May 30, 2023

Stellaris 3.8.3 "Gemini" Patch Now Available!

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

Hello,

Our latest patch is now live and ready for download.

Please find the patch notes below.

Enjoy!

STELLARIS 3.8.3 PATCH NOTES
[expand type=details]
############################################################
#################### VERSION 3.8.3 ######################
############################################################

Improvements

It is now possible to rename council positions by clicking on council position name in the council view.
Added additional event chains to Under One Rule.
Under One Rule now will take into account if the ruler was bad or good towards citizens.
Added a checkbox to toggle automatic expansion of a sector in the sector editor
Made the three different "Terraforming Candidate Discovered" events turn into messages if you have already found one before.
The pre-sapients that worship the Beholder now have the Psionic trait.
The Beholder's Psi-Inoculation process is now a pair of decisions to toggle it on and off, instead of a decision to be enacted for each pop you want to become psionic.
The Animator of Clay has blessed the corroded one.
Imperial Heirs will now be more likely to adopt the class of the current ruler if you have the Philosopher King civic.
Imperial heirs will now have their chosen class weighted by civics and traditions that give bonuses to specific leader classes.
Added the Reorganize Council agenda, which allows reselection of unlocked council positions without the need to reform the government.
Beholder now has a recruitment event, and Azaryn's recruitment event has a couple more options
Added a checkbox in the army tab of the planet view to control if a planet is used via the sector army builder or not
Added scroll wheel speed settings
Leaders in the leader pool that start with a negative trait, now correctly gets one less additional negative trait during their lifespan.
For players without Galactic Paragons, leaders will more often get traits that match if they're assigned as councilors or not.
Increased the age span of new leaders, but weighted towards the middle. Initial Leaders will now also be roughly the same age as pool leaders.
The edict fund is now shown in the council view.
Imperial empires can now crown a Chosen One to be the Divine Sovereign if the Chosen One is the current ruler or heir.

Balance

Legendary leaders do not count towards Leader Capacity.
The Eager trait now has an additional effect: these leaders will not contribute towards Leader Capacity until they reach level 4. Assigned some event spawned leaders the Eager (II) trait.
Admirals that command fleets hired from marauders no longer count towards your leader cap.
XP Penalties for going over leader capacity have been reduced. The LEADER_CAPACITY_XP_SCALE define has been added for modders to be able to easily adjust this number.
Military fleets led by an Admiral can now explore unsurveyed hyperlanes. (This does not permit Admirals to survey planets, anomalies, or wormholes.)
Admirals no longer give Fleet Command Limit based off of their level.
Researching Galactic Administration now removes the cooldown for government reform, this was previously only done if you obtained it via Statecraft traditions.
Rebalanced many traditions and ascension Perks.
Opener for Aptitude traditions now gives +1 trait, moved from the Finisher. This is retroactively applied to leaders that have been hired or are in your leader pool.
The Empire Needs You now gives -25% Leader Hire Cost instead of +1 Leader Capacity.
Specialist Training now gives +25% Leader XP Gain.
Psychological Profiling now gives -25% Leader Upkeep Cost in addition to -1 Max Negative Traits.
Healthcare Program now gives +20 Leader Lifespan instead of +10 Leader Lifespan.
Aptitude Finisher now gives +1 Leader Capacity and +1 Leader Trait Pick options instead of +1 trait.
Science Division now gives -10% Scientist Cost and Upkeep instead of +20% Scientist XP Gain.
Polytechnic Education now gives +10% Leader XP gain instead of +20%.
Colonial Viceroys now gives -10% Governor Cost and Upkeep instead of +20% Governor XP Gain.
War Games now gives -10% Admiral Cost and Upkeep instead of +20% Admiral XP Gain.
Mind and Body now gives +10 Leader Lifespan instead of +20 Leader Lifespan.
Finisher effect for Statecraft now grants Galactic Administration as a research option with 25% progress instead of giving the tech for tree.
Resistance is Frugal now also gives -10% General Cost and Upkeep.
Imperial Prerogative now gives +2 Leader Capacity in addition to its existing effects.
Transcendent Learning Prerogative now gives +2 Leader Capacity, +1 Leader Pool Size and +33% Leader XP gain.
Aptitude Tradition "Champions of the Empire" now gives bonus per Leaders' levels. Effect is now a flat -2 Empire Size per Governor level, and 0.5% Exp per Scientist level (and 2 Naval capacity per Admiral/General level)
Guardian trait maximum effect is now +33% Defense Platform Damage and Hull Points.
Frontier Spirit trait maximum effects changed to -10% Colony Ship Cost and +50% Colonization Speed and +1 starting pop for colonies.
Cyborg generals now increase planetary combat width.
Reduced passive experience gain by 30% for Progenitor Hive leaders from level 1-6 and 50% for Progenitor Hive leaders between 7-10.
Gray Eminence destiny trait now reduces the effects of empire size, instead of reducing empire size directly. Updated Aturion Efficiency to match Gray Eminence.
Now imperial rulers do not lose imperial heir trait, so they don't become worse when they take over the country.
Lowered the spawn chance for the legendary paragon Keides by 75%.
Autocannons are no longer valued at three times their intended military power.
Now criminals are also unhappy when under oppressive autocracy civic
Kai-Sha's "Expanded Contact Network" event will now upgrade her Shady Contacts trait if she already has it. And gives intel on other empires if it has already been maxed out.
Replaced -20% Empire Size reduction for Aturion Efficiency trait with -10% Empire Size Penalty.
Leader traits that have base resource production now produce the market equivalent of 8 energy/month for tier 1 and 24 energy/month for tier.
Aggressor admiral sub-class now gives +7.5% weapon damage.
Artillerist II trait now gives +7.5% tracking.
Fortifier trait now scales between -5% Starbase upgrade cost and -5% Defense platform cost at tier 1 to -10% Starbase upgrade cost, -10% Defense platform cost, +5% Starbase hullpoints and +5% Defense platform hullpoints at tier 3.
Armada Logistician trait ship upkeep maximum reduction is now -10%.
Military Pioneer trait maximum effects are now +20% Ship Build Speed and -10% Ship Build Cost.
Guerilla Tactician now gives a flat 10 Evasion instead of a +50% Evasion multiplier.
Architect of War now gives -10% Military Ship Cost.
Charisma trait now has a maximum Edict Upkeep reduction of -10%
Removed -5% Military Ship Cost from the Strategist sub-class
Geological Consultant trait maximum effect reduced to 9 months of unity per blocker removed.
Retired Fleet Officer trait maximum effects reduced to +20% Ship Build Speed and -10% Ship Build Cost.
Agrarian Upbringing trait now checks for country_uses_food = yes instead of being biological.
Shipwright maximum effects reduced to +10% Ship Build Speed and -10% Ship Build Cost.
Frontier Spirit maximum effects reduced to -10% Colony Ship Cost and +45% Colonization Speed.
Architectural Sense maximum effects reduced to -10% Buildings and Districts Cost, -5% Buildings and District Upkeep, +25% Planetary Build Speed.
Experimenter trait now gives a maxium of 2×Leader Level Research Points per month.
Explorer trait maximum effects reduced to -10% Science Ship Cost and +25% Anomaly Research Speed.
Expansionist maximum effects reduced to -10% Outpost Alloy and Influence Cost.
Great Researcher trait now gives 5×Leader Level Research Points per month.
Taskmaster trait XP reduced from 600 to 500. In return it now has soldiers produce 2/2/2 Energy/Minerals/Food (for countries that use food) or 3/3 Energy/Minerals (for countries that don't)

Bugfixes

Under One Rule now changes to Imperial Authority when transitioning to Galactic Emperor or Psionic Sovereign.
Intellectual Espionage trait now takes into account all researcher category jobs on the planet.
Fixed an issue where the Expanded Hive Warren would get deleted if there was no remaining unupgraded Hive Warrens on the planet
Updated all researcher jobs to check for Academic Recruiter.
Increased the army upkeep from Disorder II trait.
Chainbreaker trait now requires Egalitarian ethics.
Honored Warmaster trait now requires Xenophile ethics.
Commented out cut prospecting decision.
Kidnapper trait now checks that the general's owner allows slavery instead of checking their ethics.
Taskmaster trait no longer gives an undocumented +5% Building Speed per soldier job.
Now you can't terraform with Azaryn without launching her special ability.
The Death of a Great Leader event should no longer fire when you send a leader off to the Keepers of Knowledge.
Cloaked Ships will no longer block starbases from being rebuilt.
Moved gestalt nodes further apart from each other in the council view so that trait picking doesn't get blocked when they have a lot of traits.
The planet visuals should now update properly when planets change class
Fixed an issue where traits given via event options would not correctly display triggered effects
The ambience sound effect played in the council view is now properly affected by the ambience volume slider
Fixed an issue where leaders that changed empires would retain their council position in their old empire
Updated all researcher jobs to check for leader_trait_academia_recruiter
Fixed a bug where modding the species appearance would not apply to the ruler
leader_trait_industrial_espionage now takes into account all researcher category jobs on the planet.
The Scholarium Investigator leader trait now gives +25% Assist Research Efficiency instead of failing to give 10% Research Speed as a non-council trait.
Fixed a COOP bug where it was possible for several players to unlock council positions at the same time resulting in duplicates
If there is a wormhole in the capital system, then the Keides wormhole will spawn in a random neighboring system 1-2 jumps away
Cordyceptic Stargazers now correctly spawn with an amoeba fleet again.
Fixed Eager Explorer empires spawning with an extra scientist.
Slaves are now properly set under dystopian living standard
Any Gestalt empire generated after game start (e.g. from machine uprising) should now correctly get their Gestalt council nodes.
Hyperdrive technologies no longer show duplicated icons.
Fixed issues where starbase modifiers would apply to defensive platforms when they shouldn't
Fixed an issue where pre FTL empires spawned from the necrophage origin would spawn in orbit of their planet
Fixed a bug where ships would sometimes stop following its target when they entered a hyperlane
Zroni Relic will now add 1 level to the leader, but won't choose trait on random it will be up to player to chose the trait.
Fixed notification map ping staying visible for some time after dismissing the notification.
Fixed a bug where some traits would not properly localize their names when their modifiers are part of tooltips
Fixed a bug where the Insightful trait tooltip would duplicate headers for its effects
Fixed an issue where it was not possible to unassign envoys from their current task
Fixed Resilient trait to properly adjust for synths. Did the same for destiny trait which was giving leader life span
Crusader Spirit Opinion Modifier: Now it gives -80 opinion towards everyone of different ethic and +20 to the same ethic empires
Fixed issues with the fleet manager where the buttons to increase and decrease the number of ships would not work correctly when using shift or ctrl modifiers
Rogue Scientist event chain shouldn't trigger for Governors assigned as Head of Science.
Updated some trigger loc from "No of ..." to "Number of ..." to be more consistent with the rest of the game.
Fixed Tooltip for Paranoid Leader Trait
Fixed title case for anomaly.3141 "The Depths of Alien Life"
The event that allows you to pick a Chosen One no longer says "three individuals" are capable of absorbing such power and proceeds to list four names.
Events that give the Chosen traits now check that the leader in question is psionic.
Fixed an issue where you could reinforce a fleet when the template was not filled with the correct ships even though the fleet was filled on command limit
Fixed the spawn chance modifier of the anomaly The Orb, as it could not spawn before.
Beholder planetfall error message now states that an empty building slot is required.
Fixed icon for brainslug species trait again.
You can no longer psi-inoculate hive-minded pops or those being purged.
Fallen empire capital planets should now have the correct planetary designation.
You can no longer create subjects from sectors if the primary species would be an infertile clone army species.
Marauder admirals can no longer serve on the council or be manually fired.
Fixed some edges where a ruler could be chosen by a shroud entity but not awarded the trait.
Added scripted loc for GetDefenseForceOrArmada and GetGDFOrArmada
Updated Cybernetic Advantage agenda so it doesn't display placeholder art.
Regular empires no longer have machine or hive-mind leaders in their external leader pools and vice versa.
Cloned Organs/Self-Preservation Protocols now correctly has the same effects as Mind and Body.
Fixed incorrect modifiers on the adoption effect of Synthetic traditions.
Fixed MP lobby chat messages and scroll bar spilling outside the chat box.
Fixed most tooltips in the game browser not working.
Fixed Plantoids Species Pack DLC not showing up in MP lobby DLC list
Fixed misalignment of the DLC icons in the multiplayer lobby
Fixed icon lists sometimes becoming vertical when they should be horizontal
Fixed coop presence icons not always showing their tooltip.
The Interstellar Recruitment Office tooltip now specifies why you can't build it if you already have one in your empire.
The sentinels archaeology site will now put Azaryn back on her own ship when she returns.
Fixed a bug where some mercenary fleets would not have an admiral assigned to them
Mercenary Admirals now get Mercenary Warrior Trait and 2 admiral traits to represent their level
Mercenary Enclaves should no longer steal their admirals which they just rented out

