Hello all,
The latest minor patch for Stellaris is ready and released, fixing a number of issues and further balancing the new mechanics.

We're also planning a follow-up 3.9.3 patch for mid to late October, which will include some of the issues brought up during the Open Beta that require new text, more fixes that did not meet the 3.9.2 deadline, and a handful of other improvements.

Please find the patch notes below.

STELLARIS 3.9.2 PATCH NOTES
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#################### VERSION 3.9.2 ######################​
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Balance

• Pre-FTL empires now have reduced technological development before the mid-game year.
  
• Catalytic empires can now build bio-reactors.

Bugfix

• Anomalies that reward Scientist Expertise traits now apply those traits to the Cognitive Node for gestalt empires.
  
• Blocked empires without the Scientific Method technology from constructing research districts.
  
• Federations End should no longer spawn empty habitats if the pre-FTL slider is set to 0
  
• Fix a CTD when loading a save containing an invalid species archetype
  
• Fix for wrong value for evasion in ship design.
  
• Fixed being able to build multiple gaia seeders on a single planet.
  
• Fixed Fallen Empires not triggering their monthly random events
  
• Fixed pre-ftl civilizations that naturally progressed to the Early Space Age being unable to become space faring.
  
• Fixed Secrets of the ... no longer granting Expertise traits.
  
• Fixed stage 4 gaia seeders being buildable, but immediately destroyed by non-Idyllic Bloom empires.
  
• Fixed the Colonial Remains deposits not spawning for the Remnants origin in some cases.
  
• Fixed the Patron achievement not firing.
  
• Fixed the Prethoryn getting stuck because their starting system contains an FTL inhibitor that prevents them from expanding
  
• Fixed the Surveyor not spawning resources in some cases.
  
• Gardening Drones will no longer have an unlocalized string.
  
• Habitat Central Complexes constructed around stars should now be placed further away, so they no longer clip into the star.
  
• Industrial designation is now only available on habitats for gestalt empires, if they use consumer goods.
  
• Merc enclaves now inherit their shipset from their creator.
  
• Paradisiacal Habitat modifiers in Ithome's Gate no longer use placeholder icons.
  
• Restored -25% penalty if the government doesn't have a head of research.
  
• Set a manual planet size for the Toxic God star asset, as it otherwise counts the large visual effects as part of the planet.
  
• The Crystal Splitter will now hopefully stop blowing up Fruitful Partnership colonies
  
• The spiritualist fallen empire will now wake up if you eat their holy worlds.
  
• The knights will no longer try to quest if you pacify their habitat.

Performance

• Removed MTTH from anomaly.6710, bane of ship events, horror of designers
  
• Removed MTTH from assorted fallen_empire_tasks events
  
• Removed MTTH from communications_spread.1 and communications_spread.3
  
• Removed MTTH from crime.1, crime.40 and crime.41, plus added pre-triggers to all crime-events
  
• Removed MTTH from fallen_empires.1, fallen_empires.3, fallen_empires.10, fallen_empires.11
  
• Removed MTTH from leviathans.660 and leviathans.662
  
• Removed MTTH from pop.1-13, madness that should have never existed
  
• Removed MTTH from random caravaneer events (cara.4000-4050)
  
• Removed MTTH from refugees.5, scourge of the game, destroyer of performance
  
• Removed MTTH from the Migrating Forests event chain (colony.1 to colony.12)
  
• Removed MTTH from the Orbital Debris event chain (colony.171 and colony.171)

UI

• Added new main menu gradient

Modding

• Added researchers_add.txt and archaeoengineers_add.txt inline scripts for buildings.
  
• Added chemist_add.txt, factory_add.txt, foundry_add.txt, refiner_add.txt and translucer_add.txt inline script for buildings.

[/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.

by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

It’s been exactly 100 dev diaries since we introduced the Custodian initiative alongside the Lem update. With that milestone met, and 314 being funny math number, I thought it would be a good time to review what the Custodians have accomplished, some of the process they use, and where we could go from here.

To review, the original idea behind the Custodians Initiative was to do some of the following:

• Tweaking game balance
  
• Adding new content to old DLC
  
• Polishing existing content
  
• Bug fixes
  
• Performance improvements
  
• AI improvements
  
• Multiplayer stability
  
• UI and quality-of-life improvements

​
In my view, the Custodians have been a pretty solid success.

We’ve done a few things:



















I promised bad math jokes last week: Why did the Blorg cross the Mobius Strip? To get to the same side.​


Ideally, a third of their tasks are dictated by my directives, a third are taken from community requests, and the remaining third are individual developer passion projects. In reality, these segments overlap quite a bit, since we all share many of the same desires.

Before each release, we hold a “Custodian Pitch” meeting, where everybody on the team can write up proposals, give a two minute presentation on what they want to do and why they want to do it, and then a brief but spirited discussion is held debating the merits of the pitch as well as highlighting any concerns or suggestions.


Photo from a recent Custodian Pitch Meeting​

Accepted pitches go onto a team board, get prioritized, and eventually end up on the schedule. Unlike tasks slated for DLCs, Custodian tasks are intended to be able to slip to a later release if they’re deemed not ready to go live yet, and sometimes accepted pitches wait for a while before getting worked on. Rejected pitches sometimes resurface at a later date, revamped to resolve whatever problems the original pitch had.


Part of the Custodian Team Board​

As you can see, far more things get pitched and approved than we can actually do, so prioritization is extremely important. More things will move into 3.10 and 3.11 over time.

The Development Oubliette off to the side is for things that we started working on, but had to pause for various reasons.

