role pretty well, there were a couple of issues with the system that we think could be improved. The fact that Edicts would always time out felt like a little bit of unnecessary micromanagement at times, and didn’t really emphasize the feeling of “I am choosing to focus on these 2 things right now”. We felt that it would fit better if Edicts had a greater emphasis on making choices that you can go back and change, rather than being things you constantly go in and refresh.



An old friend with a slight makeover. Some Edicts are now toggled on/off instead of being on a timer

Edict Capacity
Enter Edict Capacity – a new mechanic that puts a soft limit on how many Edicts of a certain type that you can have active at once. Similar to Starbase Capacity, your empire will suffer penalties if you exceed it, and the penalty in this case being Empire Sprawl. For every toggled and active Edict above the Edict Capacity, your Empire Sprawl will be increased by +25%.

By default, an empire will start with an Edict Capacity of 2, and can be modified by things like Authority, Civics and Ascension Perks. These values are very prone to being changed as more balance feedback comes in.



Dictatorial and Imperial Authority now increases Edict Capacity by +1.



The God-Emperor knows best.



You can now vigorously enact more Edicts.

Not all Edicts will use Edict Capacity, but rather only the ones that last until cancelled will. Edicts that can be toggled will have an Activation Cost and a Deactivation Cost, which is usually Influence. This means that you are paying the Influence when you are making changes, rather than paying to upkeep the Edicts you want.

Edicts that last until cancelled will be marked with a different icon from the edicts (and campaigns) that expire once their duration runs out.




An example of two different Edicts. Red: toggled - lasts until cancelled and uses Edict Capacity. Blue: temporary - lasts for 10 years and does not use Edict Capacity.

Edicts
Some of the Edicts have changed and we have added a couple of new ones, to better fit with the Edict Capacity. Let’s take a look at a few of them:



Whenever you need to stimulate your economy, subsidies can be the way to go. There are Farming, Mining, Energy and Industrial subsidies.



Neighbors suddenly turned hostile? Need to secure your borders? Pass this Edict to refocus your efforts!



Has the galaxy become more hostile? Do you need to build a powerful fleet to project your power? Focus on Fleet Supremacy for a more powerful and imposing fleet.

Pop Growth is problematic, so we have made some changes in the upcoming patch that will reduce Pop Growth from different sources across the board (more on that later). Food Policies are no more, and the popular Nutritional Plenitude is now a toggled Edict instead.



No longer a food policy (they don’t exist anymore). There are different versions for Hive Minds and Rogue Servitors.

Resource Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions
The model for the new Edict Capacity doesn’t fit very well for all types of Edicts, which is why the rare resource Edicts, Campaigns and Unity Ambitions remain unchanged and keep working like you are used to. This is also better for modding purposes, so that modders have the opportunity to use Edicts however they see best.

Finishing thoughts
Overall we feel like the new system better allows us to structure how the players get the tools they need to focus their empires for certain tasks. As we make more additions to the game in the future, this new system will also allow us to give the players more tools to address certain issues.

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That is all for this week! We will be back again next week with another dev diary, this time about some federation-related content!

Hello everyone,

Since the beta patch hasn't introduced any major issues, we've decided to put patch 2.6.3 live today :)

Here's the forum post with the full changelog for 2.6.3:

Save games shouldn't be adversely affected by the switch from 2.6.2 to 2.6.3, 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.

Greetings to the void-dwellers and planet-bound alike!

This week we’ll be talking about some changes we’re planning on making to the engineering marvels that are Orbital Habitats. These are currently slated for the May update that Game Director Daniel mentioned two weeks ago.

Introduced in Utopia, Orbital Habitats provide a way to continue some form of limited expansion after colonizing all of the habitable planets within your empire. In the 2.3 “Wolfe” update, we added some specialized districts to them based on the celestial body they orbited, opening up the possibility for things like building dedicated astro-mining facilities, and recently in Federations, we added a Void Dwellers origin which let you start your empire among the stars in three habitats.

This May, we’ll be introducing multiple tiers of habitats. These will be accessible to anyone with the Utopia expansion or using the Void Dwellers origin from Federations.