AI will now wait until it has at least 5 planets and 25 years before choosing a specialization designation for its homeworld
Fixed an issue where AI would be unable to build any buildings if they desired to build the Ancient Refinery but did not have access to any minor artifacts

Stability and Performance

Fixed a number of Out of Sync errors.
Increased performance in the leader view
Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when a scientist was elected ruler while performing science ship orders
Fixed a rare, but persistent crash when an empire was destroyed
Fixed a crash that could sometimes happen if there were issues opening or writing log files
Fixed crash in MP lobby when you confirm disbanding a coop group if the player list changed while the confirmation popup was open.
Disabled tooltips in the loading screen to avoid crashes related to focus loss.

Re-enabled tooltips while the game has no focus as hiding them caused issues for screen readers.
Added tooltips for the join/leave coop empire button in the MP lobby when you can't click it.
Added a tooltip for the coop checkbox in the MP lobby when you can't change it due to being ready.
Use different titles for the multiplayer and coop game browsers.
The multiplayer game browser now has a column that shows whether a game allows coop.
Fixed an issue where the active agendas list would sometimes duplicate elements
Added a new version of the main coop presence view to the topbar for resolutions with width >= 1600
Auto-confirm disbanding a coop group in the MP lobby if all other players leave the group.
Modifiers that affect leader experience gain will now be indented under a "Experience Gain Rate:" header
Added confirmation prompt when selecting a country during hotjoining
Lysator Syng's hire tooltip now shows that hiring him will give you 3 pirate ships as well.
Show decimals for power projection breakdown in naval cap tooltip

Modding

Added set_random_$CLASS$_background_effect script effects, to assign a random background class to a leader. $CLASS$ can be replaced with admiral, general, governor, or scientist.
Added support for custom_tooltip_with_modifiers for council positions.
Updated documentation for council positions to include new script support. See 01_test_councilor.txt for an example of a council position not linked to civics.
Added script effect "unlock_council_selection = yes" to force validation of council positions and allow the player to reselect their council positions.
Fixed the ethics OverLappingElementsBox not reloading properly
Fixed the spacing parameter not working for vertical OverlappingElementBoxTypes
Added new "empire_size_add" modifier, which flatly increases or decreases the Empire size.
Council position unlock screen will now show council positions which are available by scope check but don't require any civics
Added console command "debug_trait_weights", which enables logging of some of the trait random roll weights.
Added military_power_multiplier to weapon components, which allows manual adjustment of combat power assessment for intangibles that are otherwise difficult to automate.
Use 2 decimals for army upkeep in army view

[/expand]

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

If you have an important game going, please back up the save file before trying to load the save in the new version. You can roll back to a prior version by 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.

May 25, 2023

Stellaris Dev Diary #302 - Leaders and 3.8.3 Balance Changes

Stellaris - PDX_ladydzra

by Eladrin

Hello again!

We’ve been working on a balance and bugfixing update, which should hopefully be coming to you early next week. Today I’ll be going over some of the things that will be in it, as well as go into why we’ve prioritized certain fixes over others.

STELLARIS 3.8.3 ‘GEMINI’ PRELIMINARY PATCH NOTES

[expand type=showmore]
############################################################
#################### VERSION 3.8.3 Patch ######################
############################################################

Improvements

It is now possible to rename council positions by clicking on council position name in the council view.
Added additional event chains to Under One Rule.
Under One Rule now will take into account if the ruler was bad or good towards citizens.
Added a checkbox to toggle automatic expansion of a sector in the sector editor
Made the three different "Terraforming Candidate Discovered" events turn into messages if you have already found one before.
The pre-sapients that worship the Beholder now have the Psionic trait.
The Beholder's Psi-Inoculation process is now a pair of decisions to toggle it on and off, instead of a decision to be enacted for each pop you want to become psionic.
The Animator of Clay has blessed the corroded one.
Imperial Heirs will now be more likely to adopt the class of the current ruler if you have the Philosopher King civic.
Imperial heirs will now have their chosen class weighted by civics and traditions that give bonuses to specific leader classes.
Added the Reorganize Council agenda, which allows reselection of unlocked council positions without the need to reform the government.
Beholder now has a recruitment event, and Azaryn's recruitment event has a couple more options
Added a checkbox in the army tab of the planet view to control if a planet is used via the sector army builder or not
Added scroll wheel speed settings
Leaders in the leader pool that start with a negative trait, now correctly gets one less additional negative trait during their lifespan.
For players without Galactic Paragons, leaders will more often get traits that match if they're assigned as councilors or not.
Increased the age span of new leaders, but weighted towards the middle. Initial Leaders will now also be roughly the same age as pool leaders.
The edict fund is now shown in the council view.
Imperial empires can now crown a Chosen One to be the Divine Sovereign if the Chosen One is the current ruler or heir.

Balance

Legendary leaders do not count towards Leader Capacity.
The Eager trait now has an additional effect: these leaders will not contribute towards Leader Capacity until they reach level 4. Assigned some event spawned leaders the Eager (II) trait.
Admirals that command fleets hired from marauders no longer count towards your leader cap.
XP Penalties for going over leader capacity have been reduced. The LEADER_CAPACITY_XP_SCALE define has been added for modders to be able to easily adjust this number.
Military fleets led by an Admiral can now explore unsurveyed hyperlanes. (This does not permit Admirals to survey planets, anomalies, or wormholes.)
Admirals no longer give Fleet Command Limit based off of their level.
Researching Galactic Administration now removes the cooldown for government reform, this was previously only done if you obtained it via Statecraft traditions.
Rebalanced many traditions and ascension Perks.
Opener for Aptitude traditions now gives +1 trait, moved from the Finisher. This is retroactively applied to leaders that have been hired or are in your leader pool.
The Empire Needs You now gives -25% Leader Hire Cost instead of +1 Leader Capacity.
Specialist Training now gives +25% Leader XP Gain.
Psychological Profiling now gives -25% Leader Upkeep Cost in addition to -1 Max Negative Traits.
Healthcare Program now gives +20 Leader Lifespan instead of +10 Leader Lifespan.
Aptitude Finisher now gives +1 Leader Capacity and +1 Leader Trait Pick options instead of +1 trait.
Science Division now gives -10% Scientist Cost and Upkeep instead of +20% Scientist XP Gain.
Polytechnic Education now gives +10% Leader XP gain instead of +20%.
Colonial Viceroys now gives -10% Governor Cost and Upkeep instead of +20% Governor XP Gain.
War Games now gives -10% Admiral Cost and Upkeep instead of +20% Admiral XP Gain.
Mind and Body now gives +10 Leader Lifespan instead of +20 Leader Lifespan.
Finisher effect for Statecraft now grants Galactic Administration as a research option with 25% progress instead of giving the tech for tree.
Resistance is Frugal now also gives -10% General Cost and Upkeep.
Imperial Prerogative now gives +2 Leader Capacity in addition to its existing effects.
Transcendent Learning Prerogative now gives +2 Leader Capacity, +1 Leader Pool Size and +33% Leader XP gain.
Aptitude Tradition "Champions of the Empire" now gives bonus per Leaders' levels. Effect is now a flat -2 Empire Size per Governor level, and 0.5% Exp per Scientist level (and 2 Naval capacity per Admiral/General level)
Guardian trait maximum effect is now +33% Defense Platform Damage and Hull Points.
Frontier Spirit trait maximum effects changed to -10% Colony Ship Cost and +50% Colonization Speed and +1 starting pop for colonies.
Cyborg generals now increase planetary combat width.
Reduced passive experience gain by 30% for Progenitor Hive leaders from level 1-6 and 50% for Progenitor Hive leaders between 7-10.
Gray Eminence destiny trait now reduces the effects of empire size, instead of reducing empire size directly. Updated Aturion Efficiency to match Gray Eminence.
Now imperial rulers do not lose imperial heir trait, so they don't become worse when they take over the country.
Lowered the spawn chance for the legendary paragon Keides by 75%.
Autocannons are no longer valued at three times their intended military power.
Now criminals are also unhappy when under oppressive autocracy civic
Kai-Sha's "Expanded Contact Network" event will now upgrade her Shady Contacts trait if she already has it. And gives intel on other empires if it has already been maxed out.
Replaced -20% Empire Size reduction for Aturion Efficiency trait with -10% Empire Size Penalty.
Leader traits that have base resource production now produce the market equivalent of 8 energy/month for tier 1 and 32 energy/month for tier 2.
Aggressor admiral sub-class now gives +7.5% weapon damage.
Artillerist II trait now gives +7.5% tracking.
Fortifier trait now scales between -5% Starbase upgrade cost and -5% Defense platform cost at tier 1 to -10% Starbase upgrade cost, -10% Defense platform cost, +5% Starbase hullpoints and +5% Defense platform hullpoints at tier 3.
Armada Logistician trait ship upkeep maximum reduction is now -10%.
Military Pioneer trait maximum effects are now +20% Ship Build Speed and -10% Ship Build Cost.
Guerilla Tactician now gives a flat 10 Evasion instead of a +50% Evasion multiplier.
Architect of War now gives -10% Military Ship Cost.
Charisma trait now has a maximum Edict Upkeep reduction of -10%
Removed -5% Military Ship Cost from the Strategist sub-class
Geological Consultant trait maximum effect reduced to 9 months of unity per blocker removed.
Retired Fleet Officer trait maximum effects reduced to +20% Ship Build Speed and -10% Ship Build Cost.
Agrarian Upbringing trait now checks for country_uses_food = yes instead of being biological.
Shipwright maximum effects reduced to +10% Ship Build Speed and -10% Ship Build Cost.
Frontier Spirit maximum effects reduced to -10% Colony Ship Cost and +45% Colonization Speed.
Architectural Sense maximum effects reduced to -10% Buildings and Districts Cost, -5% Buildings and District Upkeep, +25% Planetary Build Speed.
Experimenter trait now gives a maxium of 2×Leader Level Research Points per month.
Explorer trait maximum effects reduced to -10% Science Ship Cost and +25% Anomaly Research Speed.
Expansionist maximum effects reduced to -10% Outpost Alloy and Influence Cost.
Great Researcher trait now gives 5×Leader Level Research Points per month.
Taskmaster trait XP reduced from 600 to 500. In return it now has soldiers produce 2/2/2 Energy/Minerals/Food (for countries that use food) or 3/3 Energy/Minerals (for countries that don't)

