written by Eladrin

Hi! Let’s get straight to it!

The 3.4.4 ‘Cepheus’ patch is planned to be released sometime next week if everything goes well. Here’s a preliminary list of things that will be included.

"Stellaris 3.4.4 ‘Cepheus’ Preliminary Patch Notes"
[expand type=details]

#################################################################
########################## VERSION 3.4.4 ###########################
#################################################################

• Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.
  
• Construction ships now have an Automated Construction mode, which will automatically build Research and Mining Stations over appropriate deposits. (It will not automatically build Observation Stations, Hyper Relays, or other constructions.)
  
• Imperial Fiefdom changes
  
• The Imperial Fiefdom overlord is now barred from terms that allow it to join offensive wars of their subjects.
  
• Every member of the empire that does not start with the overlord nearby will start with a small overlord colony/outpost in the vicinity.
  
• The overlord's empire will be connected by 'Derelict Gateways' that the overlord can use, but which become ruined once the civil war starts
  
• Changed it so players can remain loyal to the overlord when the civil war begins, if they so wish. The AI will always go independent.
  
• Added Hydroponics Station designation for habitats. This designation removes 2 housing from Habitation Districts in exchange for adding 1 farmer jobs.
  
• Planetary automation will now seek to clear blockers as soon as there is any need. It now uses the same formula as the indicator on the outliner: i.e. if it is limiting the number of districts OR if there are buildings that could be built by clearing the blockers OR if planet growth speed is reduced (previous behaviour was to only check the first of those).
  
• Made some clarifications for the Shroudwalkers, so it is clearer what asset you are getting from them and how the planet modifier works.
  
• Criminal pops no longer reduce the efficiency of criminal syndicate branch offices
  
• Quantum Catapult event art image added
  
• Hyper Relay event art image added
  
• New Overlord music track will now play in the main menu
  
• Tooltip now mentions that setting up vassal resource sharing will prevent the affected resources from being traded in regular trade deals later
  
• Empires created by releasing sectors or from status quo peace deals now have some starting resources to not immediately suffer deficits.
  
• Clarified that Subjugation War Terms only apply to Vassals and Subsidiaries.
  
• The tooltips for Resource Contribution terms now inform you that they block trade deals for the resources involved.
  
• The Reemployment Center holding now shows when the next zombie will be created.
  
• Spawning Pools and Progenitor Nests are now under the Pop Assembly building category.
  
• Added subjugation agreement caps of +1,000 / -10,000
  
• Refined the Teachers of the Shroud requirements tooltip.
  
• Clarified that Progenitor Hives can only release sectors if they do not have the devouring swarm civic.
  
• Players will now be notified when their Overlord has built Holdings on their planet
  
• Starbase Transit Hubs now also fulfill the necessary requirement for slaves or non-sapient robots to automatically migrate from planets in the system.
  
• The dividend event now specifies which enclave is paying its dues.
  
• AI logic for voting on Free Migration has been adjusted to more strictly align with Xenophile/Xenophobe ethics
  
• AI 10 year voting cooldown extended to now apply to other diplo actions like declaring war etc
  
• Clarified the tooltip for the Strip Mine decision.

• Ships now gain 5 exp per day in battle instead of 1.
  
• Doubled the base unity output of telepaths.
  
• Unified effects for Citadel of Faith, Auto-Curating Vault and equivalent buildings.
  
• The Shroudwalkers have learned their lesson, and will no longer teach any Fanatic Purifiers about the Shroud. The Fanatic Purifiers will have to look for another origin now.
  
• Bulwark Battlewright aura now provides 0.25% hull regen per day.
  
• Bulwark Watch network effect no longer spawns too many armies. Instead it increases planetary stability by 5.
  
• Being an overlord now imparts a -1000 penalty to diplomatic requests to be subjugated.
  
• The Ministry of Science and Vigil Command now have an empire limit of 1.
  
• The upkeep of Overlord Beholder jobs now scale with the tier of the Bulwark subject (and thus the increase in the defensive platform cap).
  
• Reworked the Ministry of Science holding. It no longer provides increased research speed for the overlord depending on the number of science ships in orbit of the subject's planet. Instead it now gives subject researchers (or calculators or brain drones) research output for the overlord, with an appropriate increase in upkeep.
  
• The Orbital Assembly Complex now increases the effects of modules built on the planet's orbital ring.
  
• Habitation Modules provide +0.5 building slots.
  
• Orbital Shipyards gain +1 Shipyard capacity.
  
• Orbital Anchorages provide +2 Naval Capacity.
  
• Planetary Defense Guns and Batteries support +1 Defensive Platforms.
  
• Halved the hull and armor regen provided by Regenerative Hull Tissue, Nanite Repair System, Nanobot Cloud, Mercenaries, and Devouring Swarm. This will also affect the regeneration of leviathans and other entities that make use of these ship components.
  
• Retrofitting ships will no longer pay out the resources left over after the retrofit costs have been applied.
  
• Effects that granted modifiers to ship upgrade costs have been replaced with other modifiers. It should no longer be possible to be in a situation where it is cheaper to build empty ships and then upgrade them than to build them correctly right away.
  
• Significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to build Ion Cannons. Reduced the base cost and upkeep of Ion Cannons, but they are now affected by components.
  
