by Eladrin

Today's update includes some major changes to the planet view, and some very, very basic gestalt functionality.

Planets now start with six building slots in their Urban District, with two Zones available to customize its output. Your homeworld will generally begin with an Industrial (Alloys + Consumer Goods) and an Archives (Unity + Research) Zone at game start. These changes have not been replicated to gestalts or special planets or starts yet.

We are planning one more Open Beta update (3.99.7) this Friday.


Beta Features​

• Planets now have six building slots by default and two zones that can be used to specialize their urban districts.
  
  • Most empires no longer start with the early space age industry buildings or jobs
    
  • Known Issue: This has not been replicated to gestalts or special planets yet.
• Planet UI now shows last month's growth for each pop group.
  
• Added a mixed Research and Unity “Archives” Zone.

Fixes and Improvements​

• Adjusted rural job numbers
  
• Added urban zones to mining districts for Subterranean empires
  
• Clicking on a built Zone will now bring up the District Details panel
  
• By player request, the Build Queue side panel now automatically starts open when looking at your planets
  
• Prevent AI from cheating for zone building
  
• Industrial Zones now use the correct icon.
  
• Strata now show their population when collapsed.
  
• Timeline origin images are now properly masked
  
• Planetary Ascension area in the Management Tab now functions.
  
  • Add icon and style label for ascension tier in management tab
    
  • Add text with breakdown of the modifiers provided by planetary ascension
• Some Hive and Machine setup has been completed, they should be slightly functional now
  
  • Known Issue: Hives do not get Mining Drones from Mining Districts, so, uh… maybe go Void Hive?
    
  • Hive and Machine Worlds have had an initial pass
    
  • Machine Starting Conditions have had an initial pass

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.6 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

All previous 3.99.* Open Beta branches will also remain available. If you are having issues accessing the latest version of the 3.99.* Open Beta, please see this forum post for troubleshooting.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary.

This week's feedback survey looks at Trade, Logistics, and Notifications and Messaging.

This week's Open Beta feedback survey is available here!

by Eladrin

Today's update adds the Betharian Zone, a Mandarin voice advisor, and new stargazer color variants, with broad fixes throughout.


Beta Features

• Added the Betharian Zone.
  
• “Venerable Scientist" (Mandarin Language) Voice Advisor
  
• Added new color variants for stargazer portrait

Fixes and Improvements

• Unbroke all colonies.
  
• Fixed issues with Catalytic Processing civics.
  
• Fixed the zone planet modifiers not being applied if districts have multiples of the same zone type.
  
• Fixed the Chosen's habitats.
  
• Pirates are a little less gung-ho to form.
  
• Planetary deficits now cost trade instead of providing it.
  
• Increased the base rate of Auto-Migration.
  
• Pops will now automatically migrate to planets with 20% habitability or higher instead of 40% or higher.
  
• When the maximum number of auto-modded pops changes, the current number is now updated correctly.
  
• City Districts now change their name and descriptions based on their zone specializations.
  
• Compressed unity and added job swaps.
  
• City set graphics scale adjusted.
  
• Updated Empire Progression Rewards to always display which technology is unlocked.
  
• Allowed rural zones on ringworlds.
  
• Removed bonus production on tier 1 buildings, removed tier 1 buildings planet limit.
  
• Pop count, Housing, and Amenities on the planet view now use short notation (such as 13.4k rather than 13405).
  
• Replaced Upgrade buttons for districts with icons.
  
• Background graphics added for all districts.
  
• Added progress bars to the zones that are being built or replaced.
  
• District/Zone/Building Construction tooltips added.
  
• Changed how selected District is being highlighted.
  
• Highlight the selected zone slot when building new zones.
  
• Display old zone name, icon and building slots if the zone is being replaced.
  
• Display the icon and name of the zone being constructed.
  
• Rural district zones can now also be built by clicking anywhere within the empty zone slot.
  
• Further Timeline UI adjustments, fixing background masking.
  
• Added designation description in the colonization UI.
  
• Adjusted district numbers in the colonization UI to show the max amount of possible districts.
  
• Added functionality to deselect a selected colony designation.
  
• Rearranged and tweaked colony modifier displaying in the colonization UI.
  
• Added new databank icons.
  
• Added starting notification for selecting Empire Focus.
  
• Added planetary deficits to the Planetary view

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.4 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

All previous 3.99.* Open Beta branches will also remain available. If you are having issues accessing the latest version of the 3.99.* Open Beta, please see this forum post for troubleshooting.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary.

We also have a new feedback survey this week, which looks at first impressions of Precursor selection, Databank, Species Modification, and Game Pacing Adjustments.

This week's Open Beta feedback survey is available here!

by Alfray Stryke

Hello everybody! Welcome to our first BioGenesis development diary!

Today we will talk about ships. That are made of meat.

—

Several weeks ago, Eladrin mentioned that the ship designer changes originally planned for 4.0 "Phoenix" would not be included in the Open Beta, as they’re now needed for our upcoming Q2 DLC release. We’ve since seen a fair amount of speculation as to what we might have been cooking that’d require such changes… So please allow me to introduce our Biological Ships!