Bugfixes

Under One Rule now changes to Imperial Authority when transitioning to Galactic Emperor or Psionic Sovereign.
Intellectual Espionage trait now takes into account all researcher category jobs on the planet.
Fixed an issue where the Expanded Hive Warren would get deleted if there was no remaining unupgraded Hive Warrens on the planet
Updated all researcher jobs to check for Academic Recruiter.
Increased the army upkeep from Disorder II trait.
Chainbreaker trait now requires Egalitarian ethics.
Honored Warmaster trait now requires Xenophile ethics.
Commented out cut prospecting decision.
Kidnapper trait now checks that the general's owner allows slavery instead of checking their ethics.
Taskmaster trait no longer gives an undocumented +5% Building Speed per soldier job.
Now you can't terraform with Azaryn without launching her special ability.
The Death of a Great Leader event should no longer fire when you send a leader off to the Keepers of Knowledge.
Cloaked Ships will no longer block starbases from being rebuilt.
Moved gestalt nodes further apart from each other in the council view so that trait picking doesn't get blocked when they have a lot of traits.
The planet visuals should now update properly when planets change class
Fixed an issue where traits given via event options would not correctly display triggered effects
The ambience sound effect played in the council view is now properly affected by the ambience volume slider
Fixed an issue where leaders that changed empires would retain their council position in their old empire
Fixed a bug where modding the species appearance would not apply to the ruler
The Scholarium Investigator leader trait now gives +25% Assist Research Efficiency instead of failing to give 10% Research Speed as a non-council trait.
Fixed a COOP bug where it was possible for several players to unlock council positions at the same time resulting in duplicates
If there is a wormhole in the capital system, then the Keides wormhole will spawn in a random neighboring system 1-2 jumps away
Cordyceptic Stargazers now correctly spawn with an amoeba fleet again.
Fixed Eager Explorer empires spawning with an extra scientist.
Slaves are now properly set under dystopian living standard
Any Gestalt empire generated after game start (e.g. from machine uprising) should now correctly get their Gestalt council nodes.
Hyperdrive technologies no longer show duplicated icons.
Fixed issues where starbase modifiers would apply to defensive platforms when they shouldn't
Fixed an issue where pre FTL empires spawned from the necrophage origin would spawn in orbit of their planet
Fixed a bug where ships would sometimes stop following its target when they entered a hyperlane
Zroni Relic will now add 1 level to the leader, but won't choose trait on random it will be up to player to chose the trait.
Fixed notification map ping staying visible for some time after dismissing the notification.
Fixed a bug where some traits would not properly localize their names when their modifiers are part of tooltips
Fixed a bug where the Insightful trait tooltip would duplicate headers for its effects
Fixed an issue where it was not possible to unassign envoys from their current task
Fixed Resilient trait to properly adjust for synths. Did the same for destiny trait which was giving leader life span
Crusader Spirit Opinion Modifier: Now it gives -80 opinion towards everyone of different ethic and +20 to the same ethic empires
Fixed issues with the fleet manager where the buttons to increase and decrease the number of ships would not work correctly when using shift or ctrl modifiers
Rogue Scientist event chain shouldn't trigger for Governors assigned as Head of Science.
Updated some trigger loc from "No of ..." to "Number of ..." to be more consistent with the rest of the game.
Fixed Tooltip for Paranoid Leader Trait
Fixed title case for anomaly.3141 "The Depths of Alien Life"
The event that allows you to pick a Chosen One no longer says "three individuals" are capable of absorbing such power and proceeds to list four names.
Events that give the Chosen traits now check that the leader in question is psionic.
Fixed an issue where you could reinforce a fleet when the template was not filled with the correct ships even though the fleet was filled on command limit
Fixed the spawn chance modifier of the anomaly The Orb, as it could not spawn before.
Beholder planetfall error message now states that an empty building slot is required.
Fixed icon for brainslug species trait again.
You can no longer psi-inoculate hive-minded pops or those being purged.
Fallen empire capital planets should now have the correct planetary designation.
You can no longer create subjects from sectors if the primary species would be an infertile clone army species.
Marauder admirals can no longer serve on the council or be manually fired.
Fixed some edges where a ruler could be chosen by a shroud entity but not awarded the trait.
Added scripted loc for GetDefenseForceOrArmada and GetGDFOrArmada
Updated Cybernetic Advantage agenda so it doesn't display placeholder art.
Regular empires no longer have machine or hive-mind leaders in their external leader pools and vice versa.
Cloned Organs/Self-Preservation Protocols now correctly has the same effects as Mind and Body.
Fixed incorrect modifiers on the adoption effect of Synthetic traditions.
Fixed MP lobby chat messages and scroll bar spilling outside the chat box.
Fixed most tooltips in the game browser not working.
Fixed Plantoids Species Pack DLC not showing up in MP lobby DLC list
Fixed misalignment of the DLC icons in the multiplayer lobby
Fixed icon lists sometimes becoming vertical when they should be horizontal
Fixed coop presence icons not always showing their tooltip.
The Interstellar Recruitment Office tooltip now specifies why you can't build it if you already have one in your empire.
The sentinels archaeology site will now put Azaryn back on her own ship when she returns.
Fixed a bug where some mercenary fleets would not have an admiral assigned to them
Mercenary Admirals now get Mercenary Warrior Trait and 2 admiral traits to represent their level
Mercenary Enclaves should no longer steal their admirals which they just rented out

AI will now wait until it has at least 5 planets and 25 years before choosing a specialization designation for its homeworld
Fixed an issue where AI would be unable to build any buildings if they desired to build the Ancient Refinery but did not have access to any minor artifacts

Stability and Performance

Fixed a number of Out of Sync errors.
Increased performance in the leader view
Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when a scientist was elected ruler while performing science ship orders
Fixed a rare, but persistent crash when an empire was destroyed
Fixed a crash that could sometimes happen if there were issues opening or writing log files
Fixed crash in MP lobby when you confirm disbanding a coop group if the player list changed while the confirmation popup was open.
Disabled tooltips in the loading screen to avoid crashes related to focus loss.

Re-enabled tooltips while the game has no focus as hiding them caused issues for screen readers.
Added tooltips for the join/leave coop empire button in the MP lobby when you can't click it.
Added a tooltip for the coop checkbox in the MP lobby when you can't change it due to being ready.
Use different titles for the multiplayer and coop game browsers.
The multiplayer game browser now has a column that shows whether a game allows coop.
Fixed an issue where the active agendas list would sometimes duplicate elements
Added a new version of the main coop presence view to the topbar for resolutions with width >= 1600
Auto-confirm disbanding a coop group in the MP lobby if all other players leave the group.
Modifiers that affect leader experience gain will now be indented under a "Experience Gain Rate:" header
Added confirmation prompt when selecting a country during hotjoining
Lysator Syng's hire tooltip now shows that hiring him will give you 3 pirate ships as well.
Show decimals for power projection breakdown in naval cap tooltip

Modding

Added set_random_$CLASS$_background_effect script effects, to assign a random background class to a leader. $CLASS$ can be replaced with admiral, general, governor, or scientist.
Added support for custom_tooltip_with_modifiers for council positions.
Updated documentation for council positions to include new script support. See 01_test_councilor.txt for an example of a council position not linked to civics.
Added script effect "unlock_council_selection = yes" to force validation of council positions and allow the player to reselect their council positions.
Fixed the ethics OverLappingElementsBox not reloading properly
Fixed the spacing parameter not working for vertical OverlappingElementBoxTypes
Added new "empire_size_add" modifier, which flatly increases or decreases the Empire size.
Council position unlock screen will now show council positions which are available by scope check but don't require any civics
Added console command "debug_trait_weights", which enables logging of some of the trait random roll weights.
Added military_power_multiplier to weapon components, which allows manual adjustment of combat power assessment for intangibles that are otherwise difficult to automate.
Use 2 decimals for army upkeep in army view

[/expand]

Leaders, Level Caps, and Balance

There’s been a lot of discussion about the Leader Caps that were reintroduced with the 3.8 update. We feel that they are a necessary piece of the balance puzzle, as leaders are generally far more powerful than they were before, and we explicitly wanted empires to have fewer, more important leaders.

The leaders you recruit are intended to be seen as exceptional individuals within your empire, and the planets and fleets that do not possess an Admiral or Governor were not intended to be “unled” - but the rank and file administrators that led them were not as important as the ones represented by visible, portraited characters.

I agree with the comments that it’s unsatisfying to have empty space where there should be some representation of non-exceptional leaders. We’re still exploring solutions to this, whether it be envoy-style “level 0 leaders”, class-specific leader limits, authority based institutions being present in areas without exceptional leaders, a different system altogether, or a combination of some or all of the above. (Not so secretly, I’m also interested in exploring the idea of upgrading Envoys into full leaders at some point in the future, so adjustments will have to be made to the system regardless. Currently I lean towards a combination of some of the above, but some of the changes I want to make are bigger than fit into post-release support.)

You’ll also be able to rename Council positions.

We also concur that the caps are a bit on the tight side. As noted in the patch notes, we’re making some changes to loosen them a bit, but we feel that we have to tread carefully for balance reasons. We’ve reduced the rate at which leaders reach -100% XP for being over cap, and added an XP scalar in Defines for easy modder access.

We’re also merging the “Leader of Opportunity” mechanic we discussed last week into the Eager leader trait - leaders with this trait will not count against the Leader Cap for their first few levels. We originally intended for Leader of Opportunity to be used exclusively with event leaders, but the discussions that followed showed that people were looking forward to seeing leaders with the effect in the Leader Pool, and we agreed that it would be interesting to see.

Traits are also now nouns to ease localization into gendered languages.

Regarding early game exploration - while we are happy with the exploration phase of the game being longer than before, it’s a bit slower than we’d like. We’re going to let military fleets with an assigned Admiral explore hyperlanes, which also has the benefit of resolving an edge case when you’re at war and have an enemy system hidden away in a nebula. They won’t be able to survey planets or explore wormholes like a crewed Science ship, but this should provide more freedom to find hyperlane choke points during your initial steps to the stars. The change which gave Admirals increased command limit as they gained levels has also been removed - as many of you have pointed out, it didn’t feel great to have your fleets split on leader death.

In the longer term, we’re considering giving Generals more “things to do” - as some of you have pointed out, it could be interesting to let a General step in when newly conquered planets need to be pacified, perhaps acting as an interim martial law governor for freshly “liberated” sectors. #nopromises

We’re generally happy with how Gestalt Nodes have worked out - they have several major advantages over regular Empires due to these immortal specialist nodes, but also some differences that become more pronounced as the game goes on. In a future release (likely 3.9), we’re considering allowing them to “cull” a node and grow a new one as an agenda, as some Council traits are valuable in the first parts of the game but far less useful later on.

A great many leader traits have had a balance pass, described in the patch notes above. As the systems evolve, expect more motion there. We expect that we’ll be making further adjustments and improvements to all of these systems in upcoming Custodian updates.

Prioritization of Bugs and Balance

Naturally, there must be some prioritization done when it comes to bugs and balance. At the top of the pile are things that prevent you from playing - crashes, out of syncs, and the like.

Issues that involved displayed text are often high priority as well - as Stellaris is available in ten different languages and translators need time to do their jobs, we have limited windows in which to make any changes that require localization. 3.8.1 and 3.8.3, for instance, are localized releases, while 3.8.2 and the future 3.8.4 are not. Sometimes we’ll plan ahead and slip some “emergency loc” into a localized release even if we haven’t had a chance to actually address the bug itself, but that’s relatively rare.

Bugs deemed Exploits are usually rated very low in our general triage - if an AI is unlikely to abuse a bug against you, but you can choose to use it or not, it tends to be lower priority than things that are more disruptive to general gameplay.

Script Improvements for Councilors

Some improvements to the scriptability of council positions we were working have also been added into 3.8.3.

Firstly, we've added the Reorganize Council agenda which will allow empires to reselect their council positions without needing to reform the government.

