written by Eladrin

Hello again!

Another relatively short dev diary this time, as we’re scrambling to get a few things done before the looming holidays finally arrive.

This week we released a small update, 3.6.1, to address the following issues:

[expand type=details]
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#################### VERSION 3.6.1 ######################
############################################################

Bugfixes

• Fixed DLC being listed as “corrupted” in the launcher due to checksum mismatch.
  
• Added missing French scripted localization.
  
• Fixed adjective generator in the empire creator not working for some languages.
  
• Several ship sizes that lacked role definitions now have them.
  
• AI will no longer rent mercenary reinforcement fleets enroute to the main fleet.
  
• Fixed graphical artifact appearing in the ship browser.
  
• Fixed overlapping portraits sometimes appearing in the first contact view.
  
• Fixed subjects being able to become the federation president in arena combat successions.
  
• Empty fleet templates generated automatically will now be cleared after a set amount of time.
  
• Machine uprisings can now spawn fleets with all unlocked ship types.
  
• Fixed mechanical fallen empires missing part of their ringworlds.
  
• Pre-FTL civilizations should now generate defensive armies.
  
• Prevented AI Cyborg Hivemind empires from assimilating already cyborg hivemind pops, which could get them stuck in endless assimilation.
  
• Blocked pops with the Psionic trait to also receive the Latent Psionic trait.
  
• Gateway Sites and Ruined Gateways show up in outliner.

Balance

• Juggernauts now have the same base maximum speed as Battleships and Titans.

Stability

• Fixed a crash when older custom names contained certain special characters <3

Modding

• Fixed crash when overwriting e.g. certain pop jobs or districts individually
  
• Fixed is_ringworld trigger being overwritten by a scripted trigger

[/expand]

Barring unexpected developments, this will be the last patch to the live branch of Stellaris for the year.


We have a handful of additional changes that aren’t ready to go live yet, but with the massive success of the Orion Combat Open Beta, we’re looking at putting a build with a few potentially riskier changes up on the Steam beta branch.

The final list of the changes planned for it are still being discussed internally. Changes we’re considering include significant refactoring to AI acceptance, especially those related to loyalty, economy, and subject : overlord relationships, an economic change which caps cost reductions to -90%, updates to how certain leviathans (cough Hrozgar cough) behave in combat, and it’s possible that we will include a major rework to parts of galaxy generation (fixing many issues with static galaxies).

This update is planned to go up onto the stellaris_test branch sometime within the next two weeks, and we’ll leave the branch up until 3.7 goes live.



Over this holiday season, we will be holding #MODJAM2022, our second-ever Mod Jam! Are you a modder? Do you like winning stuff? Well, you can go here for more information and to sign up!

For the rest of you, modders will have 3 weeks to make... something. We're not going to tell you what it is yet, the modders won't even know what it is until the working time begins. During the three weeks, be sure to keep an eye on Stellaris social media, the forums, Reddit, and Steam, because we'll be posting teasers of what the modders have been working on!

At the end of the three weeks, on or around January 10th, we'll release the Mod Jam mod, and you'll get to play and vote on your favorite! The winning modders (by Community Vote) will win some cool prizes from our sponsors at ROG!

Get more info about the Mod Jam here!

Sign up here!


I’ve been told that I’m obligated to keep pestering the QA Director for pictures of Tofu until Canis Minor ships, so here you go.




Next week we’ll have a review of the year before we head off for our winter breaks, with a glimpse at what the spring will bring. See you then!

written by PDX-Loke

Hello,

We hope you are having fun with the 3.6 patch!
The team has put together a hotfix for you, aiming to resolve some issues coming out of the 3.6.0 release.
3.6.1 should now be available for download now.

Please find the changelog below.

[expand type=details]
############################################################
#################### VERSION 3.6.1 #############################
############################################################​
​

• Fixed DLC being listed as “corrupted” in the launcher due to checksum mismatch.
  
• Added missing French scripted localization.
  
• Fixed adjective generator in the empire creator not working for some languages.
  
• Several ship sizes that lacked role definitions now have them.
  
• AI will no longer rent mercenary reinforcement fleets enroute to the main fleet.
  
• Fixed graphical artifact appearing in the ship browser.
  
• Fixed overlapping portraits sometimes appearing in the first contact view.
  
• Fixed subjects being able to become the federation president in arena combat successions.
  
• Empty fleet templates generated automatically will now be cleared after a set amount of time.
  
• Machine uprisings can now spawn fleets with all unlocked ship types.
  
• Fixed mechanical fallen empires missing part of their ringworlds.
  
• Pre-FTL civilizations should now generate defensive armies.
  
• Prevented AI Cyborg Hivemind empires from assimilating already cyborg hivemind pops, which could get them stuck in endless assimilation.
  
• Blocked pops with the Psionic trait to also receive the Latent Psionic trait.
  
• Gateway Sites and Ruined Gateways show up in outliner.

• Juggernauts now have the same base maximum speed as Battleships and Titans.

• Fixed a crash when older custom names contained certain special characters <3

• Fixed crash when overwriting e.g. certain pop jobs or districts individually
  
• Fixed is_ringworld trigger being overwritten by a scripted trigger

[/expand]

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

If you have an important game going you would like to finish, please back up the save file before trying to load it in the new version.
You can roll back to a prior version by opening steam and right-clicking on Stellaris in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> choose the desired version from the drop-down.