• Reduced weighting for clerks as pops seemed to really want to work as them instead of miners
  
• Merc dividends no longer give ships when the patron is near or above their naval cap.
  
• Moved bonus resource storage for silos from tech_global_production_strategy to tech_construction_templates
  
• If you declare a force ideology war on an empire, all non-gestalt overlords and subjects that are called into the war will also be subject to the force ideology effect.
  

• Fixed ETA not being displayed in the fleet view
  
• Progenitor Hives can now lease fleets without them being debuffed
  
• AI will now no longer stop all colonisation during lategame crises. (Its instruction to not attempt to colonise and instead focus on war now expires in the midgame)
  
• Khan should no longer be hostile to mercenaries.
  
• Admirals no longer abandon their post on leased fleets.
  
• Planetary automation will no longer seek to build gene clinics if you are a synthetically-ascended empire.
  
• Fixed issue where planetary automation would upgrade Necrophage Centers of Elevation (which is often undesirable as it may lead to you running out of necrophytes)
  
• Newly colonized planets will now have their planet automation turned on if they are in an automated sector
  
• You can no longer build an orbital ring around a planet with a destroyed orbital ring.
  
• When an orbital ring is destroyed, the planet owner gains ownership of the ruined ring immediately.
  
• Fixed broken tooltip for destroyed orbital rings.
  
• The Salvagers no longer introduce themselves to void dwelling empires as soon as they finish researching any technology.
  
• Mercenary fleet contract can now be terminated after vassal has been integrated
  
• Added localization for Imperial Fiefdom opinion modifiers.
  
• Traditions will now be properly transferred to vassals created from sectors
  
• Fixed "Proceed" button in the vassal agreement terms renegotiation menu sometimes being inactive
  
• Fixed template with an unnamed flag causing issues with game loading
  
• Fixed modifying a species (via the species modification interface) applying default species rights instead of the rights of the species you were modifying (particularly painful if default rights were assimilation)
  
• Fixed possibility to set gender specific ruler titles, for example King and Queen
  
• Fix some issues with display of leader names
  
• Corrected “Message in the Canopy” archaeology site outcome options
  
• Vassal loyalty tooltip in subjugation view now includes full breakdown information
  
• Fixed relay network modifiers being removed after specialist vassal levels up
  
• Fixed missing localization in mercenary admiral tooltip
  
• You can no longer declare wars of vassalisation against Inward Perfectionists.
  
• You cannot use a secret fealty wargoal if you are at war with the overlord of the empire that has sworn fealty to you.
  
• Medium Crystal Plating no longer displays the tooltip for the Bulwark Battlewright.
  
• Expel Corporation wars now close branch offices on your planets and those of your subjects belonging to the targeted MegaCorp
  
• The Manifesti faction now use their faction icon.
  
• Pacifier colossus weapon can now target machine and hive worlds.
  
• The Traditionalist faction in empires with the Teachers of the Shroud origin now approves of following the teachings of the Shroudwalkers.
  
• Changed Subjugation War Terms to no longer apply invalid terms for Subsidiaries (such as integration allowed).
  
• Become the Crisis Bring into the Fold wargoal now respects your subjugation policy.
  
• Become the Crisis Bring into the Fold wargoal now causes subjugated empires to become subsidiaries if the BtC empire is a megacorp
  
• Empires that are Brought into the Fold by a Scion now correctly convert to the Scion preset (as do their subjects)
  
• Subjects are now informed that they have a -50% penalty to diplomatic weight.
  
• Subjects that bounce between vassal/subsidiary and protectorate states should now correctly gain the protectorate bonuses whenever they become a protectorate.
  
• The Khan no longer counts as a Satrapy and thus can invade planets.
  
• Subsidiaries created via subjugation war now inherit the base subsidiary agreement restrictions
  
• Fixed slave armies not being trainable.
  
• Splitting Imperial Fiefdom Overlord can no longer cause systems with shared ownership of planets
  
• Hive-minds that reform into having the Memorialist civic no longer need to restart the game to build galactic memorials.
  
• Mercenary Captains no longer display localisation keys.
  
• Fixed the tooltip for the tier 3 orbital ring requesting the wrong capital building.
  
• Implemented the Subterranean Nation modifier directly into the origin so any empire that inherits the origin will gain the modifiers.
  
• Subterranean/Mantle Dwellers now correctly have the Cave Dweller trait.
  
• Fixed Terravores claiming that they could build Organic Sanctuary holdings.
  
• The tooltip for Habitat Administration buildings now lists the effects of colonist jobs for Void Dwellers.
  
• The job description of colonists now states that they can provide minerals instead of food.
  
• Fixed megacorps creating more megacorps from wars in some cases where the origins of the newly created empires weren't set correctly.
  
• Signs of the Locus now checks for the correct diplomatic stance. In addition, it now checks your border policy as well.
  
• Strongholds no longer benefit from Resistance is Frugal
  
• Borderless Authority and Personal Oversight correctly increase the number of subject holdings overlords can build.
  
• Fixed "Shroud Stench" planetary modifier lacking an icon
  
• Updated tooltip for how to unlock branch office buildings.
  
• Resized and moved the upgrade button for orbital rings.
  