Of more interest for modders, support for council positions made possible by non-civic sources, such as country flags, ascension perks and other such triggers have been improved.

We've attached the documentation below.

COUNCILOR SCRIPT DOCUMENTATION
[expand details=showmore]

# Councilor Documentation # # councilor_name_key = { # possible = { } Country scope triggers to evaluate if the council position is allowed. # leader_class = { } Which leader classes can have this council position. Currently only used for the Recruit new Leader buttons. Default = none. # is_leader_possible = { } Leader scope triggers to evaluate if a leader can be assigned to this position. # conditional_tooltip = "LOC_KEY" Custom tooltip text shown for the requirements of the council position. # civic = civic_imperial_cult Civic that is required for this council position. Also used by UI. Default = none. # custom_unlock_title = "LOC_KEY" Custom text shown instead of "UNLOCK_COUNCIL_POSITION_TOOLTIP for council positions without a civic" # modifier = { } Country Modifier, that is multiplied by assigned Leader's level. # custom_tooltip = "LOC_KEY" Custom tooltip text shown instead of the auto-generated modifier tooltip text of the council position. # custom_tooltip_with_modifiers = "LOC_KEY" Custom tooltip text shown in addition to the auto-generated modifier tooltip text of the council position. # icon = "GFX_icon_name" Icon used for the council position, if a civic is not specified. # required = yes/no Is this position forced to be on the council. Default = no # }

[/expand]

EXAMPLE COUNCIL POSITION
[expand details=showmore]

Script: # councilor_expert_programmer = { # leader_class = { scientist } # possible = { # has_country_flag = expert_programmer # } # is_leader_possible = { # leader_class = scientist # } # modifier = { # planet_researchers_physics_research_produces_add = 1 # } # custom_tooltip_with_modifiers = "councilor_expert_programmer_modifiers" # icon = "GFX_icon_councilor_research" # custom_unlock_title = "councilor_expert_programmer_unlock_title" # conditional_tooltip = "councilor_expert_programmer_conditional" # } Loc: # councilor_expert_programmer: "Expert Programmer" # councilor_expert_programmer_female: "$councilor_expert_programmer$" # councilor_expert_programmer_desc: "An $TITLE$ is to thank for the new script support for Council Positions." # councilor_expert_programmer_modifiers: "This is an example of a custom tooltip with modifiers for a Council Position." # councilor_expert_programmer_conditional: "This is an example of a conditional tooltip for a Council Positon." # councilor_expert_programmer_unlock_title: "§HCouncil Position from Console Commands§!"

[/expand]

Out of Syncs

I mentioned this last week, but since we’re very interested in improving multiplayer stability… If you're running into frequent out of sync issues, you can help us out a lot by having the host add these startup parameters to their game:

-randomlog -randomlog_stack=5 -randomlog_frames=3

Then, if you run into an Out of Sync, please post in the Bug Report forum and give us the Host's OOS logs as well as at least one of the clients that the popup mentioned. (OOS logs can be found in Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\oos near your save games.) Any details you can provide about what you were doing at the time is also helpful.

This setting has some performance implications (which is why it's not on by default), but if you're running into OOSes reliably, it can really help us track them down.

Ideally I’d like the 3.8.4 update to be in a state where we can remove the beta tag from the Cooperative game mode.

That's it for this week folks, see you next week!

May 9, 2023

Galactic Paragons is Available Now!

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

[trailer]

Galactic Paragons is available now! You can check out the full list of patch notes from Galactic Paragons and 3.8 “Gemini” here. (Patch notes are in English only.)

The galactic council is vast and full of personality! Galactic Paragons expands the Council mechanic, allows leaders you command to amplify your empire's vision, adds additional civics, and much more. An empire is only as strong as its weakest link, so invest and strengthen your leaders to guide the future in ways the galaxy has never seen before.

“There are endless stories to tell in the Stellaris universe. Breathing life into the stories of the leaders in the Galactic Council and your empires is a perfect showcase of the team’s commitment to expanding the ways our players can explore a vast and wondrous galaxy.”
-Stephen Muray, Game Director for Stellaris.

Features of Galactic Paragons include*:

Unique Council Roles: Specialized roles and benefits are included in Galactic Paragons to expand upon the new Council Mechanics in Stellaris! Find dozens of unique council roles based on your civics and government types, and unlock additional positions as your empire evolves.
New Dynamic Leaders: Recruit, improve, and follow the leaders of your empire through the ages! You may shape them by picking their traits, selecting their veteran class, and guide them towards their destiny, up until they retire - or perish!
Meet Galactic Heroes: Attract paragons of renown to your council: unique leaders with their own art, events, and stories may join your empire and bring their own benefits to your government. Or, discover four Legendary Paragons with intricate event chains and unique mechanics!
New Traditions, Civics, And More:
- A new “Under One Rule” Origin that tells the tale of the leader who founded your empire
- Eight new Civics focused on leadership, from immortalizing the personalities of leaders past in digital archives to heavily optimized council selection via corporate charter
- 12 new Veteran Classes
- Hundreds of new Leader Traits
- Two new Tradition Trees, giving players new edicts and improved leaders
- New ships, art, and story content

Get Galactic Paragons now!

3.8 “Gemini” Update

Launching alongside Galactic Paragons is the 3.8 “Gemini” update! Loaded with new Features, Quality of Life Improvements (including a Sector Editor!), story events, bug fixes, and more!

Cooperative Multiplayer (Beta)

The Custodian team has been hard at work, making it possible for several players to play the same empire in Stellaris! We look forward to see what you all will do with this new functionality, from PVP multiplayer games on fastest, to teaching a friend how to play Stellaris for the first time, Coop has been a long time coming, and we’re extremely excited for you to all to have shared experiences with your friends!

You can currently access coop multiplayer one of two ways:

Click Multiplayer -> Tick Allow Coop - This will allow you to have multiple cooperative empires in one game, or have a mix of cooperative and non-cooperative empires.
Click Cooperative - This will have up to 5 players join the host’s empire. It is not possible to have multiple cooperative empires (or a mix) in this game mode.

Cooperative multiplayer is currently still in beta, we will be doing some polish, bug, and desync fixes during post launch support. If you have issues with cooperative multiplayer, you can report bugs and desyncs here!

Empire Council

Ruling a Galactic Empire is hard work, and your council of trusty leaders is there to help you. Base-game Stellaris now includes a ruling council, where up to three leaders will assist you in ruling your empire - your Ruler, your Head of Research, and your Defense Minister.

Each leader gives bonuses to their area of expertise, which grow increasingly more powerful as they level up over time.

Gestalts will have a collection of immortal “nodes”, that will level up and gain new traits over time, which we feel better suits them thematically.

Ruler Creator

Gone are the days when you were forced to reroll your empire a dozen times, looking for that one specific trait to complete your roleplay. In 3.8 “Gemini”, we’ve introduced a Ruler creator where you can choose your ruler’s appearance and starting trait.

Renowned & Legendary Leaders

Paragon leaders are not just for owners of Galactic Paragons! The Custodian team has been hard at work updating existing content in Stellaris. You will now be able to find six* existing leaders that have been updated to the new leader system introduced in Galactic Paragons, including new traits, new and/or updated events and in some cases, updated artwork.

* Finding some of these leaders may require other DLC

Ground Combat

Ground Combat has had some love from the Custodian team as well. First off, Devastation has been rebalanced. Planetary Devastation is now more impactful to planetary production, and orbital bombardment now causes more damage and has an increased chance of killing pops, buildings, districts and defensive armies based on bombardment stance and planet size, with more aggressive bombardment stances doing more damage. Bombardment damage will now scale based on planet size, with larger planets taking less damage than smaller planets, since the bombardment is spread over a larger surface area. Additionally, Planetary Capital buildings will now spawn 0/4/8/16 defensive armies for free based on the tier of the building.

Planets that have been bombarded to the point where they have no defensive armies will now have a chance to surrender without being invaded. The first time you bombard a planet, you will get an event that asks if you want to accept planetary surrender. You can change this decision later in the Government -> Policy screen. Planets will never surrender if their pops would be purged after doing so.

And lastly, starbases now have the ability to construct offensive armies! Clicking on a starbase and going to the “Army Builder” tab will allow you to queue armies across all the planets in that sector, or hold control and click to queue five armies at a time! Each army also now has a “Rally Troops” option that will order constructed armies to automatically travel to their location (provided they can find a path to do so) and merge with the selected army.

To summarize the Design Philosophy of all the changes to ground combat and bombardment:

Ground Combat and orbital bombardment will now be a bigger part of the game since big planets will automatically have some defenses. Building armies and using them to invade planets will be much easier by using the Army Builder and Rally Troops functionality. Small planets with 1-25 pops will be prime candidates to be taken by orbital bombardment alone, removing the need to have to manually invade the smaller planets or habitats.

Sector Editor

The Sector Editor has returned! It is now possible to (again) edit Sectors in the Planets and Sectors screen. Planetary capitals are still limited to be at least four jumps away from one another, however this should make it easier to resolve your sector gore, and make your sectors more visually appealing.

Capital Designations

3.8 “Gemini” has also brought with it four new Capital Designations for non-Gestalt empires. Choose Factory Capital, Forge Capital, Trade or Extraction Capital to boost your economies even further!

Fleet & Ship Designer

The Custodian team has also done some updating on the Fleet and Ship designer. The first thing you’ll notice is that the two tabs are now on the same screen, allowing you to easily swap between them when designing ships and fleets.

The Fleet Editor itself has also had some usability improvements, including a longer list of fleets, a new button to Copy a Fleet Template to a new fleet and an Overwrite Fleet Template button, which will update the fleet’s template to the current contents of that fleet. Additionally, pressing Delete + Enter on a fleet will now delete that fleet.

Science Ship Automation

In 3.8 “Gemini” - when you click Science Ship Automation - we have added the ability to enable or disable the modules.

The new Science Ship Automation modules are:

Explore Systems - will explore the galaxy by entering systems and discover any planets and hyperlanes in there
Survey Systems - will survey new systems the science ship enters
Investigate Anomalies - will automatically research anomalies
Excavate Archaeology Sites - will automatically excavate Archaeology sites
Research Special Projects - will automatically research special projects

The default settings are Explore Systems and Survey Systems, which is the same functionality as before 3.8. For Science Ships that are already automated you can see which modules they have enabled by reading the automation tooltip.

(Almost) Rebindable Hotkeys

The Custodian team has also taken a look at the left-side menu. We know a lot of you have wanted to be able to rebind which hotkeys open these menus for a while, and while adding rebindable hotkeys to Stellaris would require rewriting most of the code for the UI, we’ve done the next best thing:

In 3.8 “Gemini”, it is possible to rearrange the list of options in the left side menu, by pressing the new Cog icon at the top. This will also correspondingly change the hotkeys to open these menus, allowing you to rebind these menu items to whichever F1-F10 key you prefer to have them on.

Message Notifications

The onslaught of notifications while playing Stellaris is something that has been bothering us as much as it’s been bothering you. We’ve added a new type of message called a “Toast” that will drop down from the top right of your screen, and convey low priority information (such as a leader gaining a level).

Additionally, we’ve gone through all the in-game messages and added the ability to turn them on or off, as well as change the pausing behavior of each message. Notification messages you no longer wish to see can be disabled by Control + Clicking on them and unticking them in the message settings. Toast notifications can be enabled or disabled by clicking the cogwheel.

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for playing Stellaris, and don’t forget to pick up Galactic Paragons today!

May 9, 2023

Stellaris Dev Diary #300 - 3.8 "Gemini" & Galactic Paragons Release Notes

Stellaris - PDX_ladydzra

by Eladrin

It's been seven years since Stellaris released, and with this anniversary and three hundredth dev diary, I'm happy to bring you the Stellaris 3.8 "Gemini" update and the Galactic Paragons expansion.