Following Overlord, we instituted a rule that expansion work cannot absolutely depend on Custodian work, since we intentionally want Custodian work to be able to slip to a different release if necessary - the Situations system came in a little hot and that had negative effects on some of the systems we planned on using them with.
From the “In Progress” section under 3.9 Caelum, we have the Diplomacy and Trust changes that we’ve mentioned a few times. We’ll have a dev diary dedicated to this next week, since these have been accelerated to be included in the 3.9.3 release.

Two weeks from now we’ll be providing more details on the Leader Consolidation that we’ve also talked about in the past. Currently these tasks are in the To Do and In Progress sections of 3.10 Pyxis, grouped by dark blue dashed lines that you can barely see in this image.

Other things on the board without planned release dates include a variety of possibilities. Some are larger scope tasks that involve a large number of Custodians, while others might be the type of thing that can be knocked out quickly.

A handful of them include:

Espionage enhancements

• Make Espionage more impactful, but have systems in place to prevent “dog-piling”.

Continued work on concepts and nested tooltips

• Provide information in a clearer way, avoiding walls of text.

Improve tutorials

• They’re really not good at introducing the concepts new players need to learn the game.

Improve the outliner

• Make the Outliner easier to use during different phases of the game.

Do something with the Megastructures UI

• As the number of large space constructions grows, it gets harder to find the ones you want to build.
  
• It’s also very confusing to have things that require Mega-Engineering alongside constructions that don’t.

[/i][/list]
Continue after losing

• Pop up the Select an Empire UI from Multiplayer if you lose a Single Player game, in case you want to continue your galaxy’s story, even if your first empire’s has ended.

Improve species modification

• Address micromanagement and tedium in species modification.

Pop performance

• Pops are one of the greatest sources of late game performance issues. Find ways to reduce their impact.

Ship performance

• Ships (and fleets) are another performance issue to investigate.

Investigate number of habitable worlds (and rebalance if necessary)

• As more scripted systems get added to the game, the habitable worlds slider becomes less accurate.

Make AI personalities matter more

• Review the existing personalities, make them show up in AI weights more often, and differentiate them more.

Having come full circle, next week will be about Diplomacy and Trust.

See you then!

by Eladrin

Hi all!

The Stellaris 3.9.1 ‘Caelum’ update has been released, with full release notes listed here.



Unless critical issues arise over the weekend, our current plan is to have a general bugfixing 3.9.2 patch roughly two weeks from now. We’re also planning a followup localized 3.9.3 release in mid to late October, which will include some of the issues brought up during the Open Beta that require new text, more fixes that don’t meet the 3.9.2 deadline, and a handful of other improvements.

Localized updates are the only time we can add new text to the game, so some of the suggestions made during the Open Beta will be included in it.


Agendas will now show the required time to enact.​

We’re also making some upgrades to the existing recommended DLC screen. To make it more generally useful, it will be possible to see things like the tooltips of origins and find out what’s actually in this thing? in-game, hopefully letting you make better informed decisions by seeing what you’re getting before buying any DLC.

Based on the number of requests for it, we’re also considering accelerating the Diplomatic Trust and Vassalization changes Alfray has been working on, which we first mentioned way back in Dev Diary 291. At this point I’m not willing to outright promise this for 3.9.3, but the trajectory looks like I can pull it in rather than waiting for 3.10 ‘Pyxis’. If it continues to look good, we’ll provide more details in two weeks.


Trust, but verify.
(And don’t reveal your tender underbelly until you at least get to know them a bit.)

Free your desktop from that drab background! We have more species pack based wallpapers for you!







4k variants can be found in our wallpaper album.

We’re hitting an auspicious number next week, so we’re stocking up on bad math jokes and we’ll be talking about the state of various Custodian plans - as well as some of the things we’re considering investigating.

See you then!

The 3.9 “Caelum” update brings with it bug fixes, improvements to Gameplay, Automation, Performance, and the Leader Cap, on top of adding new content for many of our previously-released DLCs.

Read the full patch notes here.

Dont want to read pages of patch notes? Stellaris Game Director Eladrin joined us on YouTube last week to talk about the new features coming in 3.9!



You can also read our (translated) Steam post outlining the new additions to Stellaris in 3.9 here.

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

If you have an important 3.8.4 game going, please back up the save file before trying to load the save in 3.9.1. You can roll back to a prior version by right-clicking on Stellaris in your library -> Properties -> Betas -> choose the 3.8.4 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.

Thanks for playing Stellaris, and always remember the galaxy is vast and full of wonders!

Hello Stellaris Community!

The 3.9 "Caelum" update is currently scheduled to release on September 12th!

This update brings a host of new features to previously released DLC, including a habitat rework, trade rebalance, softening of the leader cap, new features and updates to previously released DLCs, plus a plethora of other bug fixes, AI and performance improvements. We’re going to go through some of the major features of this new update so that you can hop in and start playing on day one!

You can read the full patch notes on the Stellaris forums here.


Game Director Eladrin takes us through the features coming in the 3.9 "Caelum" update!


Leader Cap Rebalance
We’ve heard your feedback on the leader cap, and we’ve softened up the penalties for going over the Leader Cap in 3.9. Leader XP gain reduction will now follow a curve, allowing you to hire more leaders. This in itself is a temporary measure, as we are continuing to experiment internally to find a Leader system that we’re truly happy with.

Automation Improvements
In the 3.9 “Caelum” update, Sector Automation has been completely removed, in favor of individual Planetary automation. Planetary Automation will now take resources directly from an Empire’s resources, and we have added the ability to forbid using specific resources.