In BioGenesis, we are adding two distinct Biological shipsets, with unique ship classes and technology.

Our goals in adding Biological Ships to Stellaris were to ensure that they are not only different in appearance from mechanical ships (and space fauna), but also in gameplay. Thus, the key mechanical differences are:

• When using Biological Ships, Corvettes, Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships are replaced with Maulers, Weavers, Harbingers, and Stingers, each of which have three growth stages.
  
• Biological Ships, including Starbases, Megastructures and Stations, have their primary construction resource converted from Alloys (or Minerals) into Food and their Energy upkeep likewise replaced with Food upkeep.
  
• Overwhelmingly, Biological Ship technologies fall in Society Research (Biology) instead of the familiar Engineering Research (Voidcraft).

And in classic Stellaris fashion, we’ve kept the flavor and narrative around Biological Ships intentionally vague, just enough to let you roleplay them however you like. Maybe they’re an extension of your Devouring Swarm, just another drone in space. Or maybe they’re advanced bio-machines, the pinnacle of your scientific achievement.

In order to use Biological Ships, you’ll need to select one of the shipsets during empire creation.


Different types of ships prompted our UX designer to give the Shipset selector a fresh coat of paint!


Similar to Space Fauna from Grand Archive, Biological Ships have growth stages, but unlike Space Fauna, they do not naturally progress through these by aging. Instead, these ships have a unique component slot for supplementary organs that can be researched. Generally speaking, the Juvenile and Mature growth stages will likely be occupied by Growth Organs that allow the ships to progress to the next stage.



Alternatively, docking a fleet to a Starbase equipped with a Growth Chamber allows for additional growth, regardless of ship configuration.,



The accumulated growth progress for ships is shown in both the ship’s tooltip and the ship details window.





When Biological Ships are designed (either automatically or using the ship designer), all researched Growth Stages are configured as part of a single ship design. Once a Biological Ship has acquired sufficient Growth Progress, it will automatically change to using the next Growth Stage in its design. Alternatively, Biological Ships can be constructed at a shipyard at a later Growth Stage.


The three growth stages of the Weaver

Although all Growth Stages of Biological Ships use the same Fleet Command Limit for their ship class, later Growth Stages use more naval capacity, with the Mature stage using 1.5× and the Elder stage using 2× the Naval Capacity of the Juvenile stage.


Maulers primarily focus on short-range combat with shield penetration and high damage to armor and shields. Equipped with melee-range mandible weapons and either short-range S-slot or PD-slot weapons, these ships will form the bulk of your navy in the early game. Their unique mandible weapons have similar damage scaling against starbases and larger ships as torpedoes.





The unique Organ components that Maulers have access to are the Corrosive Fluids and Metabolic Recycler (and their upgraded versions)





Weavers are support ships, making use of unique weapons to apply powerful buffs to their allies or debuffs to their enemies.



Weavers have unique access to an array of six support components, each with six tiers that belong in the PD-slot.





The unique Organ components that Weavers have access to are Symbiotic Amplifiers and Developmental Pheromones





Harbingers are carriers capable of deploying large amounts of strike craft and supporting them with point defense or long range missiles.





Strike craft for empires using Biological Ships are deployed in greater numbers per fighter wing, but have reduced hull points and armour instead of shields.



The unique Organ components that Harbingers have access to are Chitin Growth Regulators and the Incubation Matrix





Stingers are powerful late-game warships, equipped with multiple XL weapons or capable of unleashing heavy broadside barrages.





The unique Organ components that Stingers have access to are Exhaust Spiracles and Rangefinder Clusters.





As each of the different Growth Stages of each of the classes of Biological Ships can be built at a shipyard, we’ve taken the opportunity to implement collapsable headers when selecting which ships to build.


This works for mechanical ships and space fauna too!

Since Biological Ships have their own weapons, armour, shield and core components, we’ve gone through and ensured that the technologies use the appropriate icons depending on if you are using a Biological shipset or not.



As part of the work required to implement Biological Ships there have been a lot of changes to how ship components are scripted. Here’s some highlights:

• class_restriction, size_restriction and slot_restriction are deprecated in favour of using the possible and potential trigger blocks instead.
  
• Core Components now have an upgrade_path parameter, components that have the same upgrade path are shown on the same row.
  
• Ship components now support the show_tech_unlock_if = { } field, like buildings.
  
• New targeting parameters:
  
  • use_ship_main_target: if yes, overrides target_type and target_focus when ship's main target is within range, default no
    
  • target_type (target_enemies (default) / target_allies / target_controlled / target_own)
    
  • target_focus (single (default) / spread)
    
  • target_type: only valid if component_set has affects_target_type = yes
    
  • target_focus: only valid if component_set has affects_target_focus = yes
• New parameters for weapons:
  
  • on_hit: apply effects to target on hit. Scope = ship (target), from = ship (shooter)
    
  • hide_damage_values_from_tooltip = yes/no # If yes, it will hide Damage and Average Damage from weapon component tooltip (default = no)

Next week we’ll be looking at Ascension, Traditions, and Advanced Governments​. See you then!

by Eladrin

Today's update includes some AI improvements and fixes to the new breadthwise job allocation.


