written by Eladrin


Watch on the Stellaris Official YouTube channel

Hi again!

Last week’s dev diary introduced the Specialist Empires with a detailed examination of the Prospectorium and showed off a few new holdings.

This week we’ll meet the three Enclaves coming in Overlord (examining one of them closely), take a deep dive into the Bulwark, and finish off with a few more Holdings and a summary of the origin Nivarias revealed earlier this week.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


The Salvagers are a friendly and pacifistic bunch of scrappers and mechanics. Focused on engineering, these tinkerers love nothing more than scrapping old ships, refurbishing them, and sending them on to find new homes.



Though eager to help, they’ve been burned in the past and are thus cautious at first, offering only a few services - scrapping old fleets you no longer require, or offering you bargains on slightly used ships.



As you gain their trust, they’ll provide a wider array of options.



From providing their insights regarding Engineering Research to offering salvage services for debris fields following battles, the Salvagers do their best to please their valued clients.


The Shroudwalkers are a monastic enclave that delve into the deepest mysteries of the Shroud, seeking to understand the unknowable. Their true natures and desires are difficult to divine.




I won’t spoil too much about this very story focused enclave, but their prophecies and visions make use of the Situations system described in Dev Diary #245.

They’re willing to instruct others in the ways of the Shroud…



…and just as they are willing to look into possibilities of your future, they’re quite willing to gaze into the Shroud, to provide insights about other empires.



The bravest can also seek knowledge about travel through the Shroud itself, asking them to create a wormhole-like bypass from one of your systems to their own.


Everything will be fine.

One of the Origins, the Teachers of the Shroud, has a close link to this Enclave, but that too, is someone else’s tale to tell.




Unlike other enclaves, Mercenary Enclaves are not found randomly in the depths of space. Instead, they can be founded by regular empires that are not Fanatic Purifiers.



There’s a long list of requirements to release a fleet in this way - it must be at least size 50, have an admiral, be in a system under your control with no other enclave in the system, and have an appropriate place for them to build their station.




By default, Mercenary Enclave Capacity starts at zero. In addition to their normal effects, the Warrior Culture, Barbaric Despoilers, and Private Military Companies civics each add one potential Mercenary Enclave, while the Naval Contractors civic adds two.



The Lord of War Ascension Perk also allows one additional Mercenary Enclave, increases Diplomatic Weight from Fleet Power, and increases the rate at which you receive dividends from your Mercenary Enclaves.

The newly formed Mercenary Enclave has a few options for those interested in procuring security services. The empire that controls the primary starbase of the Mercenary Enclave’s system is considered their Patron, and has additional interactions with them. If business is going especially well, the Patron will even receive dividends from the Enclave.



Anyone that has communications with the Mercenary Enclave can rent their fleet for ten years if they can afford the cost. Prices may vary depending on what the Mercenaries think of you, and whether you are their Patron or not.



As time goes on, the Mercenaries will research technologies, reinforce, and build up their fleet, but their Patron can reach out and provide a helping appendage.



If they have an excellent relationship with the Mercenaries, a Patron can even ask them to break an active contract - but they’ll have to provide some recompense to their current client and won’t be very happy about it. Reputations are everything in this business.



Naturally, the Mercenary Enclaves have lobbied the Galactic Community to regulate their trade.

One of the new resolution categories in Overlord is Defense Privatization.



This line of resolutions focuses on encouraging the empires of the Galactic Community to leave the fighting to professionals. It allows empires to create more Mercenary Enclaves, increases the rate Mercenary Dividends are paid out, and places significant limits on non-Mercenary navies.





Like most other major resolution categories, Federations adds two extra tiers…




…and as usual, the final tier is perhaps a bit extreme.

That’s not all the GalCom is up to, but we’ll go into more detail on their other resolutions another time.


Standing firm against the overlord’s enemies is the Bulwark, the second of the Specialists coming in Overlord.

The Tebbran Citizen Regime serves our glorious republic as a Bulwark.



With strong benefits when it comes to defense, the Bulwark is a natural shield against the overlord’s enemies, but relies on overlord subsidies for basic resource acquisition.





We’ve made some adjustments to Defense Platforms - while everyone will benefit from their faster build speed and increased range, fire rate, tracking, and hull points, Bulwarks receive additional bonuses when using them.

Having a Bulwark advisor improves starbase costs and upgrade times.



The Bulwark Watch perk is another Hyper Relay Network effect so we’ll hold off on revealing all of that just yet.



Fighting in a Bulwark’s systems is extremely advantageous...



…and like the Prospectorium, they too gain access to some technologies - this time those most useful for defense.





Like the Prospectorium, at tier 2 the Bulwark also adds special traits to some of their leaders. Admirals, in their case.



And they can trade them with their overlord as well.



At tier 3, the Bulwark can create an improved variant of the Construction Ship, which repairs other friendly ships in the system and are a bit sturdier than regular Construction vessels.



And they also have managed to turn the Shield Magnifiers from Tier 1 against invaders. If they have completed the Unyielding tradition tree, this effect is increased.



Don’t worry - if you don’t have Apocalypse, the Unyielding traditions will also unlock with Overlord.


This week’s holdings include the Emporium, which forces the subject to buy Consumer Goods from the overlord, providing Amenities in exchange for Energy Credits.



More holdings also exist that tax subject production, such as the aptly named Ministry of Production and the Ministry of Energy.




The Materials Ministry revealed two weeks ago has been renamed the Ministry of Extraction, and now has Volatile Motes upkeep.

Constructive overlords can help build up a world using the Orbital Assembly Complex and a small fleet of Construction Ships.