Just a reminder that Planetary Automation builds planets based off of the designation of the planet – so remember to set your Planetary Designation before turning on Automation, for a consistent experience!

Performance Improvements
Performance concerns are always top of our list when it comes to creating new patches, and 3.9 “Caelum” is no different. In this version, we have fixed a case where Country Modifiers would continuously recalculate, decreased the amount of texture loading on the Council and Leader list screens, refactored calculations for Trade Value from Living Standards, parallelized the Construction Queue and Trade Route/Piracy calculations, optimized the AI evaluation of subjugation actions, improved the way old events are fired and optimized triggers for Jobs, Casus Belli and Opinion modifiers.

I don’t know what any of these things means either. How do these changes feel to you? You can find out now in the Open Beta!



Ascension Path Updates (Requires Utopia)

We know how important it is for you to get your synth on. We’ve reduced the RNG-factor of completing the tech requirements for ascensions. We’ve added new Council Agendas to Utopia that will give you partial research on the technologies required to complete your chosen ascension. That way, you will be able to research them as soon as you learn to talk to those fleshy things from Eta Sigma 9.

Habitat Rework (Requires Utopia, Federations, Toxoids or First Contact)

Habitat Central Complexes are a new type of space construction, which act as the central hub of the Habitat system. Major and minor orbitals can be constructed around stars and planetary bodies in the system to further expand the Habitat Central Complex’s capacity for districts and buildings.

And before you ask, yes, if you blow it up with a Colossus, it leaves a ruined Habitat Central Complex that can be restored.

Expanded Leaders from Enclaves (Requires Overlord or Leviathans)

Shroudwalker Enclaves and Salvagers now both have a leader that you can hire. The leader from the Trade Enclave has been improved, plus all Enclave-hired leaders will now provide a special Council seat for those who own Galactic Paragons.

More Origins for Hives and Machines (Requires Utopia or Synthetic Dawn)
Machine Intelligences and Hive Mind can now choose the Lost Colony, Common Ground* and Hegemony Origins*. Hive minds can also now start as Void Dwellers*!

*also requires Federations

Workers Cooperative (Requires MegaCorp)
Live in a classless society, where the Ruling Class is replaced with democratically-elected Stewards, and quality of life is high. Worker Cooperatives also gain access to the Mutual Aid trade policy, which converts trade value into basic resources.

The Kaleidoscope (Requires Nemesis)
An energy-hungry parasite has appeared over your homeworld. Do you attack it, or nurture it? A new Situation-based event chain has been added for the owners of Nemesis. We won’t spoil anything else about this, but let's just say it’s not your garden variety event chain.

Price Increase for Species Packs
Stellaris Species Packs started as purely cosmetic add-ons, consisting of portraits, ship sets, city sets, and advisor voices. They’ve come a long way since them, now including a much greater variety of content. While the exact spread of features varies by pack, they now all include things such as origins, civics, traits, events, and new mechanics.

With the changes coming in 3.9 ‘Caelum’, we believe that the older Species Packs will be on par with the newer ones, and we’re planning an increase in the base price of the Plantoids, Humanoids, Lithoids, and Necroids Species Packs from $7.99 to match the $9.99 base price of the more recent Aquatics and Toxoids Species Packs.

Read on to see the new additions coming to the older species packs!

Plantoids Additions (Requires Plantoids)
Plantoid and Fungoid species will now be able to spread via seed in the Fruitful Partnership Origin, with their seeds hitching a ride across the galaxy on the backs of wandering groups of Tiyanki. We’ve also added a new Invasive Species trait, that gains habitability and growth bonuses from each negative trait it carries, a new Dryad-inspired portrait and new prescripted empire: Blooms of Gaea. Improvements are also coming for the Idyllic Bloom civic, with its level four Gaia Seeder building now also improving your pops over time, as well as increasing the effectiveness of their other Plantoid traits. The Catalytic Processing civic has also been improved and now uses food to produce Strategic Resources.

Humanoids Additions (Requires Humanoids)
Owners of Humanoids will now get access to the Enmity Tradition tree, which is all about benefiting from rivalries, as well as three new species traits, and two new Humanoid portraits!

Lithoids Additions and Updates (Requires Lithoids)
Lithoid Hiveminds will now be able to mine space deposits without protection with the new Void Hive Civic, and get mining and research stations built automatically as the hive expands its control over the system. Owners of the Lithoids Species Pack will also get access to the Selective Kinship civic, allowing only their phenotype to be rulers and a new Humanoid-inspired Lithoid, and a prescripted empire: Federated Theian Preservers.

Mechromancy Ascension Perk (Requires Necroids and Synthetic Dawn)
Machine Intelligences can now also reanimate biological leviathans, as well as create cyborg zombies out of biological pops. I, for one, am terrified of our new robot overlords.

Thanks for reading! We hope to see you all on September 12th for the release of Stellaris 3.9 “Caelum”!

by Eladrin

Hi everyone!
We're a day earlier than normal today because we wanted to make sure you had a chance to look at the release notes before the AMA event we’ll be holding on /r/stellaris from 15:00--17:00 CEST [CA note: 9am to 11am EDT / 6am to 8am PDT] . Bring your questions, we’ll bring answers.



The 3.9 ‘Caelum’ update is likely to be released next week if everything goes according to plan.

Today we are releasing the patch notes, which include a number of fixes thanks to feedback we received from the Open Beta.

Because of the length of the 3.9.1 Patch Notes​, please visit the Paradox Forums to view them all.

by Eladrin

Happy Thursday!