Fixes and Improvements​

• Significant improvements to the breadthwise job assignment distribution.
  
• AI now understands the use of Zones.
  
  • (Known Inssue: Scripting weights are not yet balanced.)
• Fixed cloaking detection tooltip overwriting value breakdown with generic description
  
• Fixed demotions not working as they should
  
• Fixed factions not forming.
  
• Fixed the integration cost for subjects
  
• Fixed tooltips for Commercial Zone building mentioning clerks and soldiers
  
• Tier 1 Development focus tasks now award progress
  
• Decreased habitat district cost and upkeep
  
• Void Dweller prescripted systems now have larger deposits
  
• Habitat districts now have the same base number of jobs as regular districts
  
• Demense Zones now have the number of squire jobs increased by taking the Voidborne AP.
  
• Shattered Ring, Ringworlds and Arcologies should now be semi-functional.
  
  • (Known Issue: The "rural" segments of Ringworlds do not yet have Agricultural or Generator zones to choose from.)
• Add toggle on the header of the automation side panel to enable/disable planet automation
  
• Move "decisions" in management tab and "resettle" in economy tab
  
• Small fixes for planet view
  
• Toggle icon in surface tab and add tooltips
  
• Revamped several tutorial entries
  
• Added a new Medical Center building that gives access to Medical Workers before Gene Clinics
  
• Rebalanced Medical Workers
  
• Rebalanced the Mutagenic Spas building
  
• Entertainers and Traders no longer benefit from Gene Clinics, Augmentation Centers or Ranger Lodges
  
• Added a has_any_industry_zone scripted trigger
  
• The Revolutionary Medi-Gel now provides +25% Job Efficiency for Medical Workers

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.4 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

All previous 3.99.* Open Beta branches will also remain available. If you are having issues accessing the latest version of the 3.99.* Open Beta, please see this forum post for troubleshooting.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary.

We also have a new feedback survey this week, which looks at first impressions of Precursor selection, Databank, Species Modification, and Game Pacing Adjustments.

This week's Open Beta feedback survey is available here!

It’s my great pleasure to announce the start of Stellaris: Season 09, with the BioGenesis expansion leading the way alongside the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/3417870

The future of evolution is here. BioGenesis continues our remastering of the Ascension Paths by granting you unprecedented power over life itself and hatches May 5th, 2025.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3417840



Two Biological Shipsets
Command living fleets that evolve alongside your empire. Customize these genetic marvels for specialized roles, from ferocious Maulers to adaptable support Weavers, each capable of empowering allies and weakening foes.

Three New Origins

• Evolutionary Predators: Push the boundaries of Species Traits by unlocking and combining unique phenotype abilities to craft the ultimate adaptive empire.
  
• Starlit Citadel: Solve the mystery of your empire’s biological attackers while boosting hyperlane choke-point strategies with early access to the Deep Space Citadel megastructure.
  
• Wilderness: Begin as a sapient planetary ecosystem, a living gestalt of countless lifeforms united in harmony, seeking to spread its consciousness to the stars.

Overhauled Genetic Ascension
Choose from three Ascension paths (Cloning, Purity, and Mutation) and over 18 enhanced Authorities. Customize your genetic ascension by blending Purity, Cloning, and Mutation traditions into a unique path for your play style.

Hives with a Twist
Encounter a Hive Fallen Empire, a fractured hive mind struggling to awake between its three splintered personalities.

Six New Civics
Genetic Identification, Crowdsourcing, Familiar Face, Aerospace Adaptation, Shared Genetics, Civil Education

Deep Space Citadel Megastructure
A versatile new defensive station capable of holding off powerful enemy fleets at any system.

Behemoth Fury Crisis Path
The apex predators of the stars are not bound by petty limitations. Cast off the biological weaknesses that hold you back, and become a force of nature.

• Gestalt Hive Empires (also unlocked by Utopia)​
  
• Two biological Shipsets with distinct mechanics from traditional spacecraft
  
• Three new Origins​
  • Evolutionary Predators
    
  • Wilderness
    
  • Starlit Citadel​
• Civics​
  • Genetic Identification
    
  • Crowdsourcing
    
  • Familiar Face
    
  • Aerospace Adaptation
    
  • Shared Genetics
    
  • Civil Education
• Deep Space Citadel Megastructure
  
• Biological Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)​
  • Expanded with BioGenesis to include a mutable tradition tree that reflects your path through Ascension
• Exploration of the effects of Biological Ascension on society
  