And Reanimators can bring out the dead to defend a subject’s world…



…while Megacorps with Permanent Employment can ensure that nobody is just lying around when they could be working.



Lastly for today, Megacorps with the Franchising civic can choose to exert direct control and micromanage subject planets where they also have a Branch Office, much to the dismay of the workers there.



The Ethics Attraction on this holding will change to match any fanatic ethic the overlord may have. (Non-fanatical overlords aren’t quite as thorough with the indoctrination during the team-building exercises.)

As a reminder, these previews are still subject to change and balancing. (Prices and upkeep on several of the holdings have changed since I took the screenshots.)




In the Imperial Fiefdom origin, your first steps into space were brutally short. Immediately subjugated alongside several others, you can begin the game as a Specialist Empire of your choice, with a few additional gifts from your overlord.

Will you ever break free?

If multiple players select this origin, they will all start as minions of the same Advanced AI Empire.


Next week we’ll examine some of the new constructions you’ll be able to build, research the Scholarium, look at Specialist holdings, revisit the Galactic Community, and reveal another Origin.

We’re doing video versions of these dev diaries on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

Stellaris: Overlord introduces five new origins that add new flavor to your next game. In this video Nivarias is highlighting the Imperial Fiefdom origin - You may be just a Specialist Empire now, but someday, the galaxy may need a new ruler… shouldn’t it be you?



Also, here's a little teaser for this Thursday's Dev Diary:



"When we started this, one of our founders had a dream: to do for Galactic Security what MegaCorps have done for inequalities. Today, I am excited to say that this goal is within our reach."
-High Admiral Shirip

What do you think this means? Let us know in the replies!

And if you haven't, Wishlist Stellaris: Overlord!

written by Eladrin


watch on the Stellaris Official YouTube channel

Hello again!

In last week’s dev diary, we discussed the basics of negotiating subjugation contracts and showed you some holdings. This week we’ll present Specialist Vassals and do a deep dive into the Prospectorium, reveal more holdings, and share the names of the five Origins that are coming in Overlord.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


We felt that it would be useful to have a centralized screen for keeping track of all of your subjects, and added a summary screen tab next off the Contacts panel.

The Agreements tab shows all of your vassals (or all of your overlord’s vassals if you’re a subject) and lets you examine the terms of the agreements. It also lets you know whether or not you’re taking full advantage of the number of holdings you could have, and lets you get more details on subsidies or tithes through tooltips of those terms.

It also provides you with a convenient way to go to the negotiations screen we showed you last week.

Work in progress - there’s still a bit of placeholder stuff.




Specialist Empires are an advanced form of subject contract that excel at certain tasks but are deficient in others.

We are introducing three Specialist Empire types in Overlord.

• The Bulwark: A bastion of defense that leaves basic resource acquisition to others.
  
• The Prospectorium: Excels at resource acquisition but has weaker research.
  
• The Scholarium: Specializes in research but relies on their allies for military support.

Similar to how Federations advance or degrade based on Cohesion, Specialist Empires improve based on loyalty, gaining additional perks and strengthening their bonuses and penalties as they level up through three tiers.

After negotiating a specialist agreement, it takes some time for the subject to convert into tier 1 of their specialty. This is based on their ethical compatibility with the specialist type and the empire size of the subject.

Several agreement terms are locked or have minimum values - a Bulwark contract, for example, must include basic resource subsidies from their overlord and a defensive pact from the subject, and the Prospectorium must provide a resource tithe to the overlord in exchange for research subsidies. These minimum terms ensure that at least some of their deficiencies are covered so they can thrive and fulfill their intended obligations to their overlord.


Let’s take a deeper look at the Norillga Citizen Compact. Our snailian friends are a tier 3 Prospectorium.



Prospectoria are all about resource acquisition, and this is reflected in their abilities and perks.





Even when they were just beginning, they had a large penalty to scientific research and a handful of production based bonuses. As they became more specialized, the magnitude of each increased.





Prospectoria have a chance of discovering caches of resources or even new deposits each year, and the variety of things they can discover increases as they tier up. These discoveries produce a special project that must be exploited by a Construction Ship.

As might be expected, over time it’s helpful for them to have control of a reasonable area of space if you want them to keep finding things.



The overlord also gains a bonus for having at least one “advisor” of each specialist type. Having a dozen Prospectoria will not increase the Prospectorium Advisory benefit.

The third tier 1 perk, Prospectorium Supply, is tied to the Hyper Relay Network, so we’ll get back to that one in a future dev diary when we talk about that.




At tiers 2 and 3, Prospectoria gain several permanent research options that are of potential interest to them.



Their leaders, including those already employed by them, also gain some additional special traits. These are in addition to any other traits they may have…



…and they can trade them to their overlord through diplomatic trade deals. Higher skill leaders are, of course, worth considerably more than new ones that just came out of the leader pool.



Their last Tier 3 perk lets them replace agricultural features with more mining districts, helping them feed the forges as they become industrial powerhouses.

Internally, we’ve found that Specialist Empires provide an interesting cooperative playstyle where multiple empires can work together to cover for each other's deficiencies.


A question that came up many times last week related to deprioritizing Overlord jobs from holdings. Any of these that provide benefits for the overlord behave like Criminal jobs and cannot be deprioritized. Specific numbers on them are also still subject to balancing and change.

This week we’ll start with a mostly beneficial holding.



With the Overlord Garrison, you can help your subjects if they’re having problems with crime. Having a strong military presence on your worlds forces loyalty, but the populace of the planet might not be quite as happy about the occupying presence.