Thanks for all of the feedback you’ve provided in the 3.9 Open Beta, and the surveys that you’ve filled out. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to get your eyes on things early, and it gives us a chance to see how you’re using certain things and tweak them before the actual release. As always, things in the beta are subject to change before release, and some things in there are still placeholders.

We’ve been polishing it and chiseling away at the various issues you’ve found, and are updating it today with some additional changes, and have opened up a new survey for additional feedback. (So any of you that filled out the first one will be able to respond to the changes.)

Here’s the full list of today’s changes:

3.9 ‘CAELUM’ OPEN BETA PATCH 1

Balance

• Clerks now also provide +1% trade value
  
• Reduced Trader upkeep to 1 CG
  
• Habitat Industrial Districts give +0.25 Building Slots
  
• Hydroponics Habitat Designation now increases food production from farmers
  
• Increased Alloy and Influence cost of Habitat Central Complexes
  
• Removed the Influence cost of Orbitals
  
• The modifiers on the unique Habitats in the Ithome's Gate now provide additional building slots.
  
• Upgrading Habitats with planetary decisions now gives +1 Branch Office Building for each upgrade.
  
• Void Dweller Hive-Minds no longer start with unemployment.
  
• Void Dwellers and Voidborne now gives +2 Max Districts on Habitats
  
• You can now build Habitat Central Complex and Major Orbitals around stars.
  
• Fruitful Partnership: lowered the cost of the "Open Seed Pods" special project from 5000 energy to 3000
  
• Machine Intelligences now have access to the Harvesters trait

Bugfix

• Fixed the end-game crisis not being able to destroy orbitals
  
• Fixed "In Breach Of The Galactic Law" not working properly
  
• Fixed an issue where Fruitful Partnership empires where unable to establish first contact with Amoebas
  
• Fixed issue with tooltips flickering when ending up under mouse when having concepts
  
• Fixed Mechromancers purging their cyber-zombies.
  
• Gestalt empires spawned via the Common Ground and Hegemony origins no longer have their Growth Node acting as the governor of their homeworld.
  
• Gestalt empires spawned via the Common Ground and Hegemony origins now have the correct traits.
  
• Orbitals are now graphically smaller
  
• Orbitals constructed in orbit of bodies that have both energy and mining deposits now provide both types of district. This include the Ether Drake's Hoard
  
• Removed the "Seed Pod" placeholder sensor component
  
• Restoring the Payback habitat correctly spawns a major orbital
  
• Seeded planet modifier now show their modifiers in addition to custom tooltips.
  
• The From Beyond science ship will no longer crash the game if you don't own First Contact.
  
• The Star Mall and Federation's End habitats are now correctly size 6 and level 3 or 1 respectively.
  
• Upgrading the seeded planet modifier now removes the previous modifier.
  
• You can no longer construct an Orbital Assembly Complex on a Ringworld or Habitat
  
• You can no longer have two habitats in the Payback starting system

Improvement

• Added effects to Infected planets stage 1-3, infested planets by the scourge crisis and added entity with effect for hive worlds.
  
• Small visual update on shroud entity

Modding

• Swapped is_orbital_ring = no for is_normal_starbase = yes
  
• Trigger graphical_culture now supports the megastructure scope.

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

This is a reminder that Stellaris is taking part in the Steam Strategy Fest.

This is an opportunity for you to pick up the Plantoids, Humanoids, Lithoids, and Necroids Species Packs at a discounted price before their base prices increase to $9.99 alongside the release of 3.9 ‘Caelum’.

We've also bundled all of the Species Packs together for you while the Strategy Fest is ongoing.


Next week the dev diary will be a day early, since the team will be holding a Reddit AMA on /r/stellaris on Wednesday Sept 6th, from 15:00-17:00. Bring us your questions!


The dev diary will be the 3.9 ‘Caelum’ Release Notes.


The Sculptor’s Chisel produces only perfection.

Visit the Paradox forums for an .stl for the Jeff bust, if you have access to a 3d printer.

by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

This week we’ll be going over changes to Humanoids, Necroids, and more. We’ll also look at how habitats have changed over the past few weeks, and when you’ll get to play with them and give us direct feedback. (Spoiler: Now.)

First, I want to make a correction to the infographic we posted in Dev Diary #308 - due to a misunderstanding, I had the “lava” and “geode” humanoid lithoids listed as two separate portraits in the infographic, but they’re going to be variants of the same portrait. I apologize for the error.


Check out the video version of this Dev Diary on YouTube!

Now Iggy will talk about one of the things Humanoids do best... Bickering.
Heyo, Iggy here!

The Humanoid Species Pack did receive some nice improvements back in 3.1 “Lem” but it still lacked something. So we have returned once again to give it another pass!

For the Humanoid Species Pack we wanted to make something new, Species Packs have had traits, ascension perks, civics, and origins. Here we are now introducing the first ever Species Pack tradition tree!


The Enmity tree is not restricted to the Humanoid Species Class.​

The Enmity Tradition tree is all about rivals and making the most of having them. The adoption and finisher bonus allows you to rival even more people than normal to extract as many bonuses as possible.


So many people to bear grudges against.​

Some of the traditions will reward you for maintaining loads of rivals such as Rise to the Occasion.


Good news! We found a xenophobe, now we can afford to employ another scientist!​

While the right side of the tree will be helping you compete against your Rivals.


Rivaling stronger empires is always a good idea.​

When you grab the tradition tree you also get access to a powerful agenda if you own Galactic Paragons. Since this Agenda is of a more tactical nature it will finish twice as fast as other tradition based agendas.


Give us war and nothing more!​

And as a nice finish you get access to a new diplomatic stance granting you further benefits for rivaling the galaxy.


You get a rivalry and you get a rivalry!