• Fixed a tooltip in the Situations interface showing erroneous information ("outcome in -65 months") if the Situation was ticking down
  
• Fixed some issues with the setup of the starting Ring World in advanced AI empires
  
• Fixed Gestalt Empire Governors Skill tooltips saying Crime instead of Deviancy
  
• Fixed incorrect description string variable in the "Atmospheric Nanobot Dispersal"
  
• Fixed Emergency Election button showing two Unity symbols
  
• Admirals no longer abandon their post on leased fleets.
  
• Mercenary armies now properly spawn at the client capital.
  
• Pressing ESC during mercenary diplomacy should now bring you back to the main menu or close the diplomacy window.
  
• Tactical advice against the gray tempest is only available when the gray tempest is triggered, not just when the L Cluster is opened.
  
• Patrons can no longer recall fleets that they themselves are hiring.
  
• Mercenary admirals now have suitable loc for their profession.
  
• Fixed some cases where our tooltip system would unnecessarily generate "all of the following must be true" (when there was only one condition)
  
• Fixed incomplete information about what Telepaths do when looking at buildings that provide them
  
• Mercenary Enclaves are no longer listed as Honorbound Warriors in the contacts list.
  
• Fixed incorrect tooltip when scrapping robots during the alloy deficit situation
  
• Fixed the message response icon on diplomatic notifications blocking click input on the lower half of the notification.
  
• The No Holding text in the agreements tab is now yellow instead of placeholder pink.
  
• If you don't use Consumer Goods and conquer a planet with factories on it, they will be removed
  
• Fix missing prescripted empires' leaders' names
  
• Fixed ship building buttons in Mega Shipyard view being cut off
  
• You can no longer force ideology on gestalt empires by declaring on their subjects.
  
• Fixed issue when some of the modifiers of modules didn't apply to the Starbase.
  
• Fixed Insidious Ophidians event chain accidentally removing the "Poor Quality Minerals" permanent planetary modifier
  

• Fixed multiplayer out of sync due to FLEET_ORDERS
  
• Fixed crash occurring when viewing a system destroyed by a star eater that contained a quantum catapult and simultaneously opening load menu
  
• Fixed crash due to invalid-read CQuantumCatapultFleetOrderButton::IsValid
  
• Fixed crash due to invalid-write CPlanet::RepairSavegameClearInvalidAndNullDeposits
  
• Fixed crash from having a subject with 0 empire size

• Overlord Holding buildings and Branch Office buildings now support empire_limit = { }
  
• Added is_human_species scripted trigger if you want additional portraits to be considered humans.
  
• Added on_fleet_lease_started/ended on_actions for more friendly mod compatibility
  
• Fixed load order issues with check_modifier_value
  
• Fixed localize_with_value_key and min_mult in scripted modifiers
  
• Added GetOriginName localisation command (to clarify an error log)
  
• Added "has_subject = <country>" trigger to go with has_overlord
  
• Greatly improved scope error logging for event targets and script values

[/expand]

Should the plans change I’ll let you know immediately.

With that, I’m having the team move on to future releases and some of the things discussed in last week’s dev diary. Barring unforeseen exceptional circumstances, our next update is planned to be the 3.5 ‘Fornax’ update in the fall.

Dev diaries will resume sometime in August.

Happy summer!

written by Eladrin

Hello!

The team is working on the 3.4.4 patch as I write this - we should have a list of patch notes as next week’s DD. Today we’ll be discussing some less concrete things.

We often find ourselves with a bit of free time during the summer to experiment with different systems that strike our fancy. Previous such experiments yielded the Lithoid traits (which changed the way we make Species Packs forever) and the first trials of Industrial Districts. Often they don’t work out, or need a lot of iteration before turning into something usable, but that’s okay - these are intentionally framed as experiments with lower pressure.

Rather than doing a review of what did and didn’t work after the summer, I want to give a preview of some of the systems we’re looking to experiment with, but with the caveat that these experiments may or may not pan out.

None of this is guaranteed, and I’m not giving timelines for release even if they do work out!


Iggy has asked to look at relics and has written up proposals for a balance pass upon them. In his own words…

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Relics are meant to be fun and game-changing. They are supposed to be powerful and unique items that can change the course of your empire. The issue, however, is that they are not all equal. So with a future update, I hope to at least narrow the gap between the relics a bit. I have mainly split the relics into three sets.

• Event-based ones that are fine to have a niche and semi-powerful effects, think Omnicodex and Blade of the Huntress.
  
• Precursor Relics should be strong and useful for every single empire. I am not promising that the Jovian Pox will be top tier for pacifists or that the Psionic Archive will be the best machine relic. But they will at least have neat effects.
  
• Crisis Relics which are awarded for defeating the crisis should be a bit of a victory lap. You have won! It should not give you 30 society research.

With these in mind, I will be looking at every relic and attempting to bring them in line if needed. There will be a lot of buffs and a few nerfs, but hopefully, they will feel more rewarding!

I expect that we’ll post a list of the changes when we start the dev diaries up again after the summer for feedback.


MonzUn has been leading a drive for improved accessibility options in Stellaris. Some of the things we’re looking at include adding more functionality for mouse side buttons, possible text-to-speech for events, and functionality like hotkeys for zooming in and out.