The Satellite Campus holding produces research for both overlord and subject, paid for by the subject. If the planet owner is gestalt, these will consume energy or minerals as appropriate rather than consumer goods.

This week’s civic and origin based holding previews are all about spreading the defining traits of your civilization to your subjects.



Overlords with the Citizen Service civic can build Recruitment Offices to spread their message of patriotic service to their subjects.


Zero cost, zero upkeep, free science! No real downside!

The Experimental Crater is unlocked by the Calamitous Birth origin, and allows the lithoid overlord to “test” asteroid colony ship designs by hurling them at a convenient space on their subject’s planet. They usually don’t miss the test site.


Except for when they do.



And just as the lithoids can spread their love of explosions to their subjects, the subjects of Death Cults can enjoy the same right to become Mortal Initiates that their own citizens can. As is right, they get to partake in some of the benefits of the sacrifice.

Last week I promised one machine holding, but I’ll share two instead.



The first is a bit of a mean one, with four jobs that produce research for the overlord. Organic brains aren’t very efficient or orderly though, to be honest.


“Mind Thralls” sounds like a great job, right?



More benevolent machines (specifically Rogue Servitors) can instead give their subjects a taste of what awaits them should they allow full integration. Hive-minded pops don’t quite understand what’s going on, but find the experience quite novel.


We revealed the icons for the Origins in the Overlord Announcement diary, but now it’s time to attach names to them.



Each week one of these will be previewed in detail by one of our friends in the community, with summarized details included in that week’s dev diaries.


Next week we’ll be visiting the new Enclaves in Overlord, looking at the Bulwark, revealing even more holdings, and maybe even an Ascension Perk.

Don’t forget that we have video versions of these dev diaries on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and wishlist Overlord if you haven’t already!

written by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

In the Overlord Announcement last week we mentioned that vassalization mechanics will be undergoing some significant changes in the 3.4 “Cepheus” update.

Previously in Stellaris, subjugation was rarely a more compelling option than simple conquest, and being subjugated often essentially meant a permanent decline of your empire and a “Game Over” screen in your near future. Subjects did not offer sufficient benefits nor had the freedoms necessary to be enjoyable to play.

The Scion origin from Federations was somewhat of an exception with most of the restrictions on both subjects and overlord being waived for them, but we felt that while the system was good, it could be even better. It would also be nice for the Scion to work within the rules rather than being so “special-cased”.

Some people noted that as part of the unity changes in Libra, a bit more of an argument for spinning off sectors into vassals could be made, but with the current numbers it’s generally more valuable to control those systems directly.

For today’s dev diary, I’ll start by delving deeper into the new rights and responsibilities that can appear in agreements, and some ways this makes keeping subjects more valuable.

As with all previews, numbers, text, and so on are not quite final and are still subject to change.


Both the overlord and subject will be able to propose alterations of the exact terms of their vassalization contract if it’s a contract with another “regular empire”. The Khan, Awakened Empires, and the like do not haggle about the terms of their minions, but are much clearer about those exact terms.

Subject contracts start with a “preset”. These are the basic subjugation types that you know from before, plus a few new ones - Vassal, Subsidiary, Tributary, Protectorate, Bulwark, and so on. Presets have a list of default terms, and can have additional unique effects tied to them, like how Protectorates gain a massive bonus to research until they catch up to their overlord.

The default terms of contract presets may have changed a bit from the old system to better fit the new. We’ve done our best to ensure that anything you can do right now with your vassals remains possible. The core Negotiation system is part of the free Cepheus update, though many of the brand new terms are part of the Overlord expansion.

Negotiable terms include things such as:

Can the subject be integrated?

• As a major change from current gameplay, there are no vassalization contract presets that have integration enabled by default. It must be explicitly turned on in contract negotiations.

Does the subject have independent diplomacy?

• Subjects can be given complete diplomatic freedom, none, or they can have most freedoms except are forced to vote with their overlord in the Galactic Community or Federations.

Can the subject expand freely?

• Once exclusively the province of Feudal Society, now you can grant your subject the ability to freely expand. You can also bar them from expansion, or impose an Influence tithe, making them spend extra Influence (which goes to the Overlord) for the right to expand into empty systems.
  
• Most presets will start with controlled expansion with the influence tithe as the default term.

Various subsidies from the overlord or tribute from the subject.

• These are broken into Basic, Advanced, or Strategic resource groups, and Research.
  
• The values are percentages of the production of the subject - in the proposal below, our vassal is offering 15% of their basic resource production as tribute, but is receiving a research subsidy equal to 15% of the subject’s research from the overlord.

Are the overlord and subject drawn into one another’s wars, and if so, which ones?

• None, Offensive, Defensive, or Both can be selected in both directions.
  
• Yes, this means that wars can be declared on subjects.

Can the overlord build holdings on the subject’s worlds, and if so, how many?

• The Vassal preset has a holding limit of 1, allowing you to use some holdings without Overlord. (Though you can lower it to 0 if you need to squeeze out an extra bit of loyalty.)
  
• This value is an empire-wide limit - with a holding limit of 3, you can build 3 holdings across a particular subject’s worlds, not on each of their planets.

Does the overlord share sensor information with their subject?



Some subject types have fixed, minimum, or maximum terms - Tributaries, Subsidiaries, and Prospectoria, for example, must always provide their overlord at least 30% of their basic resources (energy, minerals, and food) in tribute.


Tributaries have many locked terms.

Others can be restricted by civics or for other reasons - for example, overlords with the Feudal Society civic cannot select the Expansion Prohibited term, must join in their subject wars to some degree, and must allow their subjects some degree of diplomatic freedom.