The first tier of Orbital Habitats now comes a bit earlier in the tech tree and require fewer alloys to build. The basic Orbital Habitat is smaller than the old version, starting with 4 district slots. They also have a simpler appearance than the ones currently in the game, a core of a station to build upon later.


Fungoid Orbital Habitat

The Habitat Expansion engineering technology is placed around where the Habitat technology used to be in the tech tree, and will allow you to upgrade an Orbital Habitat that has filled all of its districts to an Advanced Habitat using a planetary decision that costs some time and alloys.



Upgrading to an Advanced Habitat provides 2 additional district slots and allows basic housing buildings to be built even for normal empires.

The Advanced Habitat upgrade adds a ring of modules around the central core.




Avian Advanced Habitat

A third technology permits upgrading a fully developed Advanced Habitat that has a Habitat Central Control into a Habitat World.



Habitat Worlds have 8 districts, shown as another ring of modules around the habitat.




If you want to read more about the upcoming habitat tiers, see the full forum post here!

Hello everyone!

Last week we briefly mentioned that we would release 2.6.3 as an opt-in patch "soon", and soon has arrived! This opt-in beta is on steam only, so cross platform Multiplayer won't work until we officially release this patch. However, you can opt in to "crossplay_rollback" to continue your 2.6.2 games :)

Here's the forum post with the full changelog for 2.6.3:

Please note that 2.6.3 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 2.6.2 game going, don't try to load the save in 2.6.3

Hello everyone!

As we mentioned last week, we have begun working on a larger free update targeted for May, and it would be fun to share some of the new things you will be able to discover.

2.6.3 is still planned to be released as an opt-in beta SoonTM, so stay tuned for more information about that.

But for now, let’s continue and talk a little bit about what you’ll expect to see in the free May update.
We’ve felt that the galaxy sometimes feels a bit empty now, compared to how it used to back in the day. Since the AI is a bit more proactive in hunting down hostile space fauna you are encountering these alien lifeforms much more seldom. We wanted to reinvigorate the galaxy with more alien life, and allow them to continue existing for a longer period of time.

The tiyanki now have a home system, Tiyana Vek, which can continue to spawn more space whales throughout the continuation of your game, unless the tiyanki in the system have been hunted to extinction. The spawning of new tiyanki will also depend on galaxy size, which sets an upper limit for how many fleets can spawn (in relation to already roaming around).


Tiyana Vek, in all its gaseous glory.

The tiyanki themselves have also been updated, and there are now hatchlings in addition to the previously existing Bulls, Cows and Calves. The roaming tiyanki fleets are now also a bit more randomized in their compositions.

Space whaling.

Hunting the tiyanki will yield energy credits and exotic gas, but xenophile empires will not approve.


Successful hunt. No, bounty numbers are not final.

If you want to find out what other features will be in the free update, have a read in the forum post

These are the first steps we’re taking towards reinvigorating the galaxy a bit. We’ll give you more information in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned for future dev diaries!

Hello everyone!

Federations was released a little bit over a week ago, and we hope it's still giving you much joy.

There’s much to celebrate as the community has broken a bunch of records! We had 64-thousand people playing Stellaris on Saturday, which is the highest amount of concurrent players since its release 4 years ago. We want to thank you for the massive amount of support we’ve received with this expansion! We hope everyone has found this expansion as fun and enjoyable as us.

While you are busy enjoying the game we’ve been planning updates and working on patches. We are currently working on a 2.6.3 that we’re planning on releasing as a beta sometime soon. 2.6.3 should hopefully be the last of the smaller patches, as we will be switching focus to a somewhat larger free update in May.

The May update (TBA) will contain more bug fixes, but also a bunch of new things for you to play with. We are very interested in hearing your feedback and ideas regarding Federations, and if there was anything you would have wished for us to add. We are especially interested in feedback related to Resolutions and Federation Laws. Although I will not promise they will be added, I still wanted to leave some room open in case there were ideas that the community really wanted.


Will you protect the Tiyanki or hunt them for profit?

We will give you some more information about the May update at a later stage, so stay tuned! Until then, keep enjoying the game :)