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

written by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

Short dev diary today - the team is hard at work putting together a patch for a selection of what we deemed the more critical issues that have come up in 3.6.0, tentatively scheduled for next week.

Among a few other things we're looking at, we're currently investigating the launcher issue that falsely flags all DLC as corrupted, have a few crash fixes ready, and several ship sizes that lacked role definitions (such as Menacing ships) will now have them. As a little quality of life balance change, I also snuck in a speed increase to Juggernauts, making them move at the same max speed as Battleships and Titans.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the stability and quality of the release, which is a positive argument for future open betas in the same style. Thanks for all of your help making this a solid release.

Wondering what is in 3.6 "Orion"? Here's a summary of what's in the 3.6 Update on the Stellaris YouTube channel!


Since I'm not quite ready to talk about what's in Canis Minor yet, here are some puppy pictures to act as a clever distraction.


Dog!


Sleepy dog.

See you next week!

EDIT: We have become aware of a crash on startup, that we're currently looking at fixing in 3.6.1. If some of you are experiencing crashing on-startup, and have an empire with a field (empire name, adjective, leader name, etc) that contains special characters (eg. <>$[]), this will cause a crash on-loading the game. We have prepared a list of workarounds to fix this issue, organized by level of difficulty, with 1 being the easiest and 4 being the most involved:

1. Rename or remove the user directory. The user directory is typically located at "C:/username/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/" on Windows, "~/.local/share/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/" on GNU/Linux and "/Users/username/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/" on Mac OS X. WARNING: This will clear any settings, saves and user empires you may have changed/created.
2. Rename or remove the user_empire_designs_v3.4.txt in the user directory. WARNING: This will clear any user empires you may have created.
3. Edit the user_empire_designs_v3.4.txt file in the user directory to have no fields like names, adjectives etc. that includes <>$[].
4. Edit any field containing any of <>$[] characters from name="We love blorg <3" or
to

The Stellaris team is proud to announce the 3.6 "Orion" update is now available!

This free Custodian update to Stellaris includes a fleet combat rebalance, ascension path rework plus a new ascension path (requires Utopia), new galaxy shapes to explore, new story events, a new Spiritualist Federation type (requires Federations), additional content for Necroids, a new relic, improved accessibility, and more!

Get more details in your language!
Read the Changelog (English only)

Also, a reminder to turn off your mods until they've been updated to 3.6! Or you can roll back to 3.5.3 by right-clicking Stellaris, Properties, Betas Tab, and choose 3.5.3 from the dropdown.

If you find a bug or other issue with 3.6, please report it on the bug report forums.

Thanks for playing Stellaris, and we hope that you enjoy these new additions to the game as much as we've enjoyed bringing them to you!

Known Issue: We have become aware of some reports of the launcher incorrectly stating that DLC installs are corrupted. This is a purely visual bug, and we are currently investigating a fix.

If you are experiencing issues with loading saves that you could previously load, right click Stellaris, go to Properties, Local Files, and Verify Game Files.

Then disable all of your mods, and try to load the game again. If the issue persists, please submit a bug report here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/stellaris-bug-reports.941/

Hello Stellaris Community!

We’re proud to announce that the 3.6 “Orion” update will be released on November 29th!

Want to know exactly what this free Custodian patch contains? Well look no further! We’ve compiled most of the major changes and new features here for your convenience.

The 3.6 “Orion” update contains new galaxy shapes, new artwork as well as the ability for Hive Minds to choose a variation on the Reanimators Civic from the Necroids Species Pack, and a Fleet Combat Rebalance—including a new ship type and changes to combat computers. In 3.6, we’ve also reworked how the Ascension Paths from Utopia work, as well as added a new ascension path. We’ve also added a new Spiritualist Federation type to the specialized federation types from Federations, and added a new “Politics” tradition tree, which also requires Federations. We’ve also added new Orbital Ring buildings, which are included with the Overlord expansion. For base-game changes, we’ve added a new relic, accessibility improvements, new first contact events, included terraforming candidates on the galaxy map, added a new event chain, and tweaked some empire modifiers.

This is only a partial list of changes and new features. For the full list of bug fixes, new features, and other changes, please see the patch notes on the Stellaris forums.

And don't forget, Stellaris and selected DLCs are on sale until November 29th! Check out the full list of discounts here!


In the 3.6 “Orion” Update, we’ve added several new galaxy shapes to galaxy generation, many of these galaxy shapes were inspired by actual shapes of galaxies out in the universe, while others are interesting galaxy shapes that we thought would be fun to play on.


3 Arm Spiral Galaxy


6 Arm Spiral Galaxy


Barred Galaxy


Starburst Galaxy


Cartwheel Galaxy


Spoked Galaxy

We hope you enjoy these new galaxy shapes, we find playing on these new maps are a refreshing change, and leads to more interesting gameplay overall.


Reanimators, included in the Necroid Species Pack, has gotten some more love from our Custodian and Art teams!