Different terms affect a subject’s Loyalty, and have an immediate impact as well as over time. For example, the Independent Diplomacy term grants 5 Loyalty and another +0.5 Loyalty per month. This may prove important later.

If you’re asking your subject to do something they are ideologically opposed to, those terms may cost extra loyalty, though the reverse is also true in a few cases.


The pacifists don’t like being forced into offensive wars.

Empires can propose a change in terms with a five year cooldown at a cost of some Influence. Exact costs are still being adjusted.


We are feeling beneficent today, and want you to catch up to us faster, Protectorate.

How can you influence them into accepting your generous offer? Giving them a good deal is certainly helpful, and just like before, empire relations and relative power go a long way as well.

The terms themselves are heavily moddable, I look forward to seeing what some of you come up with.


Loyalty is the “currency” used between overlord and subject, and while the Specialist empires make more use of it than regular vassals, it’s still beneficial to keep your minions loyal since it gives you more options. Loyalty is largely determined by the contract between overlord and subject, but ethical compatibility will come into play as well.

Loyal vassals will agree to more onerous terms during negotiations, and will generally support their overlord. You can also “spend” their loyalty as part of trade agreements, strong-arming them into granting you better than normal trades.

You can request a public Pledge of Loyalty to you from a loyal vassal, making them even more loyal over time.


Pledge Loyalty has greater effects if the subject actually likes you for some reason.

Disloyal vassals will look for ways to be free of your tyranny, seizing the chance for rebellion should you falter.

They may also swear Secret Fealty to one of your rivals in hopes that they’ll be able to follow them in an Allegiance War.



In an Allegiance War, you seek to wrest control of the vassals that have pledged Secret Fealty to you, and they will join in on the attack on their former Overlord.


Like herding cats, having many vassals is hard work. Constantly vying for your attention, keeping multiple subjects happy can be difficult as jealousy ruins everything. “Divided Patronage” is a modifier that reduces the loyalty of all of your vassals, and increases based on the number of vassals you have.

You can mitigate this by offering them better terms, or by taking a vassalization related civic or the Shared Destiny ascension perk.






In Cepheus, we’re expanding the branch office system from MegaCorp to be more flexible.

The corporate tab on planets is being replaced with a more versatile “Holdings” tab. For now, we have corporate and overlord holdings available here, but we have more future plans for this screen.

Much like branch office buildings, holdings are built on another empire’s colonies and can provide benefits to both empires. Much like criminal syndicate branch office buildings, some holdings might be far more beneficial to one side than the other. Each particular holding is planet-unique,

Corporate overlords can build both holdings and branch offices on their subjects’ colonies.



The Ministry of Truth provides two Overlord Propagandist jobs to the planet, which turn the subject’s Unity into Influence for their overlord…



…While holdings like the Material Ministry are disliked by subjects as the overlord claims a portion of the planet’s production for themselves…



…Still others, like the Aid Agency, are welcomed on the planet.



Hive overlords can build the most universally disliked holding (tied with one other), which takes a portion of the subject’s planet and dedicates it to a spawning complex.

We’re also adding some holdings associated with civics or origins.



The Noble Chateaus of the Aristocratic Elite allow them to send troublemakers off to bother someone else’s planet instead of their own, much to the dismay of their hosts…



…Shared Burdens empires can spread their message through Communal Housing projects. How this is received depends largely on the ethics of the subject…



…And Gaia Seeders, who are gaining more terraforming flexibility in Cepheus as described in Dev Diary #243, can also beautify the worlds of their subjects. The subjects tend to like that - unless they’re Hydrocentric, of course.

Since there are over twenty different holdings, I’ll share some more in next week’s dev diary (including a machine specific one), and some more on social media as the Overlord reveals continue (though I’ll repost those in that week’s dev diaries as well).

It’s a very versatile system that we look forward to exploring more in the future.


That’s long enough for today. Next week we’ll talk about the advanced form of vassalization coming in Overlord called Specialist Empires.

Also, starting with this dev diary, we’re creating video versions on the Stellaris Official YouTube Channel for those of you that prefer listening to them. Subscribe so you don’t miss them, and let us know what you think!

In Stellaris: Overlord, a new full expansion, gain access to new features designed to unlock the next level of your empire.

Guide a galaxy full of potential subjects to victory - or subjugation. New mechanics provide many ways to specialize your vassals’ roles within your empire, bring new planets and subjects under your reign, and new magnificent megastructures to project your power further, faster.

Wishlist Stellaris: Overlord now!


Overlord’s thematic focus is on exerting your will across the galaxy, the projection of power, and the expansion of civilization under your glorious banner. The other empires can choose to submit willingly or by force, but they will submit.

In Federations, we expanded diplomacy between equals with the federations themselves and the politics of the Galactic Community. Nemesis included more hostile forms of diplomacy with espionage operations, and some empires declaring themselves more equal than others with the Custodian and the Galactic Imperium.

In Overlord, we will explore diplomacy between empires that are explicitly not equal.


Vassalization mechanics will undergo significant changes.

A major goal in this revision was to make subjugation a more valuable and viable system with benefits for both sides, rather than being a delayed “Game Over” as you wait for Integration should you be subjugated.



Subjugation will be customizable, with Vassalization Contracts, Specialist Vassals, and Overlord Holdings.






Explore five new Origins (including a new Origin for Hive Empires), as well as new enclaves, some of whom are Shrouded in mystery.






Governing a galaxy-spanning empire is challenging, and threats can come from any direction. There will always be those who plot to undo what you have built.

A new megastructure will allow you to counter such threats as well as help you take what you deserve.