• Advanced Government Forms
  
• 16 new genetic Species Traits, including phenotype based traits
  
• Portraits that change based on pop strata and leader level
  
• The Splintered Hive Fallen Empire
  
• Two Diplomatic Rooms and City Sets​
  
• 7 music tracks
  
• And a new Player Crisis Path​ - Behemoth Fury

Planned Dev Diary Schedule
March 27 - Biological Ships and Mechanics
April 3 - Ascension, Traditions, Advanced Governments
April 10 - Phenotype Traits, Evolutionary Predators Origin
April 17 - Deep Space Citadel, Starlit Citadel Origin
April 24 - Hive Fallen Empire, Wilderness Origin
May 1 - Civics, Behemoth Fury, Preliminary Release Notes
May 5 - BioGenesis Release Date

The Stellaris: Season 09 Expansion Pass is your gateway to an entire year of cosmic evolution, psionic mysteries, and apocalyptic infernos. With instant access to the exclusive Stargazer Species Portrait, this expansion pass delivers three major content packs that will redefine the Biological and Psionic Ascensions and the most ambitious species pack so far!

Purchasing the Expansion Pass grants access to all four DLCs as soon as they become available.





Stargazer Species Portrait (Instant Unlock)
Dream of the stars with this exclusive portrait, available immediately upon purchasing Stellaris: Season 09. Featuring three phenotypes and unique animations, the Stargazer Species Portrait is perfect for players who seek to embody the spirit of cosmic curiosity.



BioGenesis (Releases May 5, 2025 - $24.99)
Take command of the forces of life itself in Stellaris: BioGenesis. Engineer living ships and wield advanced genetic tools to shape the destiny of your empire. Will you create a utopia of adaptation and growth or weaponize biology to dominate the stars?

• Overhauled Genetic Ascension: Choose from three distinct paths—Cloning, Purity, and Mutation—and customize your evolution.
  
• Living Ships: Command biological starships that evolve alongside your empire.
  
• Player Crisis Path: Unleash the unstoppable Behemoth Fury on the galaxy.
  
• Three New Origins: Play as evolutionary predators, a sapient planetary ecosystem, or a fortress civilization.
  
• New Megastructure: Construct the Deep Space Citadel to control hyperlane choke points.

Shadows of the Shroud (Releases Q3 2025 - $19.99)
The psionic plane holds untold power—but at what cost? Shadows of the Shroud is a complete overhaul of the Psionic Ascension path, introducing new moral dilemmas, Patron allegiances, and a whole new way of interacting with the mysteries of the Shroud.

• Breach into the Shroud: Shape your empire’s spiritual destiny with a revamped Shroud system.
  
• Shroud Panel: Track your empire’s attunement and unlock new powers.
  
• Revamped End of the Cycle: The ultimate deal with the devil—can you delay the inevitable?
  
• Psionic Auras: Let your Shroud influence shape entire star systems.
  
• New Content: Origins, civics, ships, government types, and more!

Infernals Species Pack (Releases Q4 2025 - $12.99)
Forge your destiny in the Stellaris: Infernals Species Pack - our most ambitious Species Pack ever. Adapted to relentless heat and volatile landscapes, you wield the power of extreme environments to reshape the galaxy. Will your empire thrive in the heat, or be consumed by the very forces it seeks to command?

• Player Crisis Path: Burn the galaxy to ashes as your empire thrives in destruction.
  
• New Origins: Unearth ancient kin or endure the scorching wrath of a dying sun in two new Origins.
  
• Volcanic Worlds: A new planetary class with unique districts, events, and archaeological sites.
  
• New Species & Customization: Ships, portraits, civics, and more!

The Stellaris: Season 09 Expansion Pass is now available for purchase for $44.99 or regional equivalent, a 20% discount over purchasing the contents individually.

This Thursday we’ll flesh out the bio-ships!

See you then!


BioGenesis is now available for pre-purchase for $24.99 or regional equivalent,
or with a 20% discount as part of the Stellaris: Season 09 Expansion Pass, which is available now for $44.99 or regional equivalent.

by Eladrin

Another update today for the weekend! Lots of important changes in this one.


Fixes and Improvements

• Habitats are now semi-functional in the Open Beta.
  
  • Habitats now derive their maximum mining, generator, and science district development based on the resources in the system. Orbital deposits grant 1 + (half their base value, rounded down) maximum district development.
    
  • Habitat orbitals are automatically constructed for free when a new district is completed on the central habitat complex, if one can be built
    
  • Habitat orbitals are now megastructures instead of dummy fleets, preventing them from being attacked (and therefore attempting to to flee from attackers)
    
  • Habitat orbitals now collect the resources from the deposit that they are built over
    
  • Habitat orbitals now have the same upkeep as mining and research stations, since they serve similar purposes
    
  • Habitat districts now take longer to build and cost alloys to build
    
  • Habitats now gain +0.25 Max Districts per Planet or Star in the System per Capital Building Tier
    
  • Upon converting MSI's ruined warship into a habitat, it is immediately colonised
    
  • Void Dweller empires now get +50% jobs from habitat districts. This does not currently include scaling jobs from jobs, but should in the future.
    