At his suggestion, some of us have also started playing the game with various color reshaders active to simulate different color vision deficiencies, to help find the worst issues and ways to resolve them.

If you have suggestions or accessibility problems that you face while playing Stellaris, please let us know.


With the flexibility in how empires can choose traditions that we introduced in 3.1 "Lem", Alfray Stryke is planning some experiments looking at introducing new tradition trees.

These are looking at how gating tradition trees behind various triggers might influence the game. There have been some ideas suggested about introducing tradition trees that are locked behind ascension perks or origins, and we're interested to see where these may lead.


Caligula Caesar has been finding places where we could expand our uses of multithreading, and experimenting with the way modifiers are calculated, with a particular eye towards the late game.


Meanwhile, my planned experiments primarily have to do with fleet combat.

Things I’m looking forward to looking at include:

• Providing a late game role for Destroyers and Cruisers, and providing incentives for mixed fleets.
  
• Increasing the length of fleet combats, reducing the dominance of alpha strikes.
  
• Experimenting with existing counters, tracking, evasion, and accuracy mechanics.
  
• This may also end up providing a role for smaller weapons.
  
• Improving ship behavior based on the roles assigned them by combat computers.
  
• Yes, Carrier Battleship, I know you have a point defense laser and you're very proud of it. That doesn’t mean you should charge into melee to use it.

These are likely the experiments most ethereal in nature at this time and are unlikely to bear fruit in the short term.


Our artists had so much fun with the Overlord achievements that they cornered us and demanded that we add some to the species packs.

These aren’t really experiments, but will go live once we figure out what they’ll do and implement them. Here are a few as previews.



And then there's this one, which we've called The Darkest Timeline.




These examples aren't comprehensive, there are many other things being worked on that aren't listed here (like previously mentioned Espionage improvements).

As mentioned earlier, next week will be the 3.4.4 patch notes, after which we’ll be going on a dev diary hiatus for the summer.

See you next week!

written by Tim Wiberg & Lloyd

Hi There,

My Name is Lloyd and I'll be your host for tonight. I am a concept artist working on Stellaris and for this dev diary I'm going to give you a look at how the art team brings an asset to life. Specifically I want to focus on the Salvagers station from the Overlord expansion.

The first step is visdev, which is short for visual development. It’s where we throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks. At this stage everyone is welcome to contribute, and ideas are often borrowed and expanded upon by other artists.


(Salvager station visdev by Avishek Banerjee)

Avishek Banerjee, a concept artist on the team made this piece showing a station that consisted of several circular openings that served as tear-down bays for ships. This is an idea that was borrowed by me and integrated into the final design of the station.


(Salvager station visdev by Lloyd Drake-Brockman)

Here you can see some of my early sketches for the Salvagers station. My thinking was to create something that looked like some kind of hive, an industrial place that was hap-hazard but didn't look too unfriendly.


(Early concept of the Salvagers station)

When I painted this sketch of the station we decided that this was the way forward, and from that point I was assigned to develop the sketch into a full concept. Although it looks quite different to the final, the shape language and some of the texture ideas are already present in this early version.



(More early concepts of the Salvagers station)

I spent some time exploring alternate shapes for the station. Most were scrapped, but that's part of the job of a concept artist. The whole time I wanted to keep the lotus-pod aesthetic of the big dome in the original sketch. I also wanted the station to have some kind of long-axis; that way I could give the station a strong shape, and it wouldn't just be a big blob of parts. It's important to note that for each iteration the whole art team is giving their feedback and occasionally contributing their own sketches. Every stage of this process is a collaborative effort.

[/img[i]](Early 3D concept of the Salvagers station)[/i]

As the design got closer to the final, the changes were more subtle. I chose to model the station in Blender so I could more accurately present the complex curves and intricate details. To be clear, this is not the 3D model that goes into the game. It's terribly un-optimized, and it has enough geometry issues to make a 3D artist cry, but it's good enough to give an impression of what the final result will be.


(Early render of the Salvagers station)

Here's a beauty render of an early version of the station:

[/img[i]](Construction notes for the Salvagers station)[/i]

While it is fun to do beauty renders, the primary goal of the concept phase is to clearly convey ideas. So the final images that I pass along are quite simply presented, with a focus on clarity and structure.


(Final concept for the Salvagers station)

Here's the final concept, complete with a couple of break-out drawings that show some of the details in greater clarity. At this point I hand you over to Tim Wiberg who will take you through the 3D art process of creating the station.

Hello! My name is Tim Wiberg and I am a 3D artist for Stellaris, where I got the chance to work on the Salvager station for the Overlord expansion.

I am going to highlight the process of the in-game models and textures for the station.

I started off by blocking out the model based on the awesome concept made by Lloyd.

It was important to get a good sense of scale right from the start because we wanted to incorporate existing ships into the station. So I picked different ship types from different Phenotypes that could be in the "back-slots" of the station as a good reference. I quickly exported it to the game just to see if the scale made sense.


(The blockout model in Maya and ingame)

When the blockout was set I started working on the highpoly model. One of the reasons why we do highpoly models is that we can include all the cool details from the concept but still have an optimized model for it when baking it onto the lowpoly model. In this case I didn’t have to add that much detail since I knew that the textures later on would do most of the job.