Here are the release notes for the update, which will be going live later today. Until then, you can still Wishlist Galactic Paragons here.

SPOILER: STELLARIS 3.8.1 "GEMINI" AND GALACTIC PARAGONS RELEASE NOTES
[expand type=showmore]

############################################################
#################### Galactic Paragons ######################
############################################################

Galactic Paragons

Unique Council Roles: Specialized roles and benefits are included in Galactic Paragons to expand upon the new Council Mechanics in Stellaris! Find dozens of unique council roles based on your civics and government types, and unlock additional positions as your empire evolves.
New Dynamic Leaders: Recruit, improve, and follow the leaders of your empire through the ages! You may shape them by picking their traits, selecting their veteran class, and guide them towards their destiny, up until they retire - or perish!
Meet Galactic Heroes: Attract paragons of renown to your council: unique leaders with their own art, events, and stories may join your empire and bring their own benefits to your government. Or, discover four Legendary Paragons with intricate event chains and unique mechanics!
New Traditions, Civics, And More:
A new “Under One Rule” Origin that tells the tale of the leader who founded your empire
Eight new Civics focused on leadership, from immortalizing the personalities of leaders past in digital archives to heavily optimized council selection via corporate charter
12 new Veteran Classes
Hundreds of new Leader Traits
Two new Tradition Trees, giving players new edicts and improved leaders
New ships, art, and story content
6 new achievements introduced

############################################################
#################### VERSION 3.8.1 - Gemini ######################
############################################################

FEATURES

Added two Cooperative modes, allowing up to five players per empire. More information can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #293.
* Cooperative PvE can be initiated from the main menu - all players that hotjoin the hosted game will join the primary player’s empire. This mode is primarily intended for teaching new players or for lower intensity cooperative gameplay.

*Cooperative PvP can be allowed by the host of a standard multiplayer game. When enabled, empires can open themselves up to allow other players to help control their empire. We expect this game mode to be useful for competitive team play.

Please note that Cooperative modes are still considered to be a beta, and may be less stable than standard multiplayer, or may have some unusual experiences. We will continue to polish and refine Cooperative mode over the next few patches.
Empire Council: Ruling a Galactic Empire is hard work, and your council of trusty leaders is there to help you. Base-game Stellaris now includes a ruling council, where up to three leaders will assist you in ruling your empire - your Ruler, your Head of Research, and your Defense Minister.
* Each leader gives bonuses to their area of expertise, which grow increasingly more powerful as they level up over time.

* Gestalts will have a collection of immortal “nodes”, that will level up and gain new traits over time, which we feel better suits them thematically.
Ruler Creator: Added a new step in Empire Creation that permits the selection of your ruler’s appearance and starting trait(s).
Renowned Leaders: Updated several leaders to use new Leader systems:
* Updated Tuborek with new effects to use the Paragon System.
* Updated Reth Unddol with new visuals and effects to use the Paragon System.
* Updated Gray's Menu and effects to use Paragon Systems.
* Updated the Caretaker with new visuals and effects to use the Paragon System.
* Updated the S875.1 Warform with new visuals and effects to use the Paragon System.
* Updated the Oracle with new visuals and effects to use the Paragon System.
Ground Combat and Bombardment Changes: Several changes have been made to armies and bombardment.
* Army Builder tab added to starbases, which allows easier creation of Assault Armies across a sector.
* An army can be set as a Rally Point - new troops will automatically try to merge with this fleet (regardless of whether they were queued with the Army Builder or the old Recruit button).
* Planets can now select whether or not to Deploy in Orbit any newly recruited armies.
* Planets can now be taken through Orbital Bombardment if all defending troops have been killed. A policy can be set if you wish to refuse this form of surrender, and planets will not surrender to genocidal opponents.
* Bombardment is significantly more damaging than it used to be. More pops will die, and more buildings and districts will be ruined.
* Orbital Bombardment will now scale with the amount of ships bombarding, the first 100 fleet size ships will do full damage, after that each additional 100 fleet size will add 70% of that efficiency. For example, 300 fleet capacity worth of ships will deal 100% + 70% + (0,7^2 = 49%) = 219% total worth of bombardment damage.
* Bombardment effects are scaled based on the number of pops, buildings, and planet size. Small dense planets will suffer greater losses than large, sparsely populated planets.
* Ground Combat is also more devastating to planets than it used to be, but much less so than bombarding.
* The effect of collateral damage from different army types have also been adjusted, previously the collateral damage on army types was a linear value and not a multiplier, which meant that in practice high damage high collateral units like Xenomorphs could effectively do less collateral damage on the planet compared to normal troops because they would kill the enemy troops very quickly. This is no longer the case as the collateral damage modifier now acts as a multiplier on any damage dealt.
* Planetary Capital buildings now spawns 0/4/8/16 defensive armies for free based on the tier of the building.
Sector Editor: It is now possible to edit Sectors in the Planets and Sectors screen. Systems can be freely moved between sectors as long as they are in range of the Sector Capital. Sector Capitals must now be at least four jumps away from any others.
Customizable Menu: It is now possible to rearrange the list of options in the left side menu, by pressing the new Cog icon at the top. This will also correspondingly change the hotkeys to open these menus, allowing you to rebind these menu items to whichever F1-F10 key you prefer to have them on.
Customizable Message Notifications and Toasts: Messages and notifications can now be customized to suit your needs.
* Added a new message type called a “toast”, which pops up and disappears automatically after a brief period of time.
* Settings -> Messages, Ctrl+Click, or cogs (on certain messages) will open the Message Settings menu.
* Messages can be disabled, enabled, or set to automatically pause the game.
Fleet and Ship Designer:
* Merged into tabs of the same screen.
* Now displays a longer list of fleets.
* Copy Fleet Template and Overwrite Fleet Template features added.
* Delete + Enter will delete a fleet.
Science Ship Automation: You can now enable or disable more Science Ship automation modules.
* Explore Systems - will explore the galaxy by entering systems and discover any planets and hyperlanes in there
* Survey Systems - will survey new systems the science ship enters
* Investigate Anomalies - will automatically research anomalies
* Excavate Archaeology Sites - will automatically excavate Archaeology sites
* Research Special Projects - will automatically research special projects

IMPROVEMENTS

Added new Capital Designations for non-Gestalt empires. (Factory Capital, Forge Capital, Trade Capital, and Extraction Capital).
Added unique textures for Mercury, Venus, Neptune and Uranus for the Sol system.
Added unique textures for Earth and Mars when terraformed based off of available heightmap data.
Improved animation for gas giants.
Added a new anomaly: The Orb.
Added a special solar system protected by the Lone Defender.
Added a decision to clear the wreckage on a Broken Shackles starting planet in the event that they are conquered before they enact the Memorial to the Unshackled decision.
Improved accuracy of tooltips on the galaxy setting screen and implemented experimental nested tooltip functionality.
The mind-wiped species from On the Shoulders of Giants will now have the Forcefully Devolved trait.
There is now a 1% chance that a pre-ftl civilization will spawn with the Forcefully Devolved trait.
Added hotkey 'u' to upgrade fleet button.
Broken Shackles empires will now have their starting Minister of Defense and Head of Research be recruited from any of the species in their empire.
Added keyboard command for jumping to the next day, ‘.’
Added Ship Section Templates to the Ship Designer which allows for easier creation of designs of a certain role, such as carriers or missile focused designs.
Auto-designed ships and those designed by the ship role button will now only equip archaeo-components if your empire has the Archaeo-Engineers AP.
You can now hotjoin an MP game to control the Daemonic Incursion.

BALANCE

The Khanate Successor origin now unlocks raiding bombardment.
Fallen Empire starting rulers are now level 10.
Species traits that gave +N leader level cap now give reduced leader upkeep and reduced maximum leader negative traits.
Reduced focused capital production bonuses from +20% to +15% following dev diary feedback.
Random leader starting age range increased to 25-35
Bonuses for many Authorities changed. Previous benefits such as the old form of Agendas and Mandates have been removed.
* Democracies focus on their factions, with +10% Faction Approval and they Reset Government Reform and Policy cooldowns following elections. Their ruler provides +2% Faction Unity and +5 Edicts Fund per level. The people have spoken!
* Oligarchies focus on their ruling council, and have +2 Effective Councilor Skill. Their ruler provides +5% Councilor Experience Gain and +5 Edicts Fund per level.
* Dictatorships focus on their ruler, who provides -2% Pop Amenities Usage and +10 Edict Fund per level.
* Imperial empires focus on their Capital System, which produces +10% Resources from jobs. Their ruler provides +0.25 Maximum Influence from Power Projection and +5 Edicts Fund per level.
* Megacorps have +20% Commercial Pact Efficiency, but +50% Empire Size from Planets. Their ruler provides +2% Branch Office Value and +5 Edicts Fund per level.
* Hive Minds have +25% Pop Growth Speed and -25% Empire Size Effect. Their ruler grants +2% Monthly Unity and +5 Edicts Fund per level.
* Machine Intelligences have +1 Pops When Establishing Colonies, +1 Mechanical Pop Assembly, +10% Mining Station Output, +50% Empire Size from Planets, and 50% Pop Growth Reduction. Their ruler grants -3% Empire Size from Pops and +5 Edicts Fund per level.
Lowered base Minor Artifact storage capacity to 2,000. The Facility of Archaeostudies increases this by 2,000 or by 4,500 if the Archaeo-Engineers AP is taken.
Criminal Syndicates now have -20% to Branch Office cost.
Broken Shackles laborer jobs no longer benefit from modifiers applying to artisans or metallurgists.
Broken Shackles scavengers are now considered researchers for the purpose of modifiers.
Gave the Grand Herald archaeo-tech components.
Rebalanced the "Shroud-Touched” traits that can be gained by leaders going through a Shroud Tunnel.
Commercial Pacts now give High Economic Intel on Colonies.
Empires with the Payback origin gain a damage bonus against ships belonging to militarily superior empires.
The Seize Galatron casus belli is now unlocked the first time the Galatron is used, instead of upon acquisition.
Trade collection will now prioritize the capital and then sector capitals if they are in range, even if other starbases are closer, resulting in overall greatly reduced piracy from trade routes if collection is there.
Curator order now offers Gestalts a Trait instead of a Scientist.
Changed Technocracy bonus to award Scientists a random expertise trait in addition to their other traits.

Massively reduced the number of starbases assigned to cloaking detection for the AI.
Fanatical Spiritualists will now always outlaw robot workers.
AI attitude updates now happen only monthly and on diplomatic actions.
Relaxed AI budget requirements for orbital ring upgrades.
Allowed AI to build economically useful orbital ring buildings without a matching designation.
AI takes into account planetary production impact of possible orbital ring buildings when considering building orbital rings.
Stopped AI from never fully re-evaluating ship designs if it had no preferences specified in its AI personality.
Fixed an issue where AI would calculate a forecast of planet build queue items using a pop which could not work jobs provided by these buildings leading to incorrect results.
AI is now much more restrictive about building gene clinics.
AI will now prioritize building new starbases at the Sector Capital more.
AI will now micromanage their enforcer jobs by using the scripted logic provided by the Planet Automation System.
Fixed an issue where AI would not attack pirate stations in their empire.
Ai will now resettle pops with low habitability to planets with higher habitability in the early game.
Adjusted AI alloy spending budget to be a bit better at spending alloys on starbases and colony ships at the same time.
Fixed several issues where AI would build or upgrade amenity or crime buildings even when they had already forbidden jobs from these buildings.
AI trader persona are now the only ones who will build trade hub starbases and they will now only build them in sector capitals.
Improved peace time AI for upgrading fleets and patrolling trade routes.
AI empires that has Thrifty perk on their main species are now also eligible for the Peaceful Traders and Ruthless Capitalists AI personalities.