First off, we have new textures and shaders for Reanimated Leviathans:

Producing these images were some of our biggest internal feedback on the Reanimators Civic, and producing them required the cooperation of each discipline within our art team, with beautiful concept art, new shaders, and breathtaking VFX!



Secondly coming to the Necroids Species Pack, is the Cordyceptic Hives civic. This new Civic requires Necroids and Utopia and is the Hive Mind version of the Reanimators Civic. We weren’t satisfied with simply copying Reanimators for Hive Minds, however. Cordyceptic Hives will start with three reanimated Amoebas in place of their three starting corvettes, and will automatically reanimate organic space fauna that they kill. They will also get a chance to reanimate defeated organic Leviathans and gain an additional +50% to Space Fauna Weapon Damage and Attack Speed.

But, that’s not all! Should you find a system teeming with organic life, such as Tiyana Vek, Tiyun Ort or Amor Alveo, you will be able to construct a special starbase building - the Cordyceptic Reanimation Facility, which will produce a fleet of reanimated space fauna every 5 years.


For a while now we’ve been aware of some issues with fleet combat, mainly that:

• Artillery Battleships dominate the late-game
  
• Disengagement mechanics favor artillery battleships
  
• Destroyers and Cruisers have extremely limited uses once the next ship size is unlocked
  
• Command Limits are ineffective
  
• Doomstacks aren’t fun

The last two combat issues were deemed out of scope for this rework and may be explored in future updates.


In the Orion update we’ve changed the behavior of most of the combat computers, as well as added a new combat computer. Swarm and Torpedo (New!) computers will charge in, Picket and Line will attempt to stay at the range of your median range weapons, and Artillery and Carrier computers will now attempt to stay at the maximum range of their longest-ranged weapons, and should a ship move closer than that, they will try to maintain that distance from hostile ships.


G slots have been repurposed from Missile slots, and are now used for Torpedos, with Missiles moving to S and M slots. G slots are now only available on Frigates (which we will discuss below) and Cruisers. Proton and Neutron Launchers have been reclassed into Torpedo-type weapons. Torpedo-class weapons also gain a multiplicative damage bonus based on the size of the target. Torpedoes targeting battleships will deal more damage than when targeting corvettes, for example.

We’ve also added more differentiation between the different sizes of weapons, smaller weapons will generally fire faster, and large weapons will generally fire slower, but do more damage. We’ve also added a minimum range to most large-class weapons (except lasers).

Strike craft will no longer intercept missiles, but will continue to fight each other and larger ships. Flak has been changed to more strongly counter strike craft, while point defense has been changed to more strongly counter missiles and torpedoes.

Ships now get a limited number of Disengagement Opportunities per combat. All current drives provide 1 disengagement roll (except for Psi Jump Drives, which provide 2) once the ship takes hull damage below its disengagement threshold, and the Hit and Run war doctrine grants all of your ships an additional attempt. Civilian ships set to evasive will continue to try to disengage with each hit.

We feel this rework adds a breath of fresh air into space combat in Stellaris, and we can’t wait to see what the community-at-large thinks of these new changes!


After all these changes, we’ve also changed up how ship autodesign works in Orion. Where previously, the ship designer would autodesign one “best” ship, there are now different roles of ships you can choose, and the auto designer will choose components that best match the ship role you’ve chosen.

Ship roles:

• Screen - Focuses on Picket Ship sections with armed point defense and flak
  
  • Available to: Corvettes, Destroyers and Defense Platforms
• Gunship - Generally prefers to maximize the number of medium-sized weapons available
  
  • Available to: Corvettes, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Titans and Defense Platforms
• Artillery - Prefers large, long-ranged weapons and missiles in smaller slots
  
  • Available to: Corvettes, Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battleships, Titans and Defense Platforms
• Brawler - Gets up close with very short range weapons like autocannons and disruptors
  
  • Available to: Corvettes and Destroyers
• Torpedo - Uses short-ranged torpedoes to destroy larger ships
  
  • Available to: Frigates and Cruisers
• Carrier - hangs back and launches strike craft from maximum engagement range
  
  • Avaiable to: Cruisers, Battleships and Defense Platforms

Learn more about the Fleet Combat Rebalance here:



In 3.6 “Orion”, choosing an Ascension should be more of a gradual process than in previous versions. After unlocking the prerequisites for one of the four ascension paths, you will be able to choose an Ascension Perk that will unlock a special Ascension Tradition Tree.

As you progress through this tree, you will need to complete at least one special project in order to proceed further down the tree, unlocking gradually more powerful bonuses over time, rather than just saving up two ascension perks and magically changing your species into synthetics while the game is paused.

We have made these changes to all of the currently existing ascension paths, Genetic, Synthetic and Psionic, as well as the new Cybernetic tradition tree.

Watch our Ascension Paths Feature Highlight video on YouTube:



In the Orion update, we have split Cybernetics from the Synthetic Ascension Path, and turned it into its own, unique ascension. Available to Regular Empires, Hive Minds and Driven Assimilators for owners of Utopia, Cybernetic Ascension plays into the plug-and-play nature of robotic enhancements in Sci-Fi.