After the highpoly was done I made a simpler version of the station that details from the highpoly can be transferred to. Then it was time to UV map the model.

A lot of the ships in Stellaris are usually symmetrical, to save texture space. This station was not very symmetrical so I put some more time into coming up with solutions to get the highest possible quality with smaller textures.

I used the texturing software Adobe Painter to bake in the details from the highpoly model. Then it was time for me to work on the actual plating materials for the model.

We wanted to have a “scrappy” feel to the whole station, so I used Adobe Designer to create the main plating material. I used small, medium and large shapes for the plating to get a more interesting look.


(Substance Designer WIP screenshot on the main plating material)

This process was a bit iterative, but when I was happy with the materials I jumped back to do the texturing on the model. I used the same texture with a different diffuse and roughness for the darker “secondary” plating parts. Then I could add all the details suchs as lights, windows etc.

When the final modeling and texturing was done I could quickly create a destroyed version of the Salvager station. I used the same model, but I moved, bent and cut some parts to really get that feeling of it being destroyed. For the material I used the same plating textures, but I darkened the base color, changed roughness values and removed the emissive lights so it could have that destroyed look.

(Models and textures for the Salvager station)

I needed to come up with a good solution regarding the ships that were going to be attached in the back of the station. So I attached locators on the model and added the existing ship models in code, and therefore they spawn at the same time the Salvager station spawns in.

And that was basically the whole process of making this station. I was really stoked when I got to see Lloyd’s concept being made for this, and I had a blast the whole process of making this station.

(Final Salvager station models in game)

written by Mirror Universe Eladrin

Hi!

This week is a short one in Sweden due to holidays, so instead of a normal dev diary we've got a transcript of the Stellaris Q&A session we held on the Official Stellaris Discord Server on May 5th.

You can read the full Q&A transcript on the Stellaris forums.

Next week our concept artist Lloyd will take over with an in-depth diary on how to make a station.

We've got a video preview of this dev diary on our YouTube Channel (I didn't read all 108 questions, sorry) if you want to meet Mirror Universe Stephen. You can watch it here:



Have a great week!

To celebrate our 6th Anniversary, Stellaris is free to play during the Paradox Publisher weekend until May 23rd!

Trying out Stellaris and like what you see? Stellaris is 80% off until May 23rd!

Try it here: https://pdxint.at/3MDO17D

But wait, there’s more! We’ve updated our Imgur Wallpaper album with the latest wallpapers from Overlord.

Get them free here: Imgur Wallpapers

To celebrate our 6th Anniversary, Stellaris is free to play during the Paradox Publisher weekend until May 23rd!

Trying out Stellaris and like what you see? Stellaris is 80% off until May 23rd!

Try it here: https://pdxint.at/3MDO17D

But wait, there’s more! We’ve updated our Imgur Wallpaper album with the latest wallpapers from Overlord.

Get them free here: Imgur Wallpapers

Hi all!



I'm happy to announce that the 3.4.3 hotfix should now be live and available on all platforms!



On Monday I said that we were planning to address primary issues as quickly as we could and have a larger patch in a few weeks, but the team was absolutely on fire and was able to bring many of the fixes and changes that were originally scheduled for the later release into this hotfix. As a result, the 3.4.3 hotfix is significantly larger than a hotfix would usually be.



I want to stress exactly how helpful the bug reports we received were during this process - they made it possible for QA to generate a list of the biggest issues affecting the community and helped us prioritize our work, so thank you for submitting them, and please continue doing so if you run into issues.



Without further ado, here are...




#################################################################

######################### VERSION 3.4.3 ############################

#################################################################




When planets revolt, there is now an option to declare war on the new country immediately rather than being subjected to a 10-year truce. The revolting planet counts as the aggressor. (if the planet joins another empire, and you choose war with them, the other country is now considered the aggressor).
Revolt Situations no longer cause escalating stability maluses, as these could make it impossible to stop a revolt. They now give a flat 10 stability malus at all stages.

The modifier a pop gets from its faction's happiness now updates properly (so if you make a faction happier, it will correctly make its pops happier now).

Fixed it being possible for a Revolt Situation to start and immediately cancel. (They will now only start if the planet is calculated to be currently capable of succeeding the revolt)

Planets with Culture Shock can now only start a revolt situation after 8 years of unrest, rather than 1, as it could be quite hard to avoid a revolt on these planets. Otherwise newly-conquered planets have 4-year cooldowns.

Improved AI decision making on Revolt Situations.

Fixed cases where rebels and released empires would have traditions and techs they should not have had access to (e.g. if non-gestalt pops rebelled against a gestalt empire).

Fixed cases where rebels and released empires would use their parent countries scientists for research. I.e. the researcher would be active in both countries, until one country changed their task.

Cleaned up some unclear language in the tooltip for Revolt Situation progress (the one describing what you can do about it).

Void Dwellers now replace the 1 Politician (or Executive) job from Habitat Administration buildings with two Colonist jobs, which should increase their overall stability in the early game.

Doomsday origin starting planets will no longer clamor to revolt. (Revolt Situations are disabled on them.)