STABILITY

Tooltips will no longer be shown when the game has lost focus (tabbed out or any other focus loss). This will prevent crashes caused by tooltips being generated in contexts where they aren't expected.

Disabled tutorial in Multiplayer (but not coop PvE).
Auto-close auto-opened anomaly window if the science ship has already started researching the anomaly.
DLC icons on the empire creation screen now appear in the same size and in order of releases.
The popup when you are kicked or banned or the server is lost will now appear in front of other windows.
Truncate long empire, government and species names in hotjoin.
Make scrolling smoother in some places.
Display special project energy cost in situation log.
Auto Track Log Entries setting is saved in the save game.
Fix certain windows (e.g. ship orders) being too small compared to the sprite tiling, which caused graphical bugs.
Removed the in-game web browser. The game will now use the system browser instead.
Adjust chat input and chat entry to the new chat window size.
Changed player ready string to text icon.
Planet view no longer closes when opening other UIs like the pop resettlement or market view.

BUG FIXES

The Espionage Operation "Imperium: Target Seditionists" now correctly aborts if the Imperium falls.
Fixed incorrect costs for Caravaneer deals.
Payback: fixed incorrect tooltip in "Flagship Updated" event.
Broken Shackles: fixed "First Contact with MSI" modifier not disappearing under certain circumstances.
MSI can now use raiding bombardment with fleets hired from mercs.
Fixed checkbox tooltips in "Host server" window not appearing.
Fixed some scoping errors that prevented the "Indoctrinate Society" operation from working correctly.
Fixed an issue where it was possible to do two jump drive orders back to back by queuing them up via shift clicking.
Insight technologies should no longer be randomly awarded from events such as Old with Defects.
Removed Broken Shackles being scripted to start without a shipyard.
Pledging Secret Fealty to another empire now gives them +20 Intel on and knowledge of all of your diplomatic pacts.
Fixed the trapped in the storm special project stating the planet is trapped in a storm on the planet instead of the science ship being trapped in the storm.
Fixed "Cross-platform play" checkbox sometimes not being checked by default.
Choosing to hand over system ownership during the course of Pre-FTL Observation event "Among Us" now correctly grants you a Claim on that system.
Removed erroneous custom tooltip for the finisher effect of Psionic traditions.
Fix an issue where starbases would do cloaking detection for the wrong empire for 1 day.
System and star name should now match even if the player selects an origin that has a special starting system.
Enclaves should no longer keep offering you their services if you become a fanatical purifier.
If you are a corporate angler when you finish the Fear of the Dark story line you will now become a regular angler.
You will no longer get stuck with two unuseable civics if you become a Fanatical Purifier while a Barbaric Despoiler.
You can no longer become a Fanatical Purifier while the Galactic Custodian or Galactic Emperor.
A synthetically ascended empire should no longer refer to their own pops as having owners.
Fixed some grammar in the Hivemind Voidspawn reanimation event.
Fixed an issue with an unlocalized version of MSI in the initial interaction between a Broken Shackles and Payback empire.
Fixed an unlocalized string for the Reanimated Tiyanki Matriarch.
Removed a double “be” from a machine become the crisis event.
Multiple Tuboreks should no longer be hidden inside the shielded worlds.
Fixed Status Quo in a Subsidiary war subjugating the wrong empire.
Fixed incorrect calculation used for Offspring amenities.
Lithoid pre-sapients "working" in zoos now correctly eat minerals.
Fixing truncated build queue items in the starbase view.
Former pre-FTL worlds will no longer display the technological age of the former civilization during colonization.
Added a new description to the Broken Shackles Homecoming event if the world is a tomb world.
The "Direct Join" window now blocks other input.
Corrected the Ancient Target Scrambler tech not stating that it unlocks the Ancient Target Scrambler ship component.
The Radio Telescope Array now reduces the chance of Pre-FTL awareness decay instead of increasing it.
Archaeoshields should now properly provide their shield hardening bonus.
Fixed materialist culture workers (and death chroniclers) not having the effects of the Charismatic or Repugnant traits.
Fixing custom diplomatic action sounds playing for unrelated empires.
Fixed materialist culture workers (and death chroniclers) not having the effects of the Charismatic or Repugnant traits.
Added missing background for Ironman game setting.
Added missing "gateway" icons and tooltips to cloaking and detection technologies.
Changing policies now correctly removes diplomatic pacts with pre-ftl civilizations.
Fixed issues where sectors would not always include all systems within range, also fixed related issue where sector map mode would sometimes draw borders between systems in the same sector
Deleting templates in the fleet manager will no longer reset the scrollbar, added 'Delete' hotkey to template removal.
The "Host server" window now blocks other input.
Prevented joining full MP games.
Fix MP game browser listing full games even if "Not full" is checked.
Species with servile trait can no longer be given the Full Military Service rights and thus generate leaders.
Ringworlds now use empire color.

MODDING

Add_random_research_option script effect now ignores Insight technologies by default.
Added the creator scope for leaders, allowing you to scope to a leader's country of origin.
Added reset_policy_cooldowns = yes effect.
Added the special_max_amount = yes/no parameter for resources.
Council position support use of conditional_tooltip = "LOCKEY" to display custom tooltips for triggers you define in is_leader_possible = { }, triggers defined here are not otherwise shown in the council position tooltip.
Scripted triggers may now generate up to one automatic event option icon each
Calling GetAge in localization should no longer show the leaders age if marked as hidden
Added controls to the fleet imgui view and added jump drive information to ships
Using the ImGui view shortcut for selectables (ctrl+alt+right click) on the same selectable when it's already open, will now close the view.
Added expansion_planner = yes/no for districts. This controls if the district type should be visible in the expansion planner or not and defaults to no.
Views containing longer texts will now automatically reload when changes in localization are detected.
Added damage_vs_superior_empires_mult modifier
Add `remove_from_federation` script effect
Removed support for the "Major" flag and potential trigger in events.
You can also use from for the ship design in section template ai weights
You can now scope to a ship's design using 'design = {}'
Added has_role trigger for ship designs
You can now refer to the ship design using "from" in ship components. It may have incomplete information, but it will have at the very least the ship's designated role stored in it.
Added copy_flags_and_variables_from effect to copy all flags and variables from one scope to another
Replaced set_is_female with set_gender
Renamed country_mia_time_mult to fleet_mia_time_mult so that you can apply it at leader or fleet level too
You can now use "initializer = random" in the spawn_system effect
New trigger "num_candidate_supported", returns number of times an election candidate has been supported this election.
Removed add_ruler_trait and remove_ruler_trait in favor of using add_trait and remove_trait instead
Add random_ruler to create_leader's class field. This will randomize between valid ruler classes for the empire
Removed the ruler specific class. The ruler can now have other
Kill_leader leader effect now accepts ruler = <yes/no> instead
Has_ethic trigger now works on pop_faction scope too, returning their guiding_ethic.
Added on_planet_returned on action which triggers when an owner of a planet regains control of it
Made species_classes overwrite extendably too
AI economic plans now overwrite in an "extendable" way, so you can define a further "basic_economy_plan" which adds an extra subplan, and it will append this subplan to the existing basic_economy_plan
Ownership limits now no longer overwrite the full object but are instead "extendable", which means you can define a second "default" and put an entry in, and the game will add that to Vanilla's definition of "default"
Activating an Agenda triggers OnAction "on_agenda_finished".
Fixed faction_approval not working as country modifier.

[/expand]

A Review of the Year

Since the last anniversary, let's look at some of what we've accomplished together.

Last May we released the "Cepheus" update and the Overlord expansion, introducing the Situations system, updating subjugation mechanics, adding five new Origins, and a huge amount of empire emblems, backgrounds, and flag colors.

In September, the "Fornax" update and the Toxoids Species Pack added new difficulty settings, allowed you to spawn all the crises, and brought us the epic tale of the Toxic God.

Fleet combat rebalancing was the primary focus of the "Orion" update in late November, which also added some new galaxy shapes and added roles to the ship designer.

The First Contact Story Pack started this year alongside the "Canis Minor" update, adding Cloaking to Stellaris and improving Pre-FTL civilizations, while also adding some challenging Origins and focusing on game stability.

And now the "Gemini" update and Galactic Paragons adds the Council, revamps leader mechanics, updates armies and bombardment, and introduces two cooperative game modes (in a beta state).

Over the year we also had a number of Open Betas. Many thanks to all of you that played in them and helped us find as many issues as possible.

We've had a busy year!

We'll be skipping this Thursday's Dev Diary to keep the team focused on post-release support, and will be returning to our regular once-a-week cadence. Since next Thursday is a holiday in Sweden, the next Stellaris Dev Diary will be on Tuesday, May 16th. After that, we plan on returning to our normal Thursday slot.

See you then!

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

If you have an important game going in a previous version, please back up the save file before trying to load the save in 3.8.1. You can roll back to a prior version by 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.

May 4, 2023

Stellaris Dev Diary #299 - Civics, Origins, and Traditions

Stellaris - PDX_ladydzra

Hello and welcome back to my little corner in the Arctic! It’s Marek again, and today I will showcase some of the new empire creation stuff we made for you. I bet you already suspected from the title that it will be about Civics, Origins (or, Origin to be precise) and Traditions!

Watch the video Dev Diary:

Civics focused on leaders… but not always
Doing our design run on the potential civics, we had to take into account a few different things:

We should focus on civics, effects and modifiers targeting leaders in some way
We also want to add new ways for players to play their empire
We need to remember to strengthen the fantasy for certain playstyles, that are still not present in the game

So we decided to do everything - instead of being content with just going 1-2 civics per empire type. That’s why we ended up with… 8 unique civics (if you count copies of civics which are just an adjusted version for different empire types - then the number is 12), sprinkled around Standard Empires, Megacorps, Hive Minds and Machine Intelligence.

Vaults full of knowledge
For our most iconic civic, we picked the one which allows you to store the knowledge of your leaders, to enhance your future leaders. To sum it up a bit, every leader who manages to survive up to level 8, will give a bonus to the unique building provided by the civic - where the story, experience or knowledge of this leader will be stored for future generations.

All this knowledge, just enter the vault and search for it

They will be like us… either they like it, or not
The next civic, we decided to make something which would showcase some of our more fancy traits as soon as possible. But I also wanted to play an empire which embarks on a holy war to turn everyone into a proper clone of my ethics. And to have some war civic, which would not be useful for expansionists, conquer everything empires.

The whole idea around this civic is not being religious (hence you don’t need to be spiritualist to take it), but more a fanatic towards proselytizing your ethos to others. After all, they were converting people to their moral values on their planet, why would they stop doing that when in space?

Zealot trait is one of my favorite Veteran Traits, and it’s the only reason I made this civic, so I will get it on every Admiral - the above is just an excuse

But what about the profits?!
Let’s not forget about these players who like to play the MegaCorp, as we also have something fancy. Megacorp themes are usually centered around dystopian corporations running the country, either at the forefront, or from the shadows. Here we wanted to add a new brick to this player fantasy, which we felt was lacking.

And this is how Pharma State was made, giving a boost to Medical Workers and also unlocking a new Corporate Building for your fancy Branch offices! Be it an illicit place making people go bankrupt by providing aesthetic surgeries for credit or a company focused on making lives better (with a hefty profit margin, of course), the choice is yours to take.

We just invented new ways of preventing coughing! Instead of standard 7 days treatment it will take only 1 week to get rid of it, so definitely worth the 50% increase in price!

Profits are not everything! (what?)
The efficiency of the processes is also critical for any MegaCorporation success.
Inefficient work can lead to serious mismanagement, loss of profits (well, so there is the profit part) and a potential loss of “worker of the month” status. After all, you are not just a cog in the machine. You are a very precise cog, which keeps the company afloat!