This Ascension Path is unlocked by the Flesh is Weak Ascension Perk (renamed Organo-Machine Interfacing for Driven Assimilators and Hive-Minds). To expand upon Cybernetic Ascension, we have added Cybernetic Traits that are only available to Cybernetic pops, after taking the Integrated Anatomy tradition. These traits make use of normal biological trait point and pick limits, but are not blocked by any biological traits. The traits available to cyborgs are based off of the traits available to robotic species, however they are slightly cheaper in terms of trait points while giving the pops a small amount of energy upkeep.


One of our goals with the Ascension Path rework was to increase the value of those Ascension Paths that seemed lackluster. To that end, we have repurposed the Synthetic Age Ascension Perk - previously the only ascension available to machines, to allow machine intelligences to complete Synthetic Ascension as well. Unlike Synthetic Ascension for regular empires, this does not require Utopia.


While Psionic Ascension has received numerous buffs, the biggest change happens when you breach the shroud for the first time. As part of the Ascension Path changes, we have reworked how forming a Covenant with Shroud entities works, now when you breach the shroud for the first time you will be approached to form a Covenant with a Shroud entity, chosen semi-randomly, but weighted by your ethics, civics, ascension perks, and several other choices you’ve made throughout the game to that point.

If you choose to form the covenant, you will receive a weak modifier from the shroud entity, that will grow more powerful over time, as well as granting various boons and unique components that are only available by forming a Covenant with a shroud entity.

If you choose not to form a covenant, you may be approached later by another shroud entity to form a covenant, or in exchange for Zro you can choose to approach a specific Shroud Entity and attempt to form a Covenant with them directly -- beware, however, your chosen Shroud Entity may not be willing to form a Covenant with you at this time and may be very displeased to be interacting with your psychics at all. You have been warned.


Also coming in the Orion update, is a new specialist Federation type, the Holy Covenant. This Federation type is included in the Federations Expansion and plays into the strengths of a Spiritualist Empire. While Machine Intelligence empires are allowed to join Holy Covenants, they are not permitted to become President of the Federation under normal circumstances.

As your new Holy Covenant levels up, you will receive a range of bonuses to unity production, Priest output, and the Spiritualist faction. At the maximum level, these Federations can turn Spiritualist empires into powerhouses, ready to spread the Good Word at a moment’s notice.


In 3.6 “Orion” we have added a number of planetary unique buildings to the Orbital Rings that are included in the Overlord expansion. You can now construct Psi Corps, an Orbital Shield Generator, Galactic Stock Exchange, Embassy Complex, Noble Estates, and a Slave Processing Facility on your orbital ring, and save the valuable building slots on your planets. Most of these buildings have the same effect on the Orbital Ring as they do on the planet’s surface.


The Crystal of Odryskia has been described as an artifact of incalculable wealth. It is said that the value of even a single shard is enough to drive mortal minds to insanity. When found, this artifact will passively increase your Empire’s Rare Crystal production, and when activated will provide up to 60 months of Energy income for your empire, as well as give one of your scientists the Maniacal trait, as long as you’re not a Hive Mind.

We won’t tell you how to find this Relic but guard it carefully if you do find it in your playthrough.


We’ve also added some new accessibility improvements to 3.6 “Orion”. By opening Settings, and going to the Accessibility tab, there’s a new option at the bottom, called Text To Speech. Turning this on will use Windows’ or Mac built-in Text to Speech generator, and adds a new icon to event windows and other places that feature long texts, that will allow you to have the event text read to you.

Important to note that if you’re getting text-to-speech in the wrong language, you need to set up Windows Text-to-Speech voice to your language, and this functionality is not supported by Linux at this time.

Other things to know:

• Pressing the TTS button again will stop the current reading.
  
• You can open the pause menu(ESC) at any point while TTS is reading text in order to make it stop. This is useful if you've already closed the window containing the text and you don't want TTS to continue reading.
  
• The voice generation itself is handled by your operating system, which means that there may be cases where things sound sub-optimal, but where we cannot address this by adjusting the system itself.
  
• Great care should be taken not to feed TTS text pertaining to the individual freedoms of synthetic lifeforms.

We’ve also gone through the First Contact events and added more randomly triggering events to First Contact, we’ve added a new event chain - Negative Mass, and Terraforming Candidates should now appear on the galaxy map.

This is not the full list of changes, you can read the full changelog (in English only) on the Stellaris forums..

Thanks for playing Stellaris, and we hope you enjoy this latest batch of new features and changes!

written by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

I know that we said that we weren’t going to be updating the 3.6 “Orion” Open Beta branch again, but since the Thanksgiving holidays are coming in the US, I’ve asked for one last update to be pushed to the open beta branch, with a potential release candidate.

This update should be going up right about now, so you get this week's dev diary a day earlier than usual.


Yes, Orion will be released soon. We’re currently targeting the 29th of November unless unexpected issues arise from this final (really!) beta release.

Here are the complete notes for Stellaris 3.6.0 “Orion”.


Due to the incredible success of the Orion Open Beta, we’re very likely to do similar releases in the future. Thank you all again for your help - Orion’s in much better shape thanks to your feedback.

I intend on pursuing a smaller set of changes for the next one - testing out a limited set of AI vassalization acceptance changes as the next Open Beta, and possibly some economic tweaks.