  • Voidborne AP and Void Dweller origins now give Habitat District cost reduction
    
  • Void Dwellers now get Civilians on game start
    
  • Added a Hydroponics Zone for Habitats
• Building and Zone Changes:
  
  • Replaced the Early Industry Zone with the Urban Zone. The Urban Zone currently accepts all buildings, limitations will be added in a future update
    
  • Default starting planets now have Basic Offices and Basic Research Labs buildings in addition to the Basic Factories
    
    • Basic Factories provide Laborer jobs and can be upgraded into either Alloy Foundries or Civilian Industries
      
    • The Primitive Factory no longer decreases the Job Efficiency of Bureaucrats, Physicists, Biologists and Engineers
      
    • Basic Offices provide Administrator jobs and can be upgraded into Administrative Offices or Temples
      
    • Basic Research Labs provide Researcher jobs and be upgraded into Research Labs. These Researchers are worse than Researchers from 3.14.
  • Administrative Offices now provide Bureaucrat jobs and no longer require a Unity Zone
    
  • Alloy Foundries now provide Metallurgist jobs and no longer require an Industry or Foundry Zone
    
  • Anglers now have a unique zone on wet worlds.
    
  • Civilian Industries now provide Artisan jobs and no longer require an Industry or Factory Zone
    
  • Research Labs now provide Physicists, Biologists and Engineers and no longer require a Research Zone
    
  • Temples now provide Priest jobs and no longer require a Unity Zone
    
  • The Autochthon Monument no longer requires a Unity Zone
    
  • The food processing facility building now gives some base farmer jobs.
    
  • Uncapped rural districts now support the correct zones
    
  • Zones now display an icon and tooltip stating that they provide building slots
    
  • Zones now have auto-generated tooltips stating the jobs that they provide
    
  • Adjusted job counts of Districts and Zones
    
  • Converted the Order's Demense to a unique zone for KotTG
    
    • Scaling Knight jobs are now given by Squires, instead of the Order's Keep. You will no longer get thousands of Knights from keeping the entire galaxy's population as livestock.
• Capital Buildings no longer state that they provide building slots.
  
• City Districts no longer state that they provide Building Slots
  
• Jobs are now filled in a more breadthwise manner - weighting still affects job preferences, but pops will attempt to fill all jobs of a strata instead of focusing exclusively on their dream jobs. Somebody still has to make the Consumer Goods even if you had your heart set on being a Physicist.
  
  • The intent of this is to alter the “land rush” when new jobs open up and to prevent certain economic death spirals. Let us know how it works out for you.
• Mastercrafter civics now provide extra consumer goods and trade to artisan jobs
  
• Rebalanced biologist jobs for normal empires
  
• Rebalanced Engineer jobs
  
• Reworked Artisan sub-jobs
  
• Fixed the modifier icon for some researcher modifiers not showing
  
• Researcher sub-jobs no longer show that they provide 0 naval capacity
  
• Increased the base Consumer Goods income for empires that use Consumer Goods
  
• Increased the food (or equivalent) and consumer goods income of default countries
  
• Laborer jobs are now Specialists that produce Alloys and Consumer Goods
  
• Rebalanced physicist jobs for normal empires
  
• More progress on the planetary UI.
  
• New Look for the District boxes in the Planet Summary Screen.
  
• Removed sound effect when interacting with enclaves
  
• Revamped initial tutorial events
  
• Move planetary automation button in planet surface tab

Modding Notes

• Added documentation for new district_planet_modifier and triggered_district_planet_modifier modifiers for Zones
  
• Orbital and Planet Deposits now support habitat_modifier, which as you might expect from the name, applies a static modifier to the habitat(s) in the system.

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.2 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

The 3.99.0, 3.99.1, and 3.99.2 Open Beta branches will also remain available. If you are having issues accessing the latest version of the 3.99.* Open Beta, please see this forum post for troubleshooting.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary.

We also have a new feedback survey this week, which looks at first impressions of the planet UI and rework. We know it's not in a finished or releasable state, but want your feedback regardless.

This week's Open Beta feedback survey is available here!

by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

We’ve entered our second week of the Stellaris 3.99 ‘Phoenix’ Open Beta, and if all goes according to plan are planning another update tomorrow morning with some major changes to the starting situation of your planets. (Goodbye, primitive factory debuffs. I'd say we'll miss you, but... we won't.)

While we recognize that the early state of the Open Beta makes it difficult to provide balancing feedback, it’s proven itself invaluable already.

The Open Beta has found several issues with growth and decline - from robots causing the inevitable decline of your empire to Fallen Empires and Pre-FTL societies being doomed due to not using standard growth models. You’ve found economic death spirals and identified needs that will help our designers produce a better balanced and fun experience in the final release.

These were precisely some of the types of things I was looking for when we decided to push the Open Beta despite the early state that it was in, and I’m thankful that we did. Thank you for all of your help so far, and I hope you’ll continue to give us your feedback as we continue to update.

We will continue the twice-weekly update cadence until the end of the month, with dev livestreams every Thursday.