♫Dumb ways to die…♬​

Another thing we haven’t done in a while is add more Negative Traits, the Humanoid Species Pack will now give you two! As well as a new fun positive one as well. First up we have Psychological Infertility, which can be taken with a lot of the positive pop growth traits in the game, as well as its mirror, Existential Iteroparity.


Those Unbidden are not the right mood!


The faster you kill them the faster they grow!​

Finally for the players that really wanna try their luck (or just bully the servile species) there is now Jinxed!


The Tzynn saw a black cat cross the street, but didn’t understand the significance.​
We also have two new portraits coming to the Humanoids pack.

Unlike Lithoids and Plantoids, where we wanted to add a more human-like variant of the phenotypes, the Humanoids pack was already full of… well… Humanoids.

So we decided to make two more to add more variety to the available portraits.


Dimorphism in this species is mostly in skin patterns and hair.​

The second is a different take on “badass space elves”.







The Necroids Species Pack has already received a large number of improvements. Reanimated Armies, in particular, changed from being a very niche civic into a much more interesting one as Reanimators, and then was expanded to include Megacorps and Hives with Permanent Employment and Cordyceptic Drones.

The only one left out of the fun were machines.

Enter the Mechromancy Ascension Perk.


Have you tried turning it off and back on again?​

Mechromancy has no prerequisites, so can be taken as a Machine Intelligence’s very first Ascension Perk.


Totally not placeholder artwork.​

They can reanimate certain leviathans, and purged organic pops may be raised as cyborg zombies. Driven Assimilators treat these cyborg zombies as if they were assimilated for the purposes of pursuing Cybernetic Ascension.
One unintended consequence of the sources of Trade Value throughout the game was that Trade-focused empires ended up having more Merchants than we intended. To curtail this, and reduce the number of Ruler-strata jobs in these empires, we’re introducing two new jobs to the game.


Traders, willing to buy and sell anything on the Galactic Market.​

Traders replace Merchants from most sources and are also granted in place of Clerks for some buildings. These specialist strata jobs have an upkeep of 2 Consumer Goods and produce 8 Trade Value (plus some Amenities if you have the Commercial Enterprise Tradition).



Numistic Priests replace the Merchant and Priest jobs provided by the Numistic Shrine. These specialist strata jobs have an upkeep of 2 Consumer Goods and produce 6 Trade Value, 2 Unity and 2 Amenities. However, for the purposes of any bonuses provided to jobs, they count as both Traders and Priests.


Trade leads to Prophets, Prophets lead to Profits!​

The humble Clerk job has been rebalanced and now produces 3 Trade Value and 3 Amenities instead of 4 Trade Value and 2 Amenities. Taking the Trickle Up Economics Tradition increases their output to 4 Trade Value and 4 Amenities, but no longer grants additional Clerk jobs.


A player fantasy that’s occasionally been requested from the community is the idea of a worker-led Corporate empire. After playing around the concept a bit (Should it be a new authority? An origin? A civic?), we decided on making a Worker Cooperative civic, without sharing too many features with Shared Burdens.


Collective Corporate Cooperation Creates Credits​

For most of the game a Worker Cooperative empire should be entirely without the Ruler-strata as they replace their Executives and Managers with Stewards.


No rulers here!


Stewards replace both Executives and Managers​

As these unique jobs provide Unity and small amounts of both Trade Value and Amenities, they’re fairly useful to have even on worlds that aren’t dedicated to Unity production.




Profits to the people!​

The Employee Ownership Living Standard is much like Shared Burdens by sharing Political Power equally across the Strata, however instead of providing increased Happiness and faster Pop Demotion Time, it gives pops the same Trade Value production as Utopian Abundance and is further improved by a Tradition swap for the civic.



Meanwhile, the Mutual Aid trade policy allows your empire to reinvest their profits back into the upkeep for your pops. This allows some fairly powerful early game expansion if you’re running a Trade-focused build.

Eladrin immediately took this civic and twisted it into a Void Dweller Relentless Industrialist dystopia, screaming that “the invisible hand of the free market will handle the externalities”, so your utopian mileage may vary.
More improvements are being made to planetary automation.

Based on feedback we received (primarily from newer players), we’ve removed dedicated automation stockpiles from the game. Planetary automation will simply use resources from your empire stockpiles, removing one unintuitive step from the process as well as getting rid of some weird and unintended resource conversion quirks.

The automation settings panel now lets you restrict certain resources from use by the automation system, so you can do things like forbid the use of Rare Crystals if you have important plans for those.


The Habitat experiment described in Dev Diary #306 has continued, and it’s looking positive towards inclusion in the 3.9 ‘Caelum’ update.

Following on from Eladrin’s directive to simplify my Habitat Prototypes and the feedback we’ve received, I’ve continued iteration on our planned rework for Habitats.

So what’s changed from 3.8…

Habitats as a Megastructure and Colony/Planet are limited to one per system in the form of a Habitat Central Complex megastructure which when built spawns a colonisable habitat and Major Orbital.

Once this has been constructed, additional Major Orbitals can be constructed around planets in the system and Minor Orbitals can be constructed around asteroids and moons in the system.


The megastructure build menu listing the options for Habitats


Detailed tooltips showing the requirements and effects of Habitat Megastructures.​

When constructed, a Habitat Central Complex starts as size 6, and Habitation and Industrial Districts being uncapped. Research, Energy and Mining Districts are however limited to 3 × the number of deposits in the system that have an Orbital. Habitation Districts have also been changed to now provide 6 Housing, 2 Clerk/Maintenance Drone Jobs and +0.50 Building Slots.