The Canis Minor update will follow Orion in Q1 of 2023, and among other things it will include some of the feedback from the Orion beta that we weren’t able to address for 3.6, and further combat adjustments based on live observation.

This includes things such as a rebalancing of technologies to make the Engineering branch less heavy compared to the other two. I’ll go into the other things planned for the update in the new year.

One of Ptolemy’s constellations, Canis Minor is the little dog that follows the hunter Orion.


Meet Tofu, the little dog that follows our QA Director.​

That’s it for today. Enjoy the release candidate!


Reminder: If you’re using mods, they’re likely to break.

Hello Stellaris Community!

We're here to talk to you today about the Uncharted Frontiers bundle, what this bundle adds to the game, and how to get the most out of the included content. This bundle is only available until November 29th!

The Uncharted Frontiers bundle contains the Ancient Relics Story Pack, Leviathans Story Pack, and the MegaCorp expansion. It adds two and a half blorg’s worth of content to base-game Stellaris -- which is also included in the bundle, get it here!

Already have all this content? Stellaris and selected DLCs are on sale until November 29th. There's never been a better time to pick up the DLC you might be missing. See the full list of discounts here!


The Ancient Relics story pack adds many relics to discover in your Stellaris galaxy. Relics are ancient, powerful artifacts that provide both a passive buff to your empire, and can be activated for temporary buffs to your empire.


Relics are generally discovered by excavating archaeological sites or completing precursor event chains. When investigating certain anomalies, your science ship can discover mysteries from the past -- you will need to assign a science ship to excavate these archaeology sites. With a science ship and scientist assigned to an archaeology site, the site will progress and reveal the story of your scientists excavating the site, and what they discover as they’re doing so.


Ancient Relics also adds two new precursor event chains, the Baol and the Zroni. The Baol were an ancient plantoid hivemind that expanded to control a sizable portion of the galaxy, before being destroyed by an even more powerful species. The Zroni were a psionically gifted race, who discovered how to alter the composition of Shroud itself before a question of morality lead to a vicious civil war that destroyed them. Both of these event chains have powerful relics at their culmination and can alter the course of your empire’s history.


Ancient Relics also helps you complete your precursor event chains with the addition of minor artifacts. Minor artifacts represent obscure technology and half-forgotten lore recovered from archaic civilizations, only partially understood by our own science. They are more common than Relics, and can be spent to enact various empire-wide effects. These effects will allow you to unlock previously unknown technologies, or receive one of several random civilian or military buffs. They also can help you discover more precursor insights, or unlock hidden secrets of your precursor event chain.


Moving onto the Leviathans Story Pack, we end up with even more mysteries to discover in the galaxy. From mysterious enclaves, to giant space guardians to a late-game event chain that pits two ancient rivals against each other.


First, lets talk enclaves: Enclaves are unique in Stellaris, they don’t own their space and will build trust with other empires over time. Generally, their trust is financial in nature - doing business with them makes them trust you more. However, you may also gain access to unique starbase buildings and additional trust by owning the system the enclave is in and additional diplomatic options depending on the other things you’ve discovered in the galaxy. The Leviathans Story Pack adds three unique enclaves to Stellaris.

The Curator order, founded eons ago by the powerful empires at the time, the curator’s sacred duty is to preserve and disseminate knowledge to prevent the galaxy from falling into a dark age of extinction and barbarism. For a price, they will assist you with your research, reveal some of the mysteries of the universe, or give you a wise level 5 scientist with the curator trait. Doing business with the Curator order will certainly help your empire gain a technological edge -- or catch up technologically if you’ve fallen behind.

The Artisan Troupe’s members have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of music, art and culture, and all those things that make existence bearable to sapient life throughout the galaxy. They will give you the option to become a patron, which also allows certain patron-only events to trigger, including unlocking a powerful, empire-unique ministry of culture building. You can also commission an art piece, organize a festival on one of your worlds, and potentially found an art college on your starbase, should you own the system that their enclave is in. Dealings with the Artisans are especially beneficial for empires that have naturally low pop happiness, since happiness is directly tied to planetary stability, which is tied to pop production.

Our final enclave included in the Leviathans story pack is the traders. The Trader enclave comes in one of three flavors: Xuracorp, Riggan Commerce Exchange, and the Muutagen Merchant Guild. These enclaves allow access to monthly strategic resources, for a price. If you’ve gained enough trust with them, you may also gain the ability to hire an immortal level-five governor. Contact with the Traders is especially important for those playthroughs where you find yourself playing tall, or if you want earlier access to strategic resources that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.


With the Leviathans Story pack, it's possible to find mysterious and ancient guardians hidden out in the galaxy. Some of these guardians are overtly hostile, such as the ether drake and dimensional horror, while others such as the enigmatic fortress and infinity machine potentially offer long-term benefits and otherwise inaccessible bonuses and technologies for your empire.


In the late game with leviathans and with two or more fallen empires in your galaxy, its possible for both fallen empires to become ancient rivals. These rivals will attempt to align the empires of the galaxy against the other, and draw a line through the galaxy. You will be given the choice to join one or the other side of this war in heaven -- or should you feel powerful enough, you can - at your own peril - choose to remain independent and attempt to form a coalition of the younger races against these giants in the playground.


