Jul 7, 2022

Stellaris Dev Diary #259 - It Belongs in a Mega-Art Installation!

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

written by Iggy

Hello everyone, Iggy here with a surprise dev diary! I am a Content Designer who has worked as a Custodian for the past year or so, bringing you content like Permanent Employment and the Leviathan Parades.

I know Eladrin said no more diaries until after summer… But he is not around to stop me!

I couldn’t wait to present the initial relic balance changes and to give all of you lovely folks a chance to voice your feedback. Summer is historically a time of experimentation when it comes to Paradox, and why not experiment with how we gather feedback?

So let’s get started with some of my biggest bugbears regarding how the relics currently work, what I have done to address the issues, and why.

Crisis Relics

The relics you get from defeating the various crises in the game are pretty tame - compared to all other relics, they are actually quite balanced. That is not good enough. These are your final reward for defeating the most powerful foe in the galaxy! Let’s give you a bit of a victory lap and have some fun with this.

As you can see, you no longer will gain a measly 30 Society Research. Instead, a massive 50% modifier to all society techs is in your future.

Precursor Relics

Another issue that has plagued Stellaris for quite some time is the viability of your starting precursor. While we are not giving you the ability to choose which precursor you spawn with, I wanted to make each relic at least somewhat useful for most empires. Here, I also felt the need for some slight adjustments to the Cybrex and the Baol, as both are a bit too powerful in the early game, without removing their usefulness in the late game.

The Baol Decision now has an activation time, but you also gain hive Nu-Baol pops if you are a hivemind. If the 10% resource output wasn’t enough there is also a reason to keep using the relic on existing Gaia worlds to get a special form of Gaia Habitability on your organic pops.

The Cybrex War Forge might start out slower, but as the game progresses you’lll notice that it becomes more powerful than ever before, capable of processing additional minerals after each use.

What this rebalance also allows us to do is to make some relics slightly less annoying to use. At the top of my list, we have the Javorian Pox Sample — memed about being the worst relic in the game. Having to activate a relic and then go in and micro every fleet only for the bombardment stance to fall off a few years later made it a real frustrating relic to use as well.

Now we will always be ready to spread some plague.

Event Relics

Finally, we got some event relics that vary from powerful to forgettable. Here the main goal was to spice up the use of relics that might not have benefits for every playstyles. Blade of the Huntress is gaining diplomatic weight as your envoy swings it around the galactic community floor; the Omnicodex can now produce hivemind pops if you are one yourself.

You can find all currently planned changes below, these are of course subject to change:

Precursor Relics:

Javorian Pox:
Current:

Passive: +20 Leader Lifespan
Active: Javorian Pox Orbital Bombardment stance

Changed:

Passive: Bombardment Stance and +20 Leader Lifespan
Active: 50% increased biology research

The Last Baol:
Current:

Active instantly creates a Gaia world

Changed:

The active decision takes 5 years to create a Gaia world
If the decision is activated on a Gaia World, all organic pops on the world get an empowered Gaia World Habitability preference granting them +5% resource output on Gaia Worlds.
The Nu-Baol will be hivemind if you are a hivemind

Yuht Cryo Core:
Current:

Passive: +1 pop on every new colony

Changed:

Passive: +1 pop on every new colony, +20% energy weapon fire rate

Psionic Archive:
Current:

Passive:
-50% Shroud Cooldown
Better Shroud odds
Active:
Event granting numerous boons, including a 500 experience boost which becomes quite lacking in the late game.

Changed:

Passive:
-50% Shroud Cooldown
Better Shroud odds
Unlocks an edict granting leader XP, longevity, and accident prevention for a zro upkeep.
+5 Ruler Max Level
Active: The knowledge option now always levels your ruler up a level instead of granting a flat xp bonus.

Cybrex Warforge:
Current:

Passive: 5% More alloys, and allowing the building of the most powerful buildable army in the game.
Active: Spend 10000 minerals and gain 5000 alloys.

Changed:

Passive: Allows the building of the most powerful buildable army in the game.
Active: Spend 2000 minerals and gain 1000 alloys. Effect Increases by 2000 minerals and 1000 alloys each time it’s activated up to a cap of 20,000 alloys.