If an Orbital is constructed around a planet, moon or asteroid with an Exotic Gas, Rare Crystal or Volatile Motes deposit, the deposit will automatically provide the jobs to collect the resources, without needing to construct a resource extraction building, as long as you have researched the relevant technology. While Orbitals constructed around Alloy, Zro, Dark Matter or other such deposits will automatically provide the resources as Habitats currently do.

As Orbitals are treated much like Mining/Research Stations in the system, they can be attacked by hostile forces but will be disabled when they hit 5% Hull Points (though crisis factions will instead outright destroy the Orbitals). When an Orbital is disabled, the Habitat Central Complex will gain 10% Devastation and a blocker depending on the type of Orbital.


Venting atmosphere into space is in breach of several GalCom ordinances!


The penalty to Max Districts scales with the level of the Habitat.​

Habitat Complexes can be upgraded through Planetary Decisions much like previously, except instead of increasing the Planet Size, the upgrades will now increase the Habitability (which is useful since Habitats now start at 40% Habitability) and boost the District and Building Slots provided by Orbitals.


Habitat Technologies


Habitat Complex Upgrade Decisions​

The effects and modifiers for both Void Dweller Origin and Voidborne AP have been reworked to take these changes into account, allowing for Void Dwellers to inherit most of the effects of the Voidborne AP.


Effects and Modifiers for Void Dwellers


Effects for the Voidborne AP


The initial Habitat Complex of a Void Dweller empire.


The same Habitat Complex after constructing all available Orbitals and fully upgrading it.​

While updating the Void Dweller starting conditions, we ran into an old bug - Void Dwellers with the Sol system would spawn the guaranteed habitable worlds if that setting was enabled, though the planets would be of a random planet class, but those with the Trinary Void Dweller system would not spawn these systems. To fix this, we’ve updated both starting systems for Void Dwellers so that the first world is replaced with a frozen planet with a research deposit and a large number of research deposits scattered throughout the system while the second world is replaced with a molten world with an alloy deposit and a large number of mineral and energy deposits scattered throughout the system. This means that with the guaranteed habitable worlds setting, Void Dwellers are instead guaranteed a number of resource rich systems designed for setting up habitat complexes.

We’ve decided that an Open Beta would be a good opportunity to gather more hands-on feedback about the system.

The beta includes early access to all of 3.9.0. Please visit the Paradox Forums to view the entirety of the Preliminary Changelog.

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

We’ve set up a feedback form here to consolidate your comments and suggestions.

Next week we’ll be reviewing how the Open Beta has been going, and if there are any additional changes planned as a result of it.


SPOILER: QUEST COMPLETE
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by MrFreake, chirumirushiroz​, rodahtnov​, gordon_cmb​, and idm7449​

Hello Stellaris Community, and chad-mod-enjoyers the world over!

Today we’re here to highlight some overhaul mods. From technologies, to government types, the galactic imperium, and traditions, this collection of mods might just have something that speaks to your inner swolefin!

Too much reading for a Monday? We’re also proud to feature Michael~ for the first time on Stellaris Official on YouTube, with a video highlighting these four mods:


Like this content? Subscribe to Michael~ on YouTube!

Without further ado, this first mod needs no introduction to just over 140 thousand of you, but in order to stop the ACOT fans yelling at us, we’re proud to present:

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Features:

• New Technology Tiers
  
• New Ship Types Based on Fallen Empires
  
• New Planet Types
  
• New Neutral Faction that doubles as mini-crisis
  
• New Megastructures
  
• New Origins
  
• Reworked Armies
  
• New stories and lore

Summary:
Ancient Cache of Technology explores the stories of the ancient enigmatic precursors, including the Curators, the Fallen Empires and those that came before them. Behind their history lies many great secrets yet to be rediscovered.

The Fallen Empires thought they mastered the Enigmatic Power, their dark matter and energy weapons supreme. But for how long? What if an empire manages to rise and learn their secrets, what if they surpass the known knowledge of the past, and forge a new future thought impossible?

This mod introduces a large variety of new technologies based on the enigmatic powers. From ship weapons, to buildings, to armies or planetary decisions. Technologies are categorized into tiers, and there are event chains that each empire has to go through to acquire them...or steal them from the others.

Due to vanilla's lacking army contents, this mod also expands upon armies as well. Most importantly, the Hive Mind gets to have their own armies now (No more zerglings running home due to low morale)

Furthermore, the mod buffs the existing Fallen Empire worlds to be much harder to invade, with their home citadels now fully protected, their outlying planets now have proper FE-tier buildings and their armies now much harder to beat.

It also buffs and expands upon the Curator Order a lot, as well as adding an entirely new neutral leviathan-like faction who holds a massive starbase, waiting for someone to challenge them." I always liked how the Fallen Empire ships looked and the mystery behind them, but the base content and story of the Fallen Empires in the vanilla game left much to be desired, so I started by giving them more unique building looks, unique armies, then the mod gets larger until it reaches the current version.









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This next mod adds a little bit of everything, new authorities, civics, ascension perks, megastructures, all while going for the vanilla-like feel and balance:

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Features:

• 6 new authorities, with 3 more on the works
  
• More than 100+ new civics, including all playstyles and new types of civics (Origin civics, origin exclusive civics tied to your origin!)
  
• Expanded and customizable ethics for normal and gestalt empires
  
• Several new traits for al type of species archetypes
  
• Several reworks and adjustments to base features keeping the original appeal (reworked Arcologies, Habitats, Branch offices, Naval capacity, etc)
  
• Several additions to DLCs, filling the missing fantasy gaps (example: aquatic trait/civic for machines)
  
• New and expanded features in line with the original appeal and experience (Ai authorities processing capacity, hivemind rework, machine rework, etc)
  
• 6 new Tradition paths, built as an upgrade of some of the base game paths.
  