And finally, we come to the MegaCorp expansion! We released a video last week that offers a deep dive into what’s available in MegaCorp.




The Corporate authority makes available a different branch of civics to choose for your empire, some of these are corporate-themed regular civics, while others are specifically available to empires that have the Corporate authority. Most of these civics are made available by owning the MegaCorp expansion, while there are some others - like Permanent Employment - that are unlocked by owning MegaCorp plus another expansion.

MegaCorporations can build unique Branch Office buildings on any colonized planet belonging to an empire they have a commercial pact with. The branch office itself will generate 50% of the planet’s trade value in energy production for the Corporation, and new building slots are unlocked based on the capital building tier on the planet in question.

Branch office buildings will generate jobs that are filled by the planet owner’s pops, and will generate resources for both empires in most cases.

MegaCorps also get a unique cassus belli against other Megacorporations, as long as two corporations have branch offices in the same empire they will get the Expel Corporation. Expel Corporation allows you to declare war to expel a rival megacorp’s branch offices from the empire in question.


This Megacorporation embraces a curious blend of commercial and spiritualistic values, in which the position of ordained minister and corporate officer have merged into a single role. Choosing the gospel of the masses civic with the corporate authority will convert your money-loving corporation into a spiritualist megachurch, which gives the added bonus of increasing spiritualist ethics attraction on planets that you build branch offices on. Every pop on an empire with a branch office with the spiritualist ethic will increase the trade value of the planet by .33.

Additionally, Corporations with the Gospel of the Masses civic can build a special holding on their vassels - the temple of prosperity - which adds two Prosperity Preacher jobs to the planet, as well as increases Spiritualist Ethics attraction by +50%.


This megacorporation can trace its origins back to a crime syndicate that eventually grew powerful enough to supplant all forms of local government. Choosing the Criminal Heritage Civic with the Corporate authority is definitely the spiciest of the three types of megacorporation.

Unlike MegaCorps or MegaChurches, Criminal Syndicates do not require Commerical Pacts in order to open branch offices as long as they’re not at war or have a truce with the planet’s owner. Additionally, their branch offices become more valuable when there is more crime there is, and their branch office buildings will generally increase the amount of crime on the planet they’re built on.

Criminal Syndicates gain access to a new set of Branch Office buildings, that definitely have a unique criminal flavor. Criminal Syndicates also gain 20% infiltration speed and +1 codebreaking.

But wait.. There’s more! In addition to playable MegaCorporations, MegaCorp also includes 3 new megastructures, a new planet type, roving trade caravans, and new ascension perks!


The Mega Art Installation is an artistic beacon on a stellar scale, this installation inspires and represents the spirit of its creators. The mega art installation is a three-stage megastructure (four, if you have the Ancient Relics story pack) and requires the Mega-Engineering Technology, and generates vast sums of unity and extra planetary amenities for your empire, which increases with every stage. These bonuses make the Mega Art Installation a great culmination to a unity run, or a great way to catch up if you’ve fallen behind on traditions and ascension perks.

The Strategic Coordination Center is a facility for synchronizing the national Starbase network, augmenting defensive and offensive capabilities. The Strategic Coordination Center is a three stage megastructure and requires the Mega-Engineering Technology as well. Each stage produces naval capacity, starbase capacity, allows starbases to support more defensive platforms, and gives a subspace speed boost. This is a great megastructure for those late game wars or for an extra fleet capacity boost to defeat an extragalactic crisis that may or may not come knocking on your galaxy.

The final megastructure added in MegaCorp is the Matter Decompressor. The Matter Decompressor is a four-stage megastructure and requires Mega-Engineering, having built or repaired another megastructure, and the Galactic Wonders ascension perk. This megastructure, when constructed, will decompress the matter from a black hole and convert it into minerals for your empire, with each stage producing an increasing amount of minerals.

What could you need this many minerals for you ask? Well, that brings us to our next feature included in MegaCorp: the Ecumenopolis.


An ecumenopolis is a city that has grown so large that it encompasses the entire planet. Construction of an ecumenopolis requires anti-gravity engineering technology, as well as the Arcology Project ascension perk. Ecumenopolis give massive bonuses to habitability, resource production, pop growth speed and additional resettlement chance. Additionally, they start with all building slots unlocked, and all normal planetary features are removed.

But that’s not all, Ecumenopolis also gain access to a special set of arcology districts, that provide more housing and jobs than regular districts, allowing you to build taller than ever before in Stellaris.


What economy-focused expansion would be complete without roaming trade caravans? Enter, the Caravaneers. The Caravaneers, based out of a system called Chor’s Compass, are roaming trade caravans that will travel to each empire in the galaxy. Upon entering their borders, the caravaneers will offer a rare and unique trade, some of these are extremely valuable and grant access to powerful planetary decisions, technologies, components and more. Caravaneers are traders, however, so don’t expect to get by just paying with energy credits, as some of their prices are extremely… creative.

Chor’s Compass, the Caravaneer’s home system, doubles as a casino. There you can buy some of their currency -- CaravanCoinz. Caravan Coinz can be used to play the slots for a chance at winning big on resources or planetary modifiers. Or you can choose to spend your caravan coinz, and build a sense of pride and accomplishment by opening a reliquary.