Vultaum Reality Perforator:
Current:

Active: Grants one of 4 random buffs lasting for 1 year.

Changed:

Active: Grants one of 4 random buffs lasting for 1 - 5 years.

Event Relics:

Blade of the Huntress:
Current:

Passive: +25% Army Morale +2 Planet Sensor Range
Active: +25% Sublight Speed for 10 years

Changed:

Passive: +25% Army Morale 20% more diplo weight
Active: +25% Sublight Speed for 10 years

Omnicodex:
Current:

Active: Adds 3 pops of a random species

Changed:

Active: Adds 3 pops of a random species, if you are a hivemind they are also hive-minded.

Ether Drake Trophy:
Current:

Active: 10% more happiness

Changed:

Active: 10% more happiness and 10 stability to every planet.

The Surveyor:
Current:

Active: Can grant 3-5 rare resources among other deposits.

Changed:

Active: Can grant 1-3 rare resource deposits. Nothing else changed.

Note: The Surveyor has half the cooldown and only costs energy to activate. It’s still an excellent peacetime relic.

Crisis Relics:

Extradimensional Warlock:
Current:

Passive: +15% Sublight Speed
Active: +100% more jumpdrive range

Changed:

Passive: +30% Sublight speed, +20% weapon range
Active:
+100% more jumpdrive range
-50% jump cooldown reduction
+75% more accuracy and range on your Quantum Catapult

Prethoryn Brood-Queen:
Current:

Passive: +30 society research
Active: Spawns a small fleet

Changed:

Passive: +50% society research
Active: Spawns a sizeable fleet

Isolated Contingency Core:
Current:

Passive: +100% Pop Assembly Speed

Changed:

Passive:
+100% Pop Assembly Speed
Allows the construction of 2 of each megastructure instead of 1.

Unchanged:

Khan's Throne

Felt like it had a solid theme already with a solid bonus.

Head of Zarqlan

Has both an early game and a late-game bonus as well as superb flavor.

Miniature Galaxy

Research is always top tier and random should stay random.

The Defragmentor

Allows you to convert unity into energy. The passive not having any benefit to a spiritualist empire does feel kinda bad. Might look into it.

Scales of the Worm

There is no way we can ever make this relic comparable to the bonus you get for embracing the Worm. It would have to be the strongest relic on this list.

The Rubricator

One of two ways to get a repeatable source of Minor Artifacts, very powerful.

The Galatron

Is the Galatron

Now I want to hear from you! Are you terrified of what I did to the Yuht Cryo Core? Annoyed that I skipped the Miniature galaxy? Still not feeling like activating the Pox Sample? Please feel free to analyze and make tier lists. Hopefully, after this next patch, every relic will be a bit more attractive!

Jun 21, 2022

3.4.4 Patch Released (checksum 227f)

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

Hi all!

We're happy to announce the release of the 3.4.4 patch. Please find the final patch notes below.

It's another herculean effort from the team that we hope you will enjoy!

"STELLARIS 3.4.4 "CEPHEUS" PATCH NOTES
[expand type=details]
#################################################################
######################### VERSION 3.4.4 ##########################
#################################################################

Improvements

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.
Added Quantum Catapult event art.
added Hyper Relay event art image.
New Overlord music track will now play in the main menu
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.
Clarified the tooltip for the Strip Mine decision.
Added a setting to Galaxy Setup that permits the disabling of L-Gates.
Planetary Automation will now build pre-emptively if there are 0 jobs available on a planet or if there is an unemployed pop that can work a job from the suggested building. This should solve both the case where we shouldn't make specialist jobs for slaves but also allows us to preemptively build more jobs to allow for auto migration.
Added an Upgrade module to the Planetary Automation such that players can now enable/disable automatically upgrading buildings on their planets.
Vassal loyalty tooltip in subjugation view now includes full breakdown information.
Subjects are now informed that they have a -50% penalty to diplomatic weight.
Namelists Hive Mind 1 and Hive Mind 2 now feature names unique to each ship size (Corvette, Destroyer, etc.).
If you don't use Consumer Goods and conquer a planet with factories on it, they will be removed.