Other new constructions will allow you to elevate civilization to new heights and exert your influence to build a network tying the galaxy together, with your capital as the center, of course.





Will you be a benevolent Overlord that brings prosperity to the galaxy, or an oppressive tyrant exploiting your vassals? Or will you instead serve and become part of something greater?

The choice is yours.



Wishlist Stellaris: Overlord Now!

written by Loke-PDX

Hi all,

We've now released a hotfix, 3.3.4, to address the performance issue that appeared for many of you with Tuesday's 3.3.3 patch.

Essentially we had to roll back a part of the Starbase modifier fix to let the game run smoothly again.

Please find more details below.

3.3.4 Patch Notes:
[expand type=details]

• Fix to address performance impact on mid- to late-game saves.

Known issue

Under certain circumstances Starbase modifiers may not immediately update, such as after the death of a ruler or activating edicts like Fortify the Border. Saving and loading or queuing a starbase module will refresh and correct the modifiers.
[/expand]

Remember to keep your eyes peeled for today's Dev Diary at 18:00!
It's a treat.

written by PDX-Loke

Hello all,

I'm happy to announce the arrival of the 3.3.3 patch! This is a minor update in which the team has fixed a few annoying gameplay bugs, made some careful balance tweaks, as well as further improved the AI.
With this we believe the 3.3 release is in good shape, and the plan is to focus our efforts forward.

Please keep the feedback coming! As always we will be ready to pick up on your reports and suggestions for the next update.

Enjoy!

3.3.3 "Libra" Patch Notes:
[expand type=details]

• Planetary Ascension Tier costs have been adjusted. The effect the number of Ascensions has on the cost has been dramatically reduced, but the effect Empire Size has on the costs has been increased.
  
• Colonists now only produce 3 amenities to be more in line with other amenity producing jobs. Reassembled Ship Shelter produces 7 to make up for it.
  
• Embracing a Faction now costs Unity rather than Influence.
  
• Promoting and Suppressing Factions intentionally remains free, other than causing the factions distress.
  
• Edicts no longer increase empire size from systems or pops.
  
• Sacrificial edicts now increase the unity output of death priests by +3 Unity while the edict is in effect.
  
• Galactic Memorial now provides 3 Unity per Ascension Perk instead of 2.

• Fixed starbase modifiers not updating when ruler dies, picking ascension perk and researching new technologies.
  
• Fixed an issue where edicts would get disabled if the player had a deficit of any resource.
  
• Fixed timed edicts expiring one day after being enabled.
  
• Death Chroniclers and Chronicle Drones now correctly provide both Amenities and Stability.

• Fixed an issue where AI empires would not upgrade their mineral purification plant building.
  
• Fixed an issue where AI would get stuck in a loop building and destroying the food processing plant for void dweller empires.
  
• Fixed an issue where AI empires would put too many planets on the factory world designation.

[/expand]


What do these things do? Find out more on Thursday!

We have been made aware that some users are experiencing issues with certain setups when running on 3.3.3. We have enabled a the 3.3.2 rollback branch for those of you experiencing stuttering and performance issues after the latest hotfix.

To roll back: right click Stellaris, Properties, Betas tab and choose "3.3.2 Libra Rollback" from the drop down.

written by Caligula

Welcome to this week’s dev diary! Eladrin is busy with something exciting this week, so I’ve been roped into writing about the almost as exciting new Situations system we will be adding in the next patch.

The idea for implementing this system comes from the realisation that Stellaris provides excellent systems to tell stories about things that have happened - e.g. anomalies and archaeology sites - but lacks a good structure through which to tell stories about things which are happening right now. While we have a number of such stories, they are often either not as complex as we’d like them to be (e.g. we’d prefer to have more factors taken into account), or they are disproportionately complicated for us to implement (i.e. time-consuming and bug-prone). Either way, the player experience is often not as we’d like it, since such stories and event chains are likely to be hard to follow, and it may not always be clear that events are connected to each other or why certain things happen.

This was a state of affairs we wanted to improve upon, so we decided to implement a system which aimed to:

• Give players an interactive and informative interface by which to experience current affairs event chains.
  
• Provide a structure that is (relatively) easy to add new content to.

Initially, we took some inspiration from Disasters in EU4, but we soon diverged from it, since we realised not all the stories we wanted to tell were disasters, and we wanted a more UX-intensive solution. The result can be shown off in this mockup:


Note that this is a mockup - so not necessarily how the final UI will look.

To unpack this a bit, the flow progresses something like this:

1. The Situation starts. This could happen e.g. through an event. The Situation can either be empire-wide, or it can be focused e.g. on a single planet


Event text is final.

2. Each month, the Situation’s “progress” will tick upwards or downwards, depending on your response to the Situation.


A WIP tooltip showing the monthly change. It'll list all contributing factors.

3. As the Situation progresses, you may reach the next “stage”. Often, an event will be fired as soon as this happens, to develop the story. Effects can also be applied to the empire or planet based on the current stage, e.g. an instability-based Situation may reduce stability by 10 for each stage.

4. There may also be random events along the way that can happen on any monthly tick. To distinguish Situation-based events from regular ones, some tweaks have been made to the event interface:



5. The player can choose how to respond to a Situation via a selection of “Approaches”. On occasion, one might be prompted to change these via events, but otherwise, one can freely pick them in the Situations interface. (We have not yet decided whether there should generally be a cooldown to picking an option). Approaches usually have effects over time, such as “spend X Unity per month to gain faster progress”.

6. When either end of the Situation’s progress bar is reached, the Situation is resolved, usually through an event in which something happens.