Reliquaries have a slightly better chance of granting resources, research or planetary modifiers, and are also the only way to gain access to the GALATRON.


MegaCorp allows access to up to 4 new ascension perks.

• The Arcology project, which allows building an ecumenopolis.
  
• Galactic Wonders, which allows the construction of a Matter Decompressor -- Galactic Wonders is also unlocked by the Utopia expansion, but has different effects depending on whether MegaCorp or Utopia or both are active.
  
• The Universal Transactions Ascension Perk reduces the cost of constructing branch offices on planets, as well as removes the influence cost from commercial pacts -- a must pick for those MegaCorporations looking after their bottom line -- which… should be all of them?
  
• The final ascension perk unlocked with MegaCorp is xeno compatibility. This ascension perk will allow your species to reproduce with other species you find out in the galaxy. It also grants +20% pop growth speed, if the planet has two or more species on it, +33% immigration pull, and allows the creation of hybrid species.

Hybrid species will choose a portrait at random from the two parent species, as well as a mix of traits from both species. Additionally, hybrid species get +1 trait point and +1 trait pick. Species are also more likely to create a hybrid if they’re from the same species phenotype.

If you like the sound of all this, pick up the Uncharted Frontiers bundle today on Steam, and check the Stellaris store page for the full list of discounts!

written by Iggy

Greetings, ghouls and ghasts! Chief Reanimator Iggy here to report the most recent innovation in the field of necromancy. With the 3.6 update, we will bring you the Cordyceptic Drones civic! These delightful fungi will allow you to dominate the galaxy with zombie space fauna, as this is the third Reanimation civic! I know many of you have been enjoying this on the Beta, but if you give me a moment, I will have something new to show you!


If you have been following how I made Permanent Employment, you would know that I want all these different reanimation civics to have access to the Leviathan Reanimation feature while still having unique gameplay. Cordyceptics follow this trend giving hives a much more biological reanimation method.


Also including the new Hivemind Government Type Parasitic Overmind!

The civic can be incredibly powerful based on the space fauna you encounter. If you find Tiyana Vek early game, then you are in for a fun game while you have to restructure your entire economy to produce enough food to keep your dread fleet flying. Yet that is not all! Cordyceptic Empires are masters of all things biological, so your Amoeba Flagella will now be a force to be reckoned with in the early game. And if you happen to get the Prethoryn as your crisis, you might be able to use those missiles better than the Prethoryn themselves!


Now, who would want to start with some boring old Corvettes?

As a final little flavor feature for you, I present you with the Cordyceptic Reanimation Facility, capable of resurrecting space fauna continuously for a food upkeep! However, it requires that you find systems rich in organic life.


A new Tiyanki fleet is ready to be deployed!


Back when Eladrin and I first introduced Reanimatable Leviathans for 3.1 “Lem” there was one piece of feedback we kept hearing internally. Will the Leviathans look like Zombies? While we couldn't deliver it back then. After much finagling, bartering, and pledging my soul to our Art Director, we are here to bring you Reanimated Leviathans as you have never seen them before.


Someone call in the Fire Department ‘cos it’s SMOKING in here!

This collaboration required the cooperation of each discipline within our art team, with beautiful concept art, new shaders, and breathtaking VFX!




Machines will repurpose dead organic matter.

Eventually…

Now go out and raise some dead!

written by Eladrin and Mr Cosmogone

Hello everyone!

It’s been a busy few weeks here on the Stellaris team, and I wanted to thank the community for helping us out so much with the 3.6 Orion Open Beta.

There was significantly more activity than anticipated - during the month of October, over 100,000 players took part in the Orion Open Beta branch - and the volume of feedback we received was incredible. The 3.6 update should be much better thanks to your involvement.

We have a few more fixes that we’d like to get into the update (such as vassals colonizing Holy Worlds), after which it’ll go through the final testing, localization, and release process. As mentioned last week, we’ll be keeping the Open Beta branch available until the live release of 3.6 Orion so you can continue your games.

I’ll now pass you over to Mr.Cosmogone, who will provide a bit of enlightenment about one of the features that has been in the Open Beta, but hasn’t gotten a proper dev diary thus far. (Now, with non-placeholder art!)


Peace be upon you, children,

Mr.Cosmogone here, to tell you about the upcoming Spiritualist Federation. I had the chance to collaborate on this with the famous Caligula who had long yearned for a way to share his spiritual convictions with his allies.

Some of you may have already had a chance to play this as part of the ongoing Open Beta, they might not find anything new here, but for the rest of the faithfuls, let me introduce to the Holy Covenant:



Spiritualist empires will find this new federation type to be quite aligned with their gamestyle, as it will provide them with a range of bonuses about unity, priests and the spiritualist faction.



Their level two perks will help lay strong foundations for your church:





While the third level will help you on your way towards ascension:





At the fourth level, priests will start appearing left and right to carry the good word.





The fifth and last level of the federation will be a consecration for its members:





Like all federation types, the Holy Covenant comes with a unique succession challenge, the conclave, where the most pious are assured to be rewarded. Or perhaps the most generous. Money is the root of all sins after all, so you might as well give it away.

That’s it from me this week, and remember if you want to play all the cool things we’ve talked about over the last few weeks, go play the beta!