To help them to deal with unexpected deficits, Empires can now purchase basic or advanced resources (specifically food or consumer goods) from the internal market if they have expenses of that type, even if they do not produce any themselves.

Fixed never-ending deficits - if you go into a deficit of a resource you do not produce at all, and then stop spending it (i.e. end up with both expenses and income of 0), the deficit will now resolve itself in a few months. This solves issues with machines having inexplicable food and consumer goods deficits, as well as cases where people over-spend rare resources they gained via event.

All resources provided for deficit bailouts now scale with the game year, instead of just those for the situation that completed.

Fixed a case where the situation approach to cut the maintenance of habitats would count double.

Fixed stray reference to Minerals in the Consumer Goods Deficit Situation.



Subjects should no longer flip-flop between regular subject types and protectorate.

Fix issue where a new subject created from a Status Quo would be made up of the wrong systems.

Subjects can no longer sign Defensive Pacts or Guarantee Independence of other empires.

Releasing a sector as a subject or enlightening a pre-ftl civilization now ignores the cooldown on agreement negotiation.

Increased the effects of Relative Power on AI acceptance of agreement negotiation.

Added base acceptance for subsidiary.

Tweaked AI acceptance of resource contribution terms, making them more likely to accept harsher tithes/subsidies.

AI overlords and subjects will now be more likely to accept specialist subject types that disagree with their ethics.

Set minimum Advanced Resources tax for Prospectorium to 15% from 30%

Fixed ACTION_DEMAND_SUBJUGATION_NOTIFICATION and ACTION_ASK_TO_BECOME_SUBJUGATED_NOTIFICATION loc keys.

Fix for trade deals that are accepted and then canceled immediately.

Fixed AI not taking relative power into account when considering subjugation proposals.

You can no longer set the priority of overlord catalytic or metallurgist jobs.

Overlord catalytic jobs no longer have the pre-3.4 penalties for food deficits.

Corporate overlords now have access to the protectorate subject type.

Slaves can now be "employed" as mind-thralls.

Fixed issue when removing/replacing overlord removes the corporate holdings.

The Divided Patronage loyalty penalty is now correctly removed from existing subjects when taking Shared Destiny, Feudal Society or Franchising.

You can no longer immediately see the secret fealty status of sectors released as subjects.

Rebalanced trade weights for specialist subject leaders.

Subjects that are converting to a specialist subject can continue conversion even if they should flip to a protectorate.

Subjects that are converting to a specialist subject cannot flip to a protectorate due to low tech level.

Empires can no longer have negative diplomatic weight.



Fixed crash connected with resettling the last pop of a species.

Fixed a rare crash in the Situations interface.

Fixed crash with modded shipsets.

Fixed a crash that would happen when generating very large galaxies with high hyperlane density.

Fixed a crash related to Federation Laws.



Ship starting experience modifiers now work when provided empire-wide (e.g. Fleet Supremacy edict)

Fixed tracking not countering evasion.

Added missing ship components for Offspring ships.

Mercenary fleets are now buffed by Offspring Auras

Added missing L2 Battleship section for Offspring Battleships.

Fixed ship build and upgrade cost modifiers not being applied correctly when retrofitting ships.

Fixed certain AIs (the ones with Calamitous Birth and Private Colony Ships) never colonizing.

You can no longer found mercenary enclaves using fleets belonging to your federation or the galactic community.



Legacy Human portraits have been re-added as an option in empire creation.

Fixed pops that grow as specialists on Colonies.

Fixed pops which go into a loop of swapping jobs with unemployed specialists constantly resetting strata demotion timers.

Amenity job management is now activated even when there are no resources available for planet automation.

Fixed an issue where planet automation could not use resources from their local sector stockpile.
Planet automation will now check that the unemployed pops can work the jobs that the automation would build, e.g. preventing specialist job creation for slave pops.

Reduced the amount of research given by merc dividends.

Fixed an issue where systems with primitives in them would not be transferred correctly during a status quo war resolution.

Non-Prophet Organization now correctly checks for the Teachers of the Shroud origin.

Fixed the Stellar Performance achievement not being awarded properly.

Subterranean empire are now shown uncapped mining districts on uncolonised worlds.

The Crystalline Bane modifier is now removed if you kill the Crystal Kraken in a dishonorable manner.

Progenitor Nest deposit is no longer removed when terraforming a planet into a hive-world.

Hive worlds now provide an offspring drone for progenitor hives instead of a spawning drones.

Fixed the Cyro Pod warrior event for xenophobes.

Meeting the artist enclave now sets the correct flag.

Added tooltip on create office branch button when players could not open a branch office.

Shroudwalker greeting event now fires only once.

Fixed tooltip for starbase resource silos.


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Localization for non-English languages related to these changes will be coming in a future update.
When negotiating an agreement, if the other party does not wish to accept the terms but does not have the influence necessary to decline, the eventual notification says that the deal timed out and auto-declined when in fact it was auto-accepted.





We'll be continuing to keep an eye on things, so keep those bug reports and feedback flowing. Currently our plan is to have a 3.4.4 update in a few weeks, that will contain localization updates for the 3.4.3 hotfix, more fixes and balance adjustments.