Back when we released The Grand Archive, we created a version of the trailer in Mandarin, and it was really, really good.



After such a positive reception from the Chinese Stellaris community, we decided to call the same voice actor back in to record a full Advisor set. The recordings are now complete, in time to be included as part of the Stellaris 4.0 update. It should show up in one of the next few Open Beta updates.



We’ll have two dev diaries next week that will be a bit meatier than this one, to flesh out some of the other things coming in the next Quarter.

See you then!

by Eladrin

We have another update to the Open Beta today, and are planning for another later on this week.


Fixes and Improvements

• Added an Industrial Zone for mixed alloys and consumer goods
  
• The focus task "Embrace a Faction" is changed to "Promote a Faction"
  
• Added two focus tasks for MegaCorps to establish branch offices
  
• Updated costs of special projects that have costs that scale with the number of pops
  
• Changed every_owned_pop to every_owned_pop_group, so now looping through groups
  
• Made ethic changes work on pop groups instead of pops
  
• Updated robot pop checks to pop groups
  
• Zones now have icons associated with their type.
  
• Zones now have a larger active area to click on that is clearly visible.
  
• Planet UI now has basic Zone tooltips
  
• Replaced a bunch of placeholder icons with less placeholder ones.
  
• Revamped Rise of the manifesti event chain
  
• Created new message type for new terraforming candidate events and turned them into a notification
  
• Lithoid resource traits no longer block cybernetic leviathan traits
  
• Improved the Modifiers section of the colonization UI.
  
• Replaced jobs with strata in resettlement view
  
• Workforce modifier icons added

Modding

• Moved resource upkeep and production for pops from species archetype and traits to the resource tables for archetypes and traits, instead of them being part of the pop categories

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.2 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

The 3.99.0 and 3.99.1 Open Beta branches will also remain available. If you are having issues accessing the latest version of the 3.99.* Open Beta, please see this forum post for troubleshooting.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary.

We also have a new feedback survey this week, which looks at first impressions of the planet UI and rework. We know it's not in a finished or releasable state, but want your feedback regardless.

This week's Open Beta feedback survey is available here!

by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

We've updated the Open Beta to 3.99.1, with the following changes:


Fixes and Improvements

• Fallen Empires are blocked from using the Existential Expulsion casus belli
  
• Negative effects added to the Magnetic Disruption planet modifier
  
• Assembling robots will no longer cause the slow and inevitable decline of your growing pops
  
• Changed auto pick leader traits setting to default to off
  
• Made Species Rights button different for pre-sapients

Pops and Workforce

• Fixed traders not being created from trade zones
  
• Adjusted amenities and housing from luxury housing
  
• Pops now have appropriate Diplomatic Weight
  
• Civilians now grant the benefits associated with culture workers

Planetary View

• Tabs in the Planet view now have correct hotkeys
  
• Urban Zones now show their titles
  
• Moved the build district level button from District Details view into the Planet Summary screen
  
• The Build Queue tooltip no longer says "Previous"
  
• Displaying the District type names in the Planet Summary screen
  
• Moved job production changes to buildings for better tooltips
  
• The Colony View tabs now have ordered ZXCVB keyboard shortcuts

Empire Focus

• Rescaled focus reward requirements to be easier to reach the final tier
  
• Fixed the DLC requirements for focus tasks "Observe a Pre-FTL" and "Build a Mega Shipyard"
  
• Fixed the requirements tooltip for the Beastmasters focus task "Have 10 Space Amoeba Mothers"
  
• Fixed the completion check in the Conquest focus task "Have 3 Subjects"
  
• Drawing leader level focus tasks now require the previous task to be completed

Cultists

• The chance to encounter the Cultist event chain now depends on your ethics
  
• The Cultist event chain now fires after a year instead of after a month
  
• Cultists are now neutral until you choose to attack them
  
• You can now forgive the Cultists and have them join you

Modding

• The trigger num_pops is replaced by pop_amount since there are now 100 times more pops

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.1 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

The 3.99.0 Open Beta branch will also remain available.

For more information on the Open Beta, as well as the intentions and goals of releasing such an early, unpolished version, please see this dev diary. So far we're extremely happy with the response and your participation has already found several major issues, some of which we're addressing during this release. We expect to update the Open Beta again early-to-mid next week.


This week's Open Beta feedback survey is available here!

by Eladrin

Surprise! An early Stellaris Dev Diary!

Last week I mentioned that on Friday we’d evaluate the current build, and I’d see if I could provide a timeline for the Open Beta. Things have been progressing well, so we’ve decided to put a very early version of some of the 4.0 changes to test a few aspects of the new systems.

The Stellaris 4.0 update changes a lot of things - you can find a lot of the details in the dev diaries of the last two months. This first build of the 3.99 Open Beta only contains a focused subset of the changes, and many are still in a work-in-progress prototype state. It is not polished, or even done yet.