We're happy to announce that we've updated the 3.6 Open Beta again today. As mentioned in the original announcement, the Open Beta was originally supposed to run until the end of October, however due to the unexpectedly high number of players who have participated, we’re going to leave the Open Beta branch available until the official release of 3.6 ‘Orion’. We will continue to monitor the feedback you provide, but due to how close this is to the release, changes made from feedback this late will not be in the release of 3.6 ‘Orion’.

We’d like to thank all of those that have taken the time to try out the changes and given their feedback.

Thus, below are the patch notes for this week’s update to the Open Beta.

Further updates to the Stellaris 3.6.0 ‘Orion’ open beta
[expand type=details]
Balance

• Explicitly prevented various scripted solar systems from spawning inside Marauder territory. These include Amor Alveo, Wenkwort, the Caravaneer capital, and Lost Colony origin systems.
  
• Integrated Preservation for Machine Intelligences now affects Evaluators (and Chronicle Drones) not Coordinators.
  
• Martial Law, Hunter Killer Drones and Compliance Drones planet modifiers now provide penalties to both mechanical and organic pop assembly.
  
• Moved the repeatable technologies for strike craft into Society - Military Theory.
  
• Rebalanced synchronicity traditions to match with the changes to harmony traditions.
  
• Larger Unbidden ships and structures now have a point defense solution. Bzzt.

Beta Updates

• Pacifist Xenophobe empires are no longer ambivalent about attacks on the Caravaneers
  
• Fix for terraforming candidates that shown when tech is missing.
  
• The Energy Siphon is now a space fauna weapon
  
• Fixed a number of tooltips not showing for hive-mind cybernetic ascension
  
• Fixed the tooltip for Adaptability for Void Dwellers.
  
• Modular Cybernetics adds Augmentation Drones to Spawning Pools for hive-minds. Augmentation Drones turn alloys into pop assembly for cybernetic hive-mind pops.
  
• Modular Cybernetics no longer gives hive-minds +10% pop assembly.
  
• Ringworld colony designations and ecumenopolis planet class now provide both mechanical and organic pop assembly.
  
• Updated a number of stern sections to have the correct number of aux slots for offspring ships.
  
• Added the Parasitic Overmind Goverment type
  
• Added checks for corporate civics for shroud patrons
  
• Added missing pop growth and assembly modifiers to unity designations for ringworlds.
  
• Added missing tiyanki pop assembly for hive minds.
  
• Fixed most of the machine intelligence authority text having highlights.
  
• Updated Integrated Anatomy tooltip.
  
• Balanced numbers for the instrument of Desire.
  
• Fixed that the Cordyceptic Reanimation Facility wasn't buildable inside Amor Alveo.
  
• Changed ethics attraction for the Composer and the Whisperer.
  
• Knight jobs now give amenities instead of stability as reward from a quest. The Order's Keep now give 15 stability as a reward from that quest
  
• Players now have a wider choice of leaders to become chosen through their covenant.
  
• Players should no longer be able to form covenants with all the entities if they refuse the first covenant.
  
• Shroud cooldown modifiers should now appear as percentage without need for unique loc.
  
• The Whisperers stability penalty has been reduced. It now comes with a reduction in Unity.
  
• The Whisperers will no longer kill up to 8 (!) pops on a planet.

Bugfixes

• It is no longer possible to engage the Marauders or Horde in multiple dialogs
  
• Lead ships should no longer run into the enemy disregarding their combat computer
  
• Tooltip for opinion decay rate now shows two decimal places
  
• Reunited the 'Code Changes' and 'Incompatible Code' modifiers with their icons
  
• Fix for when becoming a vassal resets all Policies and Species rights to Default.
  
• Reimplemented the localisation for the Trader Proxy Office.
  
• Marauder clans may no longer spawn in systems which are adjacent to player empires.
  
• Fixed AI's difficulty-adjusted economic modifiers, plus certain misevaluations of modifier benefits in its economic strategy
  
• Pop Assembly modifiers now have decimal places.
  
• Shroud Chosen Leaders will no longer lose their chosen trait on becoming rulers

Improvements

• The Epi-Genetic Triggers technology and Genetic Resequencing tradition now both allow the removal of pre-sapient traits from species via species modification. The Servile trait from the Syncretic Evolution origin and traits bestowed by the Enigmatic Cache count as pre-sapient traits for this.
  
• Renamed 'Planetary Government' and 'Planetary Unification' for gestalts

Modding

• Fixed show_in_outliner in megastructures not actually working
  
• Moved most pop upkeep and resource production to inline script.
  
• Removed pop_assembly_speed modifier. You should use planet_pop_assembly_(organic_)mult instead. The sole difference previously was the former only worked in species traits (the untriggered sections) and the latter worked everywhere else (but not species triats). The error log didn't warn you of this, either. So now the latter works everywhere and the former no longer exists.

[/expand]

Once again, by the time this dev diary goes live, the Open Beta should be updated with the above changes. This is likely going to be final update to the beta branch.

Due to the Open Beta update, this dev diary replaces our normally scheduled dev diary that would have gone out on Thursday. We'll have more news next week.


Don't forget to turn off your mods, they will break.