A sneak peek of some of the things we're looking at for the planned patch include the following:


The Imperial Fiefdom will start with colonies close to every member of their empire, so nobody will feel left out of the fold. Those who feel particularly loyal will now also be able to remain a vassal of the empire after the civil war has started.

Added Hydroponics Station designation for habitats. This designation removes 2 housing from Habitation Districts in exchange for adding 1 farmer jobs.

Ships now gain 5 exp per day in battle instead of 1.

Doubled the base unity output of telepaths.

Khan should no longer be hostile to mercenaries.

Admirals no longer abandon their post on leased fleets.

Planetary automation will no longer seek to build gene clinics if you are a synthetically-ascended empire.

Planetary automation will now seek to clear blockers as soon as there is any need. It now uses the same formula as the indicator on the outliner: i.e. if it is limiting the number of districts OR if there are buildings that could be built by clearing the blockers OR if planet growth speed is reduced (previous behaviour was to only check the first of those).

Fixed issue where planetary automation would upgrade Necrophage Centers of Elevation (which is often undesirable as it may lead to you running out of necrophytes)

Newly colonized planets will now have their planet automation turned on if they are in an automated sector

Made some clarifications for the Shroudwalkers, so it is clearer what asset you are getting from them and how the planet modifier works.

You can no longer build an orbital ring around a planet with a destroyed orbital ring.

Added is_human_species scripted trigger if you want additional portraits to be considered humans.

Added on_fleet_lease_started/ended on_actions for more friendly mod compatibility

Added is_human_species scripted trigger if you want additional portraits to be considered humans.


Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.

Construction ships now have an Automated Construction mode, which will automatically build Research and Mining Stations over appropriate deposits. (It will not automatically build Observation Stations, Hyper Relays, or other constructions.)

written by Eladrin

Hi all! Overlord's released!

Thanks for playing it and providing so much feedback.

As our AI programmer likes to say, "This is pretty good, but it can be even better!" and I want to talk about our short term plans on the Stellaris team.

We're planning a hotfix in the short term that addresses primary issues as quickly as we can, and a larger update with more fixes in a few weeks. (The larger update includes localization, I'll talk more about that one in this week's dev diary.)

A sneak peek of some of the things we're looking at for the hotfix include the following:

Stellaris 3.4.3 Partial Sneak Peek
[expand type=details]

• Tweaked AI acceptance of resource contribution terms, making them more likely to accept harsher tithes/subsidies.
  
• AI overlords and subjects will now be more likely to accept specialist subject types that disagree with their ethics.
  
• Rebalance trade weights for specialist subject leaders.
  
• Legacy Human portraits have been re-added as an option in empire creation.
  
• Fixed a bug with Tracking not countering Evasion properly.
  
• Subjects should no longer flip-flop between regular subject types and protectorate.
  
• Subjects should no longer be able to cause their Overlord to declare war against themselves.
  
• Fix for trade deals that are accepted and then canceled immediately.
  
• Fixed it being possible for a Revolt Situation to start and immediately cancel. (They will now only start if the planet is calculated to be currently capable of succeeding the revolt)
  
• Planets with Culture Shock can now only start a revolt situation after 8 years of unrest, rather than 1, as it could be quite hard to avoid a revolt on these planets.
  
• Cleaned up some unclear language in the tooltip for Revolt Situation progress (the one describing what you can do about it) (This only affects English localization until the next patch.)
  
• Diplomatic weight can no longer go negative.
  
• Fix a crash connected with resettling last pop of species.
  
• Fixed an issue where planet automation could not use resources from their local sector stockpile.
  
• Planet automation will now check that the unemployed pops can work the jobs that the automation would build, e.g. preventing specialist job creation for slave pops.
  
• Amenity job management can now activate even when there are no resources available for planet automation.
  
• Progenitor Nest is no longer removed when terraforming a planet into a hive-world.
  
• All resources provided for deficit bailouts now scale with the game year, instead of just those for the situation that completed.
  
• Adjusted the amount of research given by merc dividends.

[/expand]

This is not an exhaustive list of what will be in it, we've got a bunch of additional changes we're working on and investigating.

It's a pretty long list for a hotfix, and to be completely honest, that's my fault.

In our eagerness to get Overlord out to you in the best shape possible, I approved several changes and additions at the last minute that I really shouldn't have. Some of the threads have mentioned that we have some bugs in the launch version that weren't in the prerelease streams - that's completely accurate.

One example is a change that we made on code freeze day that changed how AI acceptance of tithes and subsidies worked in order to close an exploit that we identified - I should have let the exploit ship, known issued it, and given the change a proper QA and balance pass rather than rushing it in. I'll do so in the future.

Thank you for all the feedback, suggestions and bug reports. Please keep them coming.

We'll get this set of fixes (and more!) out to you as quickly as we reasonably can while minimizing the risk of introducing more problems, and will continue to work on making Overlord the best Stellaris expansion since Utopia.

Stellaris: Overlord is now available!

Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord, the newest major expansion for Stellaris! Overlord brings with it many new features designed to unlock the next level of your Empire. Experience new Origins, build new Megastructures, interact with new Enclaves, and Specialize your Vassals’ role within your Empire!