The 3.11 Technology Open Beta very quickly found some performance issues with the Breakthrough Technologies that we were experimenting with, and as the pop systems have advanced far enough to be mostly functional, I want to get some broader gameplay done on that system in particular, even if the rest of the systems have not yet reached a fully playable state. A week of Open Beta gets more testing done than we can do internally over months, even if this isn’t at a level that I would historically have been comfortable releasing to the public. (Just so you know what you’re opting into!)

We also have a feedback survey available that focuses primarily on the Empire Timeline and Focus systems. (Later weeks will have new surveys on different topics.)

Last week’s dev diary provides a fairly accurate update about the current state of the build.

Precursor Selection, the Databank, and Species Modification are all functional.





The general game pacing adjustments, changes to galaxy generation, and notification changes are all in. The leader pacing changes are in, but we’re reviewing how leaders interact with the new economy before evaluating what changes to make to the traits themselves.

Empire Timeline and Focuses are in a functional, borderline releasable, state. We have added a number of Milestones that will appear on the Timeline, though there’s some polish we’re planning to do before release. Most of the basic Focus Tasks that we want are in, along with some of the Progression rewards for completing them.



The Trade and Logistic described in Dev Diary #369 are largely in, but some of the branch office changes and functionality are still on the to-do list.





Basic implementation of Pop Groups and the new Job system are in. This includes simultaneous Pop Growth and Auto-Migration, a partial colonization UI, and a partial update to the Planet UI itself. The major economic changes relating to Districts, Zones, and Buildings are only partially in, but I wanted to get the pop changes under some pressure as soon as possible.



We also renamed “Bonus Workforce” to “Job Efficiency”.

The Ship Designer, Hard Reset origin, and Mammalian portraits are all in separate development branches, and will not be appearing during the Open Beta.

This build of the Open Beta build will not support Gestalts, unusual planets like Habitats or Ringworlds, or especially unusual civics, origins, or playstyles. Many Ascensions may be in a strange or dysfunctional state. Since many of the more interesting civics and origins aren’t supported yet, we strongly recommend playing the United Nations of Earth or the Commonwealth of Man, or custom empires similar in complexity. Expect things like Virtuality or Clone Army to be fairly broken right now.

You will likely start with an Amenities shortage at the start of the game. We haven’t decided whether this models an overpopulated homeworld nicely or if we consider it a bug. (It will be less dire once more of the buildings are available.)

If you manually build a colony ship, it will not appear in the colonization UI. (They can still be used to colonize a planet by pressing the Colonize fleet order.)



Since the Zones UI is still in progress, you cannot get access to the menu to replace them right now. You’re stuck with your Earth Space Age Industry for this build.



The Early Space Age zone doesn’t currently have any other buildings you can put into it, so being stuck with it is kind of unfun.

We have not yet updated the Diplomacy traditions to reflect that Form Federation is now a technology.

Clerks haven’t been annihilated yet, and many non-”core” jobs have not been fully converted into the new system. Traditions and other things that modify Clerks have not yet been updated.

Civilians are currently an uncapped job rather than being associated with City District development. Living standards have not yet been updated to provide bonuses to Civilians rather than Unemployed Pops.

Planetary Logistic Upkeep currently pays you Trade if you have surpluses. While it takes money to make money, that’s not exactly what we were going for.

The UI element on the Management tab that is intended to show the size change of each pop group since last month is always “- 0”

Defensive Armies don’t spawn, so every planet will immediately surrender when bombarded. (Ground combat fixed?)

Some strings may not be present, and some icons are placeholder purple. Many.

The Unemployment entry in the planet UI is a little overenthusiastic. Yes, pops grow into their parents’ strata and get upset if they can’t get a job worthy of their upbringing right away, but it shouldn’t be a pressing matter until their numbers get over 100.

The AI isn’t great at picking zones yet. It nods sagely at the first thing it finds that it can afford and decides it’s an offer it can’t refuse.

The base “colony” designation has not yet been removed. Our intention is for the Colonist jobs provided by the Reassembled Ship Shelter to provide the benefits of the old colony designation. (And will thus expire when you upgrade your planetary capital rather than when you reach a certain number of Pops.)

We can’t guarantee multiplayer stability on this build, but we have identified an immediate economic Out of Sync issue that occurs when Windows and non-Windows users are playing together.

Here are the release notes for this build:

Features

• Pops and Pop Groups
  
  • One of the biggest changes in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, and one of the primary focuses of this Open Beta, is the new Pop system. Rather than being individuals, Pops are now grouped based on Species, Strata, Ethics, and Faction, mostly for calculation purposes. As part of this change, Pop numbers have been increased by a factor of 100, allowing more granular manipulation of Pops by various systems.
    
  • All Pop Groups on a planet have simultaneous growth every month following the existing Logistic Growth formulas.
    
    • Underrepresented pops are no longer given population growth bonuses.
      
    • Fractional growth is not retained from month to month - if a Pop Group would have fractional growth, it has a chance to gain 1 pop that month based on that fraction.
      
    • All migration is now handled through the auto-migration system rather than push and pull that previously affected pop growth.
      