• Some new ascension perks expanding generally lackluster features (example: A starbase path to make starbases more feasible economically or as defense!)
  
• 8 new expanded ascension paths, including advanced versions of normal paths, mixed paths and more, with subpaths inside each path and unique mechanics, traits and lore for each one.
  
• New mid game megastructures and planet types.
  
• A lot of custom art in all features in line with the base game.
  
• And more coming soon!

Summary:

With Stellaris Evolved we intended to create a new set of tools to fill the gaps in the fantasy-creation agency process of players; a big emphasis has been put on empire creation and early game, and we are slowly expanding our horizon towards mid and late game.

• Readability and accessibility: We enhance features visually so they are easier to understand/read and there is no need to relearn the game; all is done in line with vanilla design.
  
• Diversity and variety: We try to provide all the tools possible to create diverse fantasies outside the stellaris reach, and we are constantly asking people, searching media, etc to enrich and expand! But always taking in mind player agency is priority, so we avoid bee-lining a fantasy!
  
• Compatibility: As a soft-overhaul we try to allow the maximum compatibility possible, and as such we design evolved as a foundation mod, adding some external code internally for compatibility and openly collaborating with other modders for it!
  
• Fun and accomplishment: This is a game and as such, having fun is a priority! We try to make all players feel satisfied and accomplished after a game, with also some balance in mind, so all type of sessions are enjoyable"

Inspiration
Originally this mod was gonna be a "gestalt only" mod; I love stellaris and my initial experience was playing gestalts, specially hives, and after some time detected they were a bit stale, so decided to start modding! And, with a non coding background, the start was pretty rough, but over time knowledge was gained, new techniques and wisdom were discovered and overall, a good experience was generated with the joy of creating people's love.

Has been a lot since then, more than two years, and features got expanded, things got reestructured and all goals needed to organise, but now we are a team of two (MrRoAdd, you are amazing!) and we are doing a lot of amazing things you will see now, and in the future!

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Ever just.. See an idea and go: “Wow, that is really cool.” Well, this next mod did that to me, and I suspect you might just have the same reaction, because it’s just that cool.

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Features

• Ability to form Superstates:
  
• * The Galactic Republic
  
• * Union of Socialist Stars
  
• * Galactic Processing Unit
  
• * Everlasting Hive
  
• * GalactiCORP
  
• * Universal Union
  
• Several new civics, events and unique flags for each

Summary
The Superstates are your go-to alternatives for the Galactic Imperium. If you want to expand your reach even further, but want to remain the Galactic Custodian, you can instead form a Superstate. Each one has its own set of civics, unique flags, events and even a set of resolutions will be available in future updates! The primary goal of this mod is to bring more variety and roleplaying potential to the game. Not every Custodian will want to proclaim an authoritarian Imperium, some will want to remain democratic, or strengthen their grip on the Galaxy further. The mod doesn't tell the entire story behind the formation of a Superstate or its possible dissolution later down the road, it leaves those details to the player's interpretation, making games more fun and enjoyable to play if you love democracy! On topic of loving democracy, you will still be able to form the Imperium, provided you want to and your Superstate is not as despotic (eg. The Universal Union). There can't be two or more Superstates at the same time, since a Superstate is a Galactic Hegemon. This empire is a diplomatic mastermind that brings the Galaxy ever so slightly towards total unification.

Inspiration
The inspiration behind this mod was the Imperium itself, or rather, how limited it was. Even if you play as a xenophilic democratic guardian of the galaxy - you MUST leave these values behind and become a dictatorial militarist if you want to lead the Galaxy. The game needs more variety on all fronts, and that's when the modders can help. That's why I create those mods, to promote variety, to promote roleplay and replay value.

This game is not merely a 4X strategy, it's a story generator, and a good story needs good tools to be made. Stellaris in itself is a great game already, it serves as a perfect platform for modding, and I'm extremely glad the developers are as kind as they are, they give us tools, they give us easy to understand code, and they constantly support not just the playerbase, but the modders as well.

Overall, I think, since the modding potential is so great, we need to take matters into our own hands and create the best roleplaying experience out of this game. This is exactly what I'm trying to achieve, this mod and Resolutions Expanded are basically a cross-compatible series of mods to improve on the Galactic Community, and I hope to see more mods like this in the future.
To all newcoming modders: Be yourself, and be the change you want to see!



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Our final mod for this month’s mod highlights takes a different approach to traditions, splitting the vanilla traditions up into sections, and allowing you to choose part or all of traditions, and combine them to best fit your playstyle:

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Features:

• Forerunner overhauls all Traditions in the game with more compelling perks and choices, supporting unique bonuses for standard empires, machine empires, hive empires, Lithoids, Necrophages, and much more. Adding in total 11 Tradition categories, 60 Paths, and 198 new Traditions!
  
• A new way to gain Ascension Perks. Instead of gaining Ascension Perks from finishing a Tradition, gain them by pairing Paths. Choose the bonuses that are relevant to you and your playstyle!
  
• Redesigned layout and icons for each Tradition category, featuring the beautiful artwork found in Stellaris!
  
• Lightweight and compatibility friendly. Forerunner was designed with compatibility in mind.
  
• Clean implementation. No game errors.