Overlord will allow you to assign a Vassal Specialization to your subjects. Each Vassal Specialization has a specific focus: the Bulwark, which focuses on defense and military strength; the Prospectorium, which focuses on resource collection and production; and the Scholarium, which focuses on scientific advancement.

Each of these specializations will level up over time, unlocking unique new abilities available only for their chosen Vassal Specialization for you and your Vassals.

But beware: vassals now have Loyalty, and disloyal Vassals may swear Secret Fealty to another empire — and if you give them the opportunity, you may find yourself in an Allegiance War.


Holdings are buildings that are owned by the overlord but are established on a Subject’s planet. Overlord comes with a plethora of additional holding building options, as well as the ability to build multiple Holdings in a single Vassal’s space.

Holdings also have the ability to change your subject’s opinion of you, so choose wisely: Whether you become a benevolent overlord, or tightly grip the reigns of power, will be determined by your actions.


There are three new enclaves included in Overlord: the mysterious Shroudwalker enclave, the industrious Salvager Enclave, and the enterprising Mercenary Enclave.

The Shroudwalkers will, for a fee, reach into the Shroud to attempt to determine your fate. The Shroud is fickle, however, and whether this proves to be a boon to your empire is not guaranteed. Should they trust you, they may offer you the ability to purchase a Shroud Beacon, which allows your ships to take a shortcut through the Shroud.



Salvager Enclaves pursue Engineering as their natural calling. They will gladly take your “combat-proven” starships, and will even compensate you for the opportunity. They also regularly have many second-hand vessels for purchase, and can offer you a unique starbase building to speed up repairs, salvage your debris, and more!



The Mercenary Enclave is a change from what we normally know as an Enclave. The Mercenary Enclave is an enclave that you decide to host, as opposed to one you find in the unknowns of space. Rather than sending outdated ships for scrap or dismantling them, with Overlord, you gain the ability to form a Mercenary Enclave, who will take your ships and fight for coin instead of country.


One of the big complaints with Megastructures is that they come so late in the game. Overlord addresses this by adding three new Megastructures, with tech requirements that are lower in the tech tree than Mega Engineering. The Hyper Relay allows fast travel across your empire, the Quantum Catapult can send your fleets on a one-way trip to a portion of the galaxy, and Orbital Rings will allow you to have extra starbase capacity in a system, or provide bonuses to the planet it encircles.

Hyper Relays, when constructed in adjacent systems connected by a hyperlane, will allow fast travel across those systems. No longer will your fleets have to slog across an entire system, now they simply enter the Hyper Relay Network, and jump from Relay to Relay across your empire. You can also construct Hyper Relays in your Vassal’s space and travel through your allies’ Hyper Relay Network.



The Quantum Catapult allows its owner to fire selected fleets across the galaxy. Be warned that this process isn’t guaranteed, and sending multiple fleets can result in your forces spread across a sector — or even in uncharted or closed space — rather than orbiting your enemy’s homeworld as you intended.



Orbital Rings allow you to build taller than ever before. Orbital Ring installations can construct ships, optimize production on the planet below and even increase the living space on the planet they encircle.




In the Imperial Fiefdom Origin, your empire was met and subjugated by an advanced species before it developed faster-than-light travel. Now that you’ve discovered how to break the lightspeed barrier, your overlord will offer you the opportunity to choose your specialization. Will you be a loyal vassal and cater to your overlord’s whims, or throw off the shackles and become the overlord yourself?

With the Teachers of the Shroud Origin, your species has lived under the influence of a Shroudwalker Enclave for many years, developing your species’ latent Psionic potential. Now that you’ve taken your first steps out into the stars, they’ve shown you how to build a Shroud Beacon, offering a way to take a shortcut across the Shroud.

Your ancestors spent eons watching mysterious streaks in the night sky before the lights went dark. In Slingshot to the Stars, you can discover the device that caused these mysterious streaks, and bring to light the story of the empire that left the ruined Quantum Catapult behind.

Subterranean starts you off as a species forced to retreat underground. Whether for protection from predators, shelter from harmful radiation, or safe harbor from atmospheric storms: your species has lived underground for generations. Growing tired of just feasting on the mineral wealth of your home planet, now your species has their eyes set on the stars. Whatever the climate of the planets you find, you’ve spent generations preparing, and your species is ready to face the challenge.

Unlock the power of Offspring Leaders, with the Progenitor Hive Origin. Build unique buildings on your starbases, allowing congregations of Overseers to steer your ships and control the battle. Your leaders have the ability to draw on the collective experiences of the hive mind and incorporate this knowledge into their decision-making, giving them skills and depth of knowledge that single-minded species could only dream of. Progenitor hiveminds can also release sectors as vassals, under the guidance of one of their Offspring Leaders.



Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord today!

Hello Stellaris Community!

Only two days till Overlord! If you're still dying to take a look at the new features coming in Overlord and the free 3.4 "Cepheus" update, do we have a treat for you:

Four Feature Highlight videos from our friend Ep3o!

Curb your desire to know more about Overlord, and learn more about Vassalization Contracts, Specialty Vassal types, the new Megastructures, a spoiler-free look at the new Enclaves, and finally the free features coming in the 3.4 "Cepheus" update!









Realize your Grand Design with Stellaris: Overlord on May 12th!

Wishlist Now and find out the minute it releases!