Balance

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 when attempting to subjugate other overlords diplomatically.
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 the intended design right away.
Significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to build Ion Cannons.
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.
The Traditionalist faction in empires with the Teachers of the Shroud origin now approves of following the teachings of the Shroudwalkers.

Bugfixes

Fixed the notification message for forced approval of a negotiated agreement (due to lack of influence) saying the proposal was declined. Note that this fix is only applied to the english localization and will be applied in other languages in a future patch.
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)
The Khan should no longer be hostile to mercenaries.
The Khan no longer counts as a Satrapy and thus can invade planets.
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 now gains ownership of the ruined ring immediately.
The Salvagers no longer introduce themselves to void dwelling empires as soon as they finish researching any technology.
Mercenary fleet contracts can now be terminated after vassal has been integrated.
Added missing 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 when it shouldn’t.
Fixed template with an unnamed flag causing issues when loading affected game saves from previous versions.
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.
Fixed some issues with display of leader names.
Corrected “Message in the Canopy” archaeology site outcome options.
You can no longer declare wars of vassalisation against Inward Perfectionists.
Fixed relay network modifiers being removed after specialist vassal levels up.
You cannot use a secret fealty wargoal if you are at war with the overlord of the empire that has sworn fealty to you.
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 that bounce between vassal/subsidiary and protectorate states should now correctly gain the protectorate bonuses whenever they become a protectorate.
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.
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
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
You can no longer force ideology on gestalt empires by declaring war on their subjects.
Fixed issue with some of the modifiers of modules not applying to the Starbase.
Fixed Insidious Ophidians event chain accidentally removing the "Poor Quality Minerals" permanent planetary modifier.
Fixed a case where specialist subjects leveling up could end up disabling relay network effects.
The Spiritualist Fallen Empire has figured out what Star Eaters are and will now Awaken if you use one to blow up one of their holy worlds.
Fixed new districts sometimes not appearing after the Superfluous Terraforming Equipment event.
It is no longer possible for Overlords to transfer more science than they generate to their subjects.
Fixed not being able to order ship construction in Mega Shipyards after they had been conquered.
Fixed broken tooltip for destroyed orbital rings.
Medium Crystal Plating no longer displays the tooltip for the Bulwark Battlewright.
Mercenary Captains no longer display unlocalized text.
Fixed the tooltip for the tier 3 orbital ring requesting the wrong capital building.
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.
Fixed missing prescripted empire leader names.
Fixed ship building buttons in Mega Shipyard view being cut off

Game Stability related fixes and changes:

Fixed multiplayer out of sync caused by FLEET_ORDERS
Fixed crash occurring when viewing a system destroyed by a star eater that contained a quantum catapult and simultaneously opening the 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.

Modding

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.
Added on_starbase_disabled on action and stopped firing on_starbase_destroyed when a starbase is only disabled.

[/expand]

Please note that save file compatibility between versions is not guaranteed.

If you have an important 3.4.3 game going, please back up the save file before trying to load the save in 3.4.4. You can roll back to a prior version by right-clicking on Stellaris in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> choose the 3.4.3 from the drop-down.

If you experience crashing or other issues on 3.4.4, first disable all mods and start a new save. If the issue persists, please report it on the Bug Report forums.

Jun 16, 2022

Stellaris Dev Diary #258 - 3.4.4 ‘Cepheus’ Information

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

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

Improvements

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.

Balance

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.

Bugfixes

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

Game Stability related fixes and changes:

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

Modding

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!

Jun 9, 2022

Stellaris Dev Diary #257 - Summer is Coming...

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

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!

Relic Balance

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.

Accessibility Improvements

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.

Traditions

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.

Deep In the Code Mines

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.

Fleet Combat Balance

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.

More Achievements

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.

What's Next?

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!

Jun 2, 2022

Stellaris Dev Diary #256 - Making a Station

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

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.

Visdev

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.

Concept

(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.

Blockout

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)

Highpoly

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.

Lowpoly

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.

Baking/Texturing

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.

Destroyed version

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)

Implementation

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)