Some Situations will progress in a linear manner from left to right, others will start you in the middle and progress either to the left or to the right based on your choices. And we also want them to be differently coloured depending on how threatening the Situation is:


This is also a mockup.

This is all a bit theoretical, so, what changes can players expect in practice? Now I will take you through a few of the things we have done and are doing with the Situations system.


Content Design often implements narrative-based event chains set on a certain planet. Now, if we feel like the story has a bit more to give, a planet-based Situation can be crafted instead. The ability to have different outcomes at either end of the progress bar is particularly useful, since it can show which sort of conclusion the player is advancing towards (or at least indicate that there are multiple). To avoid giving spoilers, I won’t say exactly what stories we’ve added in this way, but there will be a few new planet-based narratives to encounter.

The “targeting” function of Situations is not limited to planets (though most of our effort has been towards making it work well there), so we have also managed to try adding a Situation based around a system or starbase.

Owners of the Leviathans DLC - or other DLCs that add Leviathan NPCs to the game - can also expect a few surprises next time they go monster-hunting ;)


Situations are not all fun and games. As their origin as EU4 Disasters would suggest, they are a great system through which to portray negative events. They give the player all the information they need to know what is happening, what the results of it will be, how severe the current Situation is, and what they can do about it.

One of our main priorities when it comes to using this aspect of Situations was reworking Deficits. At the moment, Deficits are like a light switch: as soon as you are in deficit (stockpile of 0 and negative income) for a given resource, you get all the defined penalties for being in that deficit (which can be quite harsh). But as soon as you spend a month no longer in deficit, all penalties are removed. This feels a bit off. Also, the penalties are the same for all empires, which has frequently led to headaches where they either disproportionately impacted a certain type of empire or left others (say, one with less need of a certain resource) relatively untouched. Finally, they can also be a cause for “death spirals” (in particular for the AI), as a shortage of one resource leads to penalties, which leads to a shortage of another resource.

With our rework, being in a deficit will start a Situation. You will start at 25% progress in this Situation, and it will increase in severity as long as you are at 0 balance and have a negative income. The rate of increase will depend on how much you are losing compared to your income. Having a stockpile will gradually make the Situation tick downwards; having a positive income will make it do so more rapidly.


This is the actual UI as it looks like right now. We are hard at work finishing it up and making it look presentable!

The penalties you receive for being in a deficit will start off light compared to their present settings, but will increase in severity as the Situation escalates. We are also able to configure them depending on your empire’s attributes, so for instance a Catalytic empire will now correctly get alloy output problems for being in a food deficit.

We aim to give each deficit Situation a choice of approaches, so that you can try to mitigate it from within the interface. So, for instance, a consumer goods shortage might be mitigated by electing to defund scientists, with the result that researchers cost less upkeep but also produce less research.

If however the deficit continues to grow, at 75% progress an event will fire which will warn that your empire is in truly dire financial straits and will need to make cutbacks soon. It will suggest a few, and you can pay a price (e.g. devastating a planet, or removing a special resource deposit) in return for some immediate resources that might help you alleviate the deficit.


Numbers not final

Finally, if the deficit becomes so severe that the progress bar is filled up, the empire is declared bankrupt. This is an unambiguously bad thing to happen to you - current effects (numbers to be finalised) are downgrading all non-capital buildings to their lowest level, disbanding half the fleet and all the armies, and giving 25% higher costs, 25% less ship damage, and 50% less unity and influence for 10 years. But it’s also designed to avoid death spirals: in return for liquidating these assets, you are given enough of the resource you defaulted on to survive for a while. Additionally, all other deficit Situations you are currently experiencing are terminated immediately, without penalty, and you are granted some resources to avoid them returning too soon.


Numbers are subject to change.

Changes are likely to come to this design as we continue to play with the new system and iron out its kinks, but we are hopeful that this new version of deficits will resolve many of the issues with the current deficits system, and make deficits, if not exactly fun to experience, at least a more interesting and less frustrating game mechanic.


We have further plans to overhaul systems or features using Situations. For these (unlike the Situations listed above), we can’t guarantee that they will definitely be in the next patch, but we are looking to adapt the likes of slave revolts, planetary separatism revolts, and the Synthetic Dawn AI Uprising to this new system.

With regards to the AI Uprising: we are broadly happy with the way the chain works now, but there are a few improvements to be made, and we feel that it would be beneficial to the player to be able to experience it through a UI. For instance, it has a bunch of events that an experienced player would recognise as warning signs that they should do something about it, but the inexperienced player would not know what is up and would not stop it from happening. With the Situations system, experienced and inexperienced players alike would know that something is up. However, this also makes it easier to know that you should do something about it, so we are also looking at making it a bit more challenging than just changing species right to end the Situation - after all, the robots are still extremely annoyed at you having deprived them of sentience for all these years! We are also looking at making purging the robots a viable if high-risk approach, at least so long as you don’t have too many robots.

With planetary revolts and slave uprisings, we have a feature that hasn’t seen much love for many a patch even as the game has changed around it, so we hope to improve it in a variety of aspects. At the moment, it would be fair to say that the unrest events are more a nuisance than a threat: revolts feel like they come out of the blue, but don’t have much teeth, as you can usually just conquer back the planet (since one planet alone cannot hope to stand against your empire). Our changes to this system are at a fairly early stage, but our goals include:

Content which may not be in 3.4:
[expand type=details]

• Make revolts feel less random - they will no longer happen suddenly, and whether unrest turns into a successful revolt will depend more reliably on factors such as how many pops are on the planet, and just how annoyed they are.
  
• Smooth out issues such as one habitat in a system revolting leading to the loss of all planets in the system. The opinions of other planets in the system should have an impact on the success of the revolt.
  