Summary
Forerunner - A Traditions Overhaul is a complete overhaul of the game’s tradition system, designed to mirror the balance of the base game while introducing new gameplay options. It reworks existing Tradition trees with more compelling perks and choices in order to reinforce existing playstyles or create entirely new ones. Forerunner attempts to make every choice as meaningful as possible by focusing on a smaller selection of Tradition categories as opposed to a larger number with a varying degree of game balancing.

The new Path mechanic gives players increased freedom when it comes to pursuing Ascension Perks, by allowing Paths to be paired within a Tradition category or in between Tradition categories, letting the player define how their Ascension Perks should be obtained.

Will you remember your Heritage or will you Ascend? Forerunner introduces a brand new tradition called Heritage that serves as an alternative to Ascension Paths centered around remaining true to the empire’s identity (Ethics, Civics) instead of forging a new one.









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That’s it for this month’s mod highlights! I hope you’ve found something that will add some spice to your next playthrough, and thanks to Michael~ (subscribe to him on YouTube!) for doing the feature video this month.

Are you a modder who wants your mod featured in a future mod highlight? Fill out the signup sheet here!

by Eladrin

Hi everyone, long thyme no see.

This week we’re continuing our exploration of the improvements the Custodian Team is making to Species Packs in the upcoming Stellaris 3.9 ‘Caelum’ Update, as well as some of the other stuff we’ve been up to.


Too much reading for a Thursday? Watch the video Dev Diary instead!

First up are some improvements to the Environmentalists civic.
Although the initial version of the Ranger Lodge and the Ranger jobs for the Environment civic were good, we felt that they could be improved upon.

Changes this civic has seen are:

• The number of Ranger jobs provided by the Lodge now scales with the number of Natural Blockers on the planet.
  
• Environmentalist empires can now choose to expand their Nature Preserves, increasing the number of Blockers (and thus Ranger jobs) on the planet.

You should give the Nature Preserves as mushroom as possible.​

• In addition to producing Unity for Environmentalists, each Natural Blocker on the planet (with the exception of Nature Preserves), now gives Ranger jobs a small amount of production of basic resources

Gardeners everywhere know the threat of invasive species.

Now you too can have a Plantoid or Fungoid species that grows like weeds.



The root of the problem.​

Invasive species get +5% habitability and + 5% pop growth speed for each negative trait they possess, and can only select negative or botanical traits.

Will you use them to propagate yourselves across the galaxy, or make that xenophile regret signing that migration pact?

Or perhaps they can hitch a ride to nearby planets using the…

Many plants spread their seeds far and wide through animal dispersal.

Plantoid and Fungoid civilizations now have that option as well.





This origin is so wholesome it’s a little sappy.​

Empires with the Fruitful Partnership origin will begin the game in contact with the Tiyanki, and Starseed Gardens already built on their home Orchard Station.



Space fauna that visit the system are lured to the station, where they partake in the provided fruits, and carry your seed pods with them as they travel the galaxy.


Where are they going to take them…?​

When passing near a habitable world, the seed pods can find a home…


…All clover the galaxy!



And by completing a special project, new life can bloom - wherever it is they brought the seeds.




It was mint to be.



Having your seeds carried away by space fauna can allow colonization of planets far from your home system, but you can also be a little more direct about seeding an enemy planet.


Dropping some sick beets.​

While these seed blockers are primarily just a nuisance to your opponent, if you end up taking the planet and clearing them yourself, you’ll be able to turn them into pops, similar to how Lithoid blockers work.

The Lithoid Theians from last week came from a close encounter with Earth eons ago, our new Plantoids actually start on Earth and explore the possibility of “what if humans were plants”. Naturally, empires that branched out from Earth like the Commonwealth of Man will share your leafy heritage. (Their reputation pre-seeds them.)


Say aloe to my little friend.

SPOILER: FIRST TIME EVER?
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Now, on to some other things coming in 3.9, and no more terrible plant jokes.

During the development of Galactic Paragons and First Contact, we wanted to revisit some of the older interactions with the various Enclaves scattered around the Galaxy, but never found the time, namely:

• Hiring a Scientist from the Curators
  
• Hiring a Governor from the Trader Enclaves
  
• Hiring a Teacher from the Shroudwalkers
  
• Hiring a Salvage Overseer from the Salvagers

As the development of the 3.8 hotfix patches wound down, we were able to get some additional code support for Empire Councilors and got to work.

Coming in the 3.9 update, each of these decisions will grant recruitment of a Level 5 Scientist or Governor, each with their own unique trait (and for owners of Galactic Paragons, a unique Council Position that only they can be appointed to).

This leader recruitment replaces the existing Shroudwalker Teacher planetary modifier and Salvage Overseer empire modifier and improves upon the leaders recruited from the Curators and Trader Enclaves.



The Governors from the other Trader Enclaves provide bonuses to Rare Crystals or Volatile Motes instead.​

However, just because you’ve recruited these Renowned Leaders from Enclaves, don’t expect them to sit by idly if you attack their former home.




The main change that we want to highlight here is:

• NInterface has been moved from commom/defines/00_defines.txt to unchecked_defines/interface.txt. This means that any mods that alter defines listed under NInterface will no longer block achievements or Ironman.

As mentioned in Dev Diary #307, we were looking at some adjustments to the over-cap formulas to reduce their negative effects until the greater rework is ready.

Rather than a linear progression that abruptly hits -100% XP, we’ve replaced the current XP scaling for leaders with a formula that follows a curve.


XP curves for being over capacity (at the base of 6 leaders)​

Humanoids and Necroids will be next week’s primary topic. Alfray will give an update on how Habitats have been going, and what’s this I hear about an Open Beta?

See you then!

SPOILER: PROGRESS
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Sorry about all of the puns in this one.