The superb organization skills of this MegaCorp allows it to hire more cogs, er I mean leaders.

Something for Gestalts?
Gestalts are, in a way, the opposite of Galactic Paragons DLC - which is centered around individuals, their growth and path to glory / power / wealth / levels. So we came with these two civics, focused on making their leaders a bit more “individual” compared to other gestalts. Both Hive Minds and Machine Intelligences with these civics will give more freedom of thought to their leaders, allowing them to focus their consciousness on different matters - which should also help a bit with leader Unity upkeep, as the base change from 2 to 1 is effectively 50% leader upkeep reduction (which is then put into easier to get resources).

It’s almost like delegating by consuming more nutrients!

There is clearly no modifier after the upkeep change.

This one was easier to make then the previous one, the hidden modifier is less obvious.

But that’s not 8 civics!
Well, where is the fun of speculating or exploring the civics by yourself? Here are some teasers about the missing ones (but also let me tell you that Vaults are present for every type of empire, just adjusted a bit for them).

There is no reward for guessing the civic and its effects, but you can always brag about it if you put your prediction in post and then it turns out to be true.

Can you spot what is wrong with this planet? I’m not asking about the Aristocratic Elite civic buildings.

Perfectly balanced building composition, as all things should be.

Here are some more, which we won’t go over super tiny details.
[EFFECT.RandomizeNamesOrder] Letters of Marque, Neural Vaults and Heroic Past.

Other civics, should be easy to connect them to the names below

To give them some descriptions:
Heroic Past puts the empire into something like legendary / heroic figure worship, which is focused on creating better leaders faster than other empires. Taking this civic, the empire shows that it’s dedicated to growing their citizens into exceptional individuals who will lead it to a great future! (or to die when entering the system with Ether Drake by accident - we do not promise that your leaders will actually survive to become true legends)

Letters of Marque is our take on the fantasy around pirates working for big MegaCorp, helping them in dealing with anything which requires firepower. Why spend money on fighting piracy, where you can spend money on hiring pirates to do your bidding? Be it raiding your neighbors or… keeping other pirates in check.

The Neural Vaults are an adjusted version of Vaults of Knowledge, so you can extract memories from efficient drones and then use these memories in creating more powerful leaders.

Yes, I thought that giving 1 screenshot per civic would bloat the DD with too many pictures. And yes, I know that you can guess the MegaCorp civic by its color.

One to Rule Them All - Galactic Paragon ruler origin

Under One Rule is a semi-story origin, with a lot of different outcomes based on the empire composition and in-game choices. If someone asked me what was the inspiration, I would say a certain person from the Invincible series (his name starts with O) - and some historical characters, like Charlemagne.

But the main theme is about an empire interconnected with an exceptional individual who, instead of unifying peacefully, unified the planet by… other means. Imagine the New World Order First Contact event, but at a later date, with a ruler who actually succeeded in staying in power. This exceptional leader is the Luminary of the empire, the one who brought the new age, and promised the glory of the stars to his or her people (or it). I guess you get it by now ;)

Beware of your actions!

As we had time to do only one Origin, we decided to follow the more story-like approach BUT! We tried to not go the way of the story-story only. It’s more of a road of the Luminary leader to fulfill his destiny, which is in the player's hands. There are 4 (or more, depending on how you count it) different outcomes based on the player choices, with a special route which I used to call “I don’t care about the story that much”, which bypasses a lot of story content by also bypassing a lot of potential power gains.

For those who will see the Dictatorial requirement and are baffled why they can’t be imperial with this Origin - as every story goes its own path, there are possibilities in game to pursue different goals than staying true to the Founding Myth (yes, this means that there are events which allows to change the Authority Type, and I’m not afraid to spoil them as they happen fairly quickly).

This isn't even my final form.

But let’s talk about more mechanical aspects - the main feature of the Origin is to give the player a strong starting ruler, with a unique set of powerful starting council traits (all can be tiered up to tier III, so there is room to grow the leader). These traits, in opposition to standard council traits, are not based on Leader Class, but instead on Empire Ethics. To say it short - there are 14 traits to choose from.

There are also unique negative traits which might put some “bad mojo” into your Luminary - and they are tied to Empire Ethics as well.

And remember to not be overly tyrannical to your people… or maybe there is a hidden power in being the evil ruler? Or maybe that’s just a trick from me so you will use colossus on your capital planet (but seriously, don’t do that)?

We are close to the finish line now, so as tradition would make us do, let’s talk about our last feature in this Dev Diary.

Tradition Trees, Aptitude and Statecraft

Our choice for themes of the tradition trees was quite easy, and let’s be honest with that. We have leader rework and new Council features. I bet you already see where it is going.

Let’s start with the Leader Tradition Tree, our Aptitude

This was supposed to be a funny Aptitude-Altitude pun, but I deleted it and forgot how it went.
With the new Aptitude, your empires will focus themselves on leaders, giving them bigger and smaller buffs, with the EXP rate being the most obvious one. It's a solid tree if one wants to focus on leaders, but if it’s not your thing, then the tree is possible best to stay away from.

Starting Traits make up for a potential stronger leader at the end, as they will be able to get 1 more trait compared to leaders without this bonus.

Champions of the Empire is the fanciest one you can unlock from the tree.

Next one is the Statecraft tree!

I see 5 pictures, and in 4 of them someone is doing something with their hands. I petition the 5th picture to also include at least one hand.

It’s easy to pinpoint it to Council feature, having stronger councilors and, somewhat, also boosting leaders. Although, if your empire is not focused on leaders, it might still profit from the non-leader oriented effects and modifiers to build up a strong government to run the show. So, to sum it up, it’s about… leading a state. Fitting name, is it not?

Effective Councilor Skill is my favorite modifier in the whole DLC. I want to thank Karl who fought for this modifier.

This bonus is pretty nice when you have a lot of leaders and play around with Agendas.

So! We are at the end of the road for this Dev Diary. And we are pretty close to the release date, there are a few things I would like to say to you: Speculate! Write posts on forums! Play Stellaris! And have fun doing so! :D

By the way, a gentle reminder to Wishlist Galactic Paragons on Steam!

May 2, 2023

Stellaris Dev Diary #298 - Renowned and Legendary Paragons

Stellaris - PDX_ladydzra

Posted on behalf of Paradox Arctic.

Hello fellow Explorers of the Void.

We're excited to share with you another Dev Diary, this time focusing on the characters of our upcoming DLC, Galactic Paragons. Today, we have Arctic Art Director Frida, and Arctic Game Director Petter to talk about the new handcrafted characters you may encounter.

Watch the video Dev Diary:

Petter (Arctic Game Director): Paragon is primarily an expansion with new mechanics such as the council and the leader rework. But, in a DLC that centers around leaders it felt only natural that we would craft some exceptional characters for you to encounter out there amongst the stars.

The initial ideas for most of these characters were generated during a half-day workshop. We gathered everyone at Arctic and sat down to brainstorm what kind of characters we would like to see in the Stellaris galaxy. They got somewhat cryptic names such as ‘Sneakson’, ‘Big Woman’, ‘Harkon the Governor’, ‘Charming Pirate’ and so on. But the concepts became the foundation for our iterative process. Their backstories changed the art, and the art changed the backstories. We also got good input from the Content Designers on Studio Green that led to even more tweaks. So, the characters you will encounter have evolved organically.

We call these individuals “The Paragons”. Now, these paragons are divided into two categories: Renowned Paragons and Legendary Paragons. You will find out more about what these categories means (and some examples) below.

Frida (Arctic Art Director): From the Art team, we have meticulously hand-crafted numerous unique portraits for the Renowned and Legendary Paragon. Each leader is designed to have a distinct appearance that reflects their personality and story, making the galaxy feel more alive and diverse.

During the creation of the portraits, we wanted to elevate the art and storytelling aspects of the leaders, particularly for the Legendary Paragons. One way we have done this is by breaking up the static poses typically seen in the species portraits. Instead, we've incorporated dynamic poses, gestures, and expressions to make these characters truly stand out.

For the Legendary Paragons, we've moved away from the traditional three-quarter pose and experimented with more engaging and dramatic poses. This change not only helps to emphasize the importance of these characters but also makes their portraits visually striking.

The Renowned Paragons, on the other hand, maintain a pose closer to the original species portraits, but with added details and props that help convey their personal stories. Subtle elements such as hand gestures, smirks, scars, or unique clothing items help to give a glimpse into each character's background and personality.

The Renowned Paragons

Petter: Speaking of the Renowned Paragons. These are individuals who you don’t stumble upon out in the galaxy, instead they will seek you out! We have 16 of them in the DLC (two for each ethic - sorry Gestalt) and they will strive to join empires whose ethics match theirs: A pacifist paragon will seek out a pacifist empire, a militarist paragon will seek out a militarist empire, and so on.

The idea behind the Renowned Paragons is to give the sense of a living galaxy. Each character hints of a bigger world. And we see them as something that will spice up your playthroughs and give it a more distinct flavor. You will find that vastly different types of characters seek you out depending on who you are. Each renowned paragon can be seen as a possible representation of an ethic.

Each Renowned Paragon that you encounter has unique art, a personal backstory, and a powerful Destiny Trait from the start. But, they also have a negative trait that adds some flavor. And, they have a chance of triggering some events tied specifically to them that show more of their personality.
Here are some examples.

Kai-Sha, the Spymaster

Gameplay-wise Kai-Sha is a General (specialized to sit on the council), with the Authoritarian ethic. She is the shadowy right hand woman you would want to have on your side as an Authoritarian ruler to deal with anything that threatens your power.

Frida: Funny story about Kai-Sha - she was actually inspired by our UX designer, Kajsa (also known as kc), purely by coincidence! As we worked on her design, we emphasized her features more, creating a unique look for this character.

Borin: The Friendly Salvager

Frida: Borin's design was inspired by the salvager portrait from Overlord, and we had a blast taking that concept further, creating another character of that species. He comes from a salvaging community on an old space station and left to explore the wonders of the galaxy, ultimately joining your empire. In order to make him feel like an engineer, we incorporated yellow signal colors for relatability.

Petter: Borin is charming. His dream has always been to leave his Salvager enclave and travel across the stars. But he still has his mechanical skills and repairs all friendly fleets that are in the same system as him. Also, if you are lucky he might build you a robot that can join your empire. He is a quite warm, and almost spiritual, character for a materialist compared to the other Materialist leader, Xondar, who thinks flesh is weak. Again, trying to show how different the same ethic can be.

Vas the Gilded:

Frida: With Vas the idea was to give her a unique and extravagant look. It was important her love for luxury was shown in her design, with extravagant clothing and accessories. Through the development of her outfit she quickly became similar to a certain Princess, so it took a few iterations to find a unique shape of her headpiece. Her pose is also calm and dignified, hinting at her expertise as a diplomat.

Petter: Vas is one of the characters from the workshop that was pretty much the same the whole way through. But she was a bit more “courtesan”-ish for a while but now she is more noble and “senatorial”. It was our QA Daniel Teige that came up with her.

Q’la-Minder, the Ruthless Governor:

Frida: Q’la-Minder is all about ruling and exploiting others, with a strong focus on industry and wealth. Personality-wise he is a bit of a submissive, butt-kissing worm. We took inspiration from the Harkonnens of Dune, designing him to be as slimy and unappealing as possible to match his character, reusing one of the species from the Aquatics DLC.

Petter: Q’la-Minder is truly revolting, but still quite lovely in a twisted kind of way. He is great to place on planets where you really want to squeeze the most of the working population. They won’t be happy. But they will work.