• Improve the system where planets can sometimes join other empires after the revolt. (At the moment, this can happen in separatist revolts if the original owner still exists and is nearby, and in slave revolts if there is an egalitarian empire nearby). Basically, they should be asked in advance if they wish to support the revolt, at which point it should progress faster, but on the other hand, the other side will know this is happening. Also, we may want to review the conditions for revolts joining other empires, since in some cases a completely annexed empire might have each planet revolt to form its own micronation.
  
• We are toying with the idea of removing the stage where planets have ground combat during rebellions. Troops stationed there can be factored in during the buildup stage instead.
  
• Ideally, a successful rebellion would start a war with the previous owner, but would also be a bit more of a potential threat. We’ll see what we manage to come up with, here.

[/expand]

That’s all for now! Except to add that, since an old version of the cheat sheet for what all Situations can do is actually available to you in 3.3, I’m attaching the new and updated version of this, so that those inclined can make plans for what to do with the system.

And keep an eye out for Eladrin’s dev diary next week. You won’t want to miss it.

written by grekulf

Hello everyone!

Today I’m here to deliver some big news, namely that my tenure as Game Director for Stellaris is ending, and Stephen Muray (aka Eladrin) will be taking over. I will still be staying with Paradox Development Studios, but I will be stepping down so that I can focus on an unannounced project that I am leading.

Stellaris will be in great hands, and Stephen and the team deserve all the credit for 3.3 ‘Libra’. My involvement was no more than setting the initial path towards the Unity rework.

I am extremely proud and happy with what we’ve accomplished, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Stephen and the team can achieve together. The game is possibly in a better state than it has ever been, and with the Custodian Initiative going strong I feel like now is the best time to step down and let someone else take the reins.

I also want to thank everyone I’ve worked with during these years. It’s been really fun to see this game that we love become more and more awesome by the day.


Stepping down from Stellaris feels strange when I reflect upon it, since I have worked on Stellaris in various capacities since 2013. I began my journey with Stellaris working as the UI designer. I was actually the first UI designer at PDS, and back then I used to work on all the games we were working on. It wasn’t until the release of Stellaris in 2016 that I changed my role into game designer and focused on Stellaris for 100% of my time. I worked as a game designer until December 2018, when I took over as game director from Martin.

Looking back, the game has really made such an incredible journey since 2016. When Stellaris was released, we didn’t really know exactly what the game was supposed to be. We know it was a space 4X game with a lot of focus on exploration, but since it was the first game of its kind, we also had to let it grow up and gain its own identity.

Stellaris is interesting in that way, because it's a game that has undergone a lot of changes over the years, and I’m really proud of all the bold decisions and ambitious changes we have undertaken to make the game better.


Ancient Relics was the first DLC that I designed and led, and the focus for that one was to expand some of the exploration content by creating a new system (archaeology) with progressive storylines where you could go back and read what happened. In contrast with the anomalies, archaeological sites are rarely removed and stay on the map even after being completed. In part, this was to help the galaxy feel more alive by having stories be a persistent part of it.

Ancient Relics also featured the Relics system, where I wanted to focus a little more on making a UI that looks really cool with unique icons for the Relics. Overall I really like how it looks when you have relics, and I’d very much like to have had other UIs feel as good as the Relic UI can do in some circumstances.

Lithoids was the first species pack we released during my time. The involvement from the game director on the species packs is relatively small. We write the initial high level design and theme, but most of the work is done by artists and content designers. It was really nice to see lithoids make their way into Stellaris, since pops that eat minerals is something a lot of people have been asking for for a long time. Lithoids was the first time we added gameplay to a species pack, and it really felt like it really put the cherry on top for the theme. Although this was an increase in scope for this type of DLC, I felt like it was the right thing for us to do.

Federations was the first big expansion that I led. As we’ve mentioned before on streams and alike, a strategy we’ve used to collect feedback and ideas into different “boxes”, like “warfare” or “diplomacy”. Diplomacy was the box that we hadn’t touched before, and it was for Federations that we got the chance to really dive deeper into that. We had a lot of ideas related to various diplomatic interactions, but I wanted Federations to focus on the “friendly” or “cooperative” parts of Diplomacy. We did a lot of cutting for Federations, because the initial list of ideas was too large to be feasible. Some of the ideas we cut eventually found their way into Nemesis instead.

The feature that I am probably the most happy about in Federations was the addition of the Origins. Origins feel like such a natural part of the experience now that it's hard to imagine a Stellaris without them. I also really like how the Galactic Community adds an interesting level of diplomatic plays. If anything, I’d love to have seen that be even more cutthroat and machiavellian.

The next species pack we had in the plans was scheduled to release around late October 2020, so we used the theme of Halloween as a source of inspiration for creating the design and theme for Necroids. I really like how thematic the Necroids pack ended up being, and I almost wish we could have done more. Scope control is important for the species packs however, since the species packs are largely cosmetic content with gameplay added as a bonus.

After Federations most of the team started working on Nemesis, which focused a lot on the hostile or insidious parts of Diplomacy. I really liked the overall theme of Nemesis, because it worked on so many levels. The new Intel system we added was really cool, and I really like how other alien empires feel more alien and mysterious now, especially with the new First Contact system & content. With Espionage we had a bunch of ideas, but in the end I think we only had time for about half of the Operations.

For Nemesis I think we had a lot of cool ideas, but I wish we would have had more time to do more with Espionage & Operations. I like how the system works, but we didn’t have quite enough time to give it enough teeth. In the end I really like how Federations and Nemesis came together to reinforce parts of Stellaris that had been lacking, while also emphasizing the clash of ideas and enabling more gray-zone conflicts.

The Aquatics Species Pack was a delightful update, as we finally got the chance to add Dolphinoids to the game. Like I’ve mentioned before, Dolphinoids have been used as funny examples in design meetings for many years, and I’m really happy with how we managed to finally give the swolephins a real existence!

As a game director I was less involved in direct implementation as time went by, and I instead focused more on long-term planning and goals. Sometime during all of this the ideas for the Custodian Initiative started to form. Obviously something like the Custodians isn’t new in the game industry overall (see games-as-a-service or game-development-as-a-service), but for us most of the challenges were organizational. It wasn't until we decided to split Paradox Development Studio into three studios (PDS Green, Red, Gold) that it started becoming a real possibility.

Getting the Custodian Initiative in place is probably one of the things that I am the most proud of.


To me, the game industry is changing and it's getting more important to compete with new content. Before the Custodian Initiative, it was a lot harder to balance the base quality needs of the game (AI, performance, QoL etc.) with the need to produce new content, and it could also be many months between each update.

The idea is that the Custodian team is a clear reinvestment into improving the game and the game experience.. My hope was that better base quality for the game will lead to a higher amount of satisfaction and a higher number of monthly active users. My take is that happy players want to buy DLC, and since we also want to make the game we’re passionate about as good as possible, everyone wins. Since the Custodian initiative isn’t a subscription service, the best way to support it is to buy DLC that you feel good about.

My hope is that the Custodian Initiative will move us towards a direction where good game = happy players = revenue.


I’ve been working with Stellaris for so many years now, so it's going to be incredibly fun for me to step down and watch from the side as the team makes Stellaris even more awesome for years to come.

Thank you so much for your support all these years,

Daniel Moregård
(Former) Game Director of Stellaris
2018-2022

written by Eladrin

Доступно на русском в ВК/Read in Russian on VK

Hi everyone!

The Stellaris 3.3.1 “Libra” Custodian Update has been released, and once again it’s time to look back on the past and forward to the future.



The 3.3 update went through an Open Beta which we feel was a stunning success. With the aid of the community, the systems were significantly improved and a large number of bugs were found and squashed. Thank you again for your help!


A 3.3.2 release went up today to fix a few things that got found at the last minute, including localization issues in French, Portuguese, and Russian, as well as a potential crash some people have encountered.

"3.3.2 Changelog"
[expand type=details]

• Fixed localization issues affecting articles in French, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Fixes a crash that would occur when attempting to apply a species template to a species with a different amount of traits than what is in the template.
  
• Fixed species template application trait add/remove checks being inverted.

[/expand]

A 3.3.3 update is expected to follow in a few weeks to address additional issues.


Stellaris isn’t always the easiest game to get into. Don’t be alarmed if there are changes to the tutorial and early game experience. We’re going to be gathering data about different elements of the new player experience, trying out various things and seeing what works.


Meanwhile, 3.4 is just around the corner. Currently planned for May, the Custodian side of the 3.4 update will continue to refine the balance around Unity and address some more of the feedback from the Open Beta and 3.3 release, as well as being the target for the planned release of the Situations system first described in Dev Diary 234. We’ll give Situations and our planned uses for them a complete Dev Diary in the near future.


With 3.3, Influence is the primary resource for external diplomacy, fast travel, and expanding living space.

One of the changes we’re planning for the May update is inspired by some of the feedback we received during the Unity Open Beta. We’re switching the initial costs for Espionage Operations to Influence rather than a massive pile of Energy Credits. Operation Upkeep will remain in Energy Credits. Exact values are subject to change.


Influence is purple. Espionage is purple. How can we argue with that?

While making that change we also added a few improvements to the Subterfuge Tradition Tree.

A focus on Espionage can put some strain on your Envoy supply, so the Double Agents tradition will now provide one, in addition to increasing your Maximum Infiltration Level by 10.


The known and the nameless, familiar and faceless.

Meanwhile, earlier in the tree we’ve decided to add some combat benefits to the tree to represent their enhanced ECM and ECCM capabilities. Empires focusing in Subterfuge now have an easier time locking on to enemy ships, as well as foiling the attempts of others to do the same to them.


Computer's locked. Getting a signal.


Go dead. Shut everything down and make like a hole in the void.

As with the earlier changes, these numbers are also still subject to change and a deeper review of Espionage Operations is still planned in the future.


A quality of life change being made to the Idyllic Bloom civic is also planned for 3.4 (coming in May).

Currently, Gaia Seeders can only be built on planets that match your planetary preference, which led to a play cycle where they had to terraform a planet before being able to utilize their special buildings.

Instead, we’re going to expand the valid planets of the Gaia Seeders as you gain terraforming technologies.


Much easier.


Okay, it’ll be much easier once we actually know how to do it.

Gaia Seeders can be freely built on planets that match your homeworld type as before, but can also be built on other planets of the same general climate type (Dry, Wet, or Cold) once you have Terrestrial Sculpting.

Since the Maweer Caretakers come from a Tropical World (Wet), they need the Ecological Adaptation technology to upgrade the Gaia Seeders on this Alpine World (Cold).

Tomb Worlds can also be seeded once the Climate Restoration technology has been acquired.

The upkeep of the Gaia Seeders building is increased using the same tiers of terraforming difficulty as the building placement.


Regarding what the Crisis Expansion Team has been working on, they’re not quite ready to share that information quite yet. Soon™.

One of our agents did manage to sneak some of the wonderful work of the Concept Art Team out though...


It’s a thing, with greebles! And it’s game-changing.