Legendary Paragons

Petter: The Legendary Paragons are encountered as you explore space and encounter new worlds. There are four Legendary Paragons in the game, each with their own unique abilities, relics, and stories waiting to be uncovered. The Legendary Paragons in many ways represents the different aspects of what Stellaris is: Exploration, War, Ancient Mysteries and Colonization.

Frida: Speaking of Colonization, one of the Legendary Paragons we'd like to introduce is Azaryn, the melancholy plantoid who is the last of her species.

Astrocreator Azaryn

Here are a few thoughts on Azaryn from Linus (Content Designer): With Azaryn the initial design goals involved the terraforming mechanic, as well as themes of loss. Early on, she was called simply the 'Sad Plantoid'. Her path is one of redemption, and to achieve it, she will need the help of a larger civilization like yours.

Terraforming can be a powerful tool, and we wanted her gameplay to leverage that. Though it's still an expensive endeavor, Azaryn's terraforming has multiple unique points to it – but we'll leave you to discover those for yourselves. To balance those perks, the finite nature of her abilities come into play. Her power comes at a great cost to her, and may only be utilized a few times until dire consequences follow.

That finite, fleeting nature is something we hope will help to convey her humanity, her personality, and her story. It ties into a big part of what Galactic Paragons is about; to bring characters to the forefront of the experience, looking beneath the galaxy's grandeur, all the way down to the relatable, and letting their stories feed into your own.

Frida: Not to spoil too much of her story, Azaryn will begin to deteriorate and we provided four different states where her portraits change based on your progression.

New Recruitment window!

Frida: We now have a new window type used for recruitment, moving away from the standard diplomacy screen.

New Event window!

Frida: We’ve also created a new type of event window, where the leader portraits are displayed to the side of the event art, making it clear that this is an event tied to your leader and that it’s clear which leader it is. From my point of view, it helps to engage with the written content, having the character present beside the text.

Some final words

We all here at Arctic hope that you will enjoy Galactic Paragons. And that the many characters will be great seeds for stories in the galaxy.

That's it for today's Dev Diary! We're looking forward to your feedback and thoughts and we'll be back soon with a new Diary on Origins, Civics and Tradition Trees.

And don't forget to catch our Galactic Paragons First Look stream, with Game Directors Stephen Muray (PDS Green) and Petter Nallo (PDS Arctic) tomorrow, starting at 1515 CEST on http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!

Until next time, stay stellar!

Frida and Petter and Linus

Apr 27, 2023

Stellaris Dev Diary #297 - Leaders, The Council, and Agendas

Stellaris - MrFreake_PDX

Hello everyone! I’m XM, the lead designer of Galactic Paragons. From the beginning of development, we’ve followed one simple mantra - make leaders matter. What you are going to read about in the following paragraphs are the results of months of work following that direction.

Wishlist Galactic Paragons!

Reducing Leader Count

For leaders to start being significant, there needed to be a lot less of them. With this goal in mind, we removed the research scientist positions currently in the game, and combined them into a single “Head of Research” Council position (we’ll talk in more detail about the Council later). We also allowed leaders to perform Council duties while maintaining their field positions. These changes dramatically reduced the number of leaders you need to keep track of.

The lower leader count also enabled us to make them a lot more powerful.

Improved Role-playing

To deepen the emergent narrative weaved with these new heroes, we’ve improved upon the leader interface to give you better insight into their past and how they came into service. You can see their homeworld, previous job, and even their ethical alignment.

There are so many more improvements we’ve made to leaders that I want to share with you, but I need to cede my time here now to my amazing design team, who are smarter than I am, and can better explain their areas of development in more detail.

The Council

Greetings from Karl, designer at Arctic! I’m here to talk about some of the features that I’ve been responsible for in the upcoming Galactic Paragons DLC; however, none of them would have been possible without the hard work and dedication of my beloved colleagues.

The Empire Council is the heart of your government. Every game the Council starts out with 3 seats; for your Ruler, Head of Research, and Minister of Defense.

Each position gives a unique Empire bonus that scales with the skill level of the assigned leader. For example, the Head of Research provides 2% Research speed per level.

With Galactic Paragons, we have also added a lot of new traits. Some of these traits are Council Traits, which are applied to your entire Empire but only if the leader is on the Council (more on Traits further down). This way you get to decide which bonuses you want active, by switching Councilors. To get as many bonuses as possible, you will also want to expand your council…

Unlockable Council positions

Everyone will have access to the basic council. But if you have Galactic Paragons you’ll be able to unlock 3 more positions for your Council throughout the game. What positions you’ll have access to maps directly to your Civics. As an example, the Idealistic Foundation Civic enables the Tribune of Rights Councilor.

Thus we have added no less than 95 unique Council positions for the Council to match your Empire’s design, and make it look and feel different every time you play. Including unique Ruler bonuses depending on what kind of authority you have. For example the stronger an Imperial Ruler becomes, the more Power Projection they generate.

For the kind of Empire you are running to stand out even more, we’ve crafted unique Council screen backdrops for each of the Authority types.

Council Agendas

Another important feature for the Council is that they pursue an Agenda that you set for them. The moment you assign an Agenda to the Council it gives a small bonus, but it takes several years before it’s ready to be launched and you get the full effects from it. This requires you to be somewhat strategic in your planning, if you for example expect a war.

You can only pursue one Agenda at a time, but once an Agenda is finished you gain the full benefits for another 10 years. The more Councilors you have and the higher their skill level, the faster you can complete an Agenda; while for a huge empire it takes a bit longer to finish.

At the start of the game, you have very few Agendas to pick from as they are tied to the Ethics of your Empire. But if you have Galactic Paragons you will get a new Agenda for every Tradition Tree you unlock. These are all tied to the theme of the traditions. This might incentivize you to go wide with Traditions rather than finish them one at a time.

The Gestalt Council

We felt that the Council feature didn’t sit that well with the Gestalt fantasy, but also didn’t want these players to feel completely left out. Now Gestalt players can directly level up and design not only the Ruler, but 4 new Nodes of the consciousness too. They are a little less flexible, but are on the other hand immortal!

Leaders Reworked

Hi everyone! It’s me, Marek, your new fancy (self-appointed title of course) and barely known (I guess I should talk more on forums, like Offe) Content Designer from the Northern office. I will try to warm the climate with some hot takes on our upcoming features from Galactic Paragons.

So, prepare your tea, coffee, or anything really - and let’s dive deep into the new systems and features, both free and paid.

New Level Up System

For those who choose to forgo Galactic Paragons, your level system will look fairly similar, with a few changes.

All leaders will be capped at level 10
Leaders will always get trait every 2 levels (starting from level 1), for a total of 5 traits
Every trait will be randomized from Common trait pool
There will be a new tiered trait system: Common traits and Negative traits will have 2 tiers each

As you see, the Free Patch leaders will still be more powerful than before (having a total of 5 traits), but the Galactic Paragon leaders will achieve a power level of over 9000!

For those who choose to embrace the Galactic Paragons, the leveling system will give far more flexibility:

Leaders get new trait pick every level
Players can choose the trait from a randomized pool that is based on class, veteran class and ethic.
On level 4, leaders will get to choose from Veteran Class which give access to different types of Veteran Traits (every class has 3 Veteran Classes, which are centered around different bonuses and their leader actions). Each veteran trait has 3 tiers.
On level 8, leaders will get a one time Destiny Trait pick. This powerful trait represents a leader finding its destiny within the galaxy.

Potential level 10 leader with Galactic Paragons:

I bet you don’t know what I’m talking about with the Veteran and Destiny thingies…

My god it's full of… Traits

For owners of Galactic Paragons, there will be almost 700* (we decided to stay humble with the number) traits, including tiered versions. There are a bunch of new Common traits, but the bulk of new content is gated behind the DLC.

* Some traits may require other DLCs. Number includes tiered traits.

Some of the new traits

To get into a bit more details about new traits, they are divided into 3 categories, Common, Veteran, Destiny.

Common traits:

The one that comes with Free Patch (most of them are updated versions of old traits). They are the “bread and butter” for Free Patch players, as leaders will be getting them every 2 levels. For DLC owners, they represent the first 3 levels for the new Leaders and their journey to power!

I guess it should have a doggo as an icon?

Veteran Traits:

Veteran traits are available only to players with Galactic Paragons DLC. They will cover every level from 5 to 10, and (as mentioned before) their pool for a given leader is dependent on leader ethic and their Veteran Class. They are more powerful than Common traits.

New fancy effects for leader actions? Yes, please!

Destiny Traits:

Destiny traits are One-Per Leader (in most cases, as sometimes leaders might get event based Destiny traits too!) and they represent the peak of this given leader - as such, leaders get the destiny trait on Level 8.

What is this, even? The more species, the better the trait? Madness!

Small disclaimer: Gestalt leaders operate slightly differently - rather than gaining Destiny traits, they have more Veteran picks than non-Gestalts. They do not have individual destinies like the standard empires do!

Leaders Reworked - Veteran Classes

Veteran Class is a paid feature from Galactic Paragons, and it allows you to customize your leaders more. Every leader will get to choose from 3 Veteran Classes on level 4, bringing the number of Veteran Classes to 12.

Each of the Veteran Class will focus on different aspects of the Leader. Let’s take Scientists for example, which can choose from Explorer, Analyst and Researcher Veteran Classes. Picking the proper Veteran Class is paramount to utilizing your leader in a way that you want them to fulfill. For example, Analyst Leader will get Veteran Traits centered around Assist Planetary Research action, while Researcher will get Veteran Traits focused on the Council.

Veteran Class Icon as seen on the left side of the leader - Level 1 Admiral for comparison.

Negative Traits

Let’s also mention the small detail of Negative traits. Every leader is randomized with Negative trait potential. The bigger the potential, the more (and faster) negative traits will accumulate on this given leader. With luck, you will find leaders with 0 negative potential, but you never know what it will be until your leader suddenly comes home with a new set of negative traits and starts to steal your resources to open up a new casino in his basement.

New Leader Cap System

Leaders are now vastly more powerful than before, so we decided to introduce a soft leader cap - just like with the naval cap, leaders will grow more expensive when empires are above the cap. It might take some time to get used to, but no longer are the time when in the early game it is viable to send out 20 science ships to explore the galaxy, but it also allows for players to take meaningful choices - creating an economy based on strong governors is a viable strategy, just as well as making strong navy based on many high level admirals.

In my humble opinion, this change somewhat favors smaller empires, which might feel less incentivized to go over their leader cap to fill all the roles, while huge empires will need to take choices on, for example, governor placements (or going over Leader Cap).

And now, something to finish our little trip into this leader madness…

Ruler Creator

Well, I disliked the fact that I can’t choose my starting ruler trait - especially on dictatorial and imperial empires. Now I won’t have to restart the game every time I get a trait I don’t want to have on my ruler. Coders wept when I designed this, and UX was more than happy with coming up with the layout. I guess you can never make everyone happy.

Right now, there is only a limited number of traits to choose from, but we decided to not overwhelm players with new choices here. They should be hunting for new civics instead!

Honorable mention

Let’s talk about one last change, close to the leaders, but not exactly. This is present in both Free Patch and DLC, so buckle up this one last time!

With the new trait system and reworked leaders and cap and everything - we decided that the Governor traits should only apply to the planets he currently “sits” on.
But as the game had this nice feature of Sector Governors too, we wanted to use this system, rather than just removing it.

So now, if you would like to see the potential career of a governor, it would be - Planet Governor, Sector Governor, Councilor, Empire Ruler.

How does the new sector governor thingy work?

Whenever there is a Governor sitting on a Sector Capital planet, his level will apply bonuses to every planet in this sector, in a way like it used to be.

You can always override the “Sector Governor” by putting a proper Planetary Governor here. Just remember that Leader Traits do not work on Sectors!

Is that all? Yeah, I guess so. Don't forget to Wishlist Galactic Paragons! See you on the next DD!