    • As more granular and simultaneous pop growth is now possible, the minimum growth for small colonies has been removed. Early colonization will be extremely reliant on migration from the empire capital.
      
    • Open Beta Note: Xenocompatibility no longer produces hybrid pops, but has not yet been updated to pool all planetary species into a single group for logistic growth purposes. When this is complete, we are likely to remove the Xenocompatibility galaxy setup toggle.
  • A Civilian stratum has been added to represent the masses that do not generally contribute to the empire’s military economy.
    
    • Open Beta Note: Civilians are intended to replace Clerks, which will be removed in a future Open Beta update.
  • Empires now begin with 2000 more pops, most of whom will be Civilians.
    
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #370.
• Planet UI, Zones, Workforce, and Jobs
  
  • The other major economic change in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update is a revamp to how jobs work.
    
  • Rather than Districts and Buildings being especially similar, we are shifting to a model where:
    
    • Planets produce and consume resources through Jobs.
      
    • Districts provide Jobs based on their development. (Mining District: Add 200 Housing and 200 Miner jobs per development level.)
      
    • Zones manipulate what Jobs are provided by Districts. (Foundry Zone: Replace 200 Civilian jobs and 200 Housing with 100 Metallurgists per development level.)
      
      • Open Beta Note: Currently the Zones are simpler, and will just provide the jobs. It is our intention for most Zones to convert rather than add.
    • Buildings are planet-unique and change what the Jobs produce. (Mote Harvesters: Technicians now also produce Volatile Motes.)
      
    • Pops produce Workforce that fills up Jobs.
  • Open Beta Note: The Planet UI is still very much a work in progress.
    
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #371.
• Empire Focuses and Timeline
  
  • The Situation Log now contains a tab for the Empire Timeline, which keeps track of important milestones of your playthrough.
    
  • The Timeline tab also contains a set of Empire Focus Tasks, which are intended to assist players with forming short and medium terms that align with their empire’s nature, while reducing the randomness of the tech tree.
    
    • Empires can choose between Conquest, Exploration, and Development as their primary Empire Focuses. You will still gain Tasks from other categories, but they will generally be weighted towards your choice. Some Tasks are basic “Core” Tasks, and will provide progress along all three tracks.
      
    • Completing Tasks provides progress towards Guaranteed Technology unlocks that are considered critical for that playstyle. You still need to research the technologies, they only provide the research option when you reach progress milestones. If you already have the technology unlocked or as a permanent research option, there is no alternate reward.
      
    • Because Task completion is retroactive and there are no alternate rewards, there should be no benefit in waiting to complete any that you have.
      
    • Should you end up with a Task that you find uncompletable or that you do not wish to complete, you can discard it and gain a new Task for a small cost in Unity.
      
    • It is our intention that empires that behave consistent with their Empire Focus should naturally complete the Tasks of that category.
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #368.
• Trade has been revamped into a standard resource.
  
  • Trade is now used as the Market currency.
    
  • The Trade Routes system has been removed.
    
  • Ships now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on whether they are docked (free), friendly space (reduced), neutral space (normal), or hostile space (expensive).
    
    • Larger ships tend to have higher upkeep.
      
    • The multipliers based on location are set in defines.
      
    • Juggernauts do not have logistical upkeep, and reduce the logistical upkeep costs for ships in their system by 75%.
      
    • Resources blocks can now include a "logistics" block, which is currently only used by ships.
  • Planets now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on their local resource deficits. This represents the additional costs of diverting freighters to transport materials between planets.
    
    • Local deficit costs vary based largely on the base market value of the resources in question.
  • Trade Policies can set how much of your Net trade after logistics upkeep is converted into other resources.
    
  • Added galaxy setup sliders for Fleet Upkeep Logistics Costs and Planetary Deficit Logistics Costs.
    
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #369.
• The main help button now displays the Databank window where you can explore brief articles on many in-game concepts, reducing the need to navigate to external information sources.

Improvement

• Adjective leader trait names reverted, for example Inquisitor to Inquisitive
  
• Colonization flow has been improved.
  
  • You can now pre-select a colony designation and turn on planet automation before colonizing a planet, which will apply when the planet has finished colonizing.
    
  • Colonization now completes when 100 colonists have grown or migrated to the new planet.
• Significant improvements have been made to the Species UI.
  
  • One template per species can be set as the default template for that species, and other subspecies can be set to integrate over time into that default template.
    
    • Open Beta Note: Current rate of pop integration is likely to change to be slower as well as monthly.
  • The trait selection UI when creating a new template has been improved.
    
  • The special project window pops up and can be started immediately after creating a new template if desired. It is no longer absolutely necessary as you can use integration to slowly convert your existing pops.
• The Habitable Worlds slider in game setup now has a 'Rare' setting. There will still be a handful of habitable worlds in the galaxy, mostly from special events and guaranteed habitable worlds. Normalized initializer spawn odds to use a handful of scripted variables.
  
• Added galaxy precursor selection to game setup.
  
• Leader Adjustments:
  
  • As part of our game pacing and interruption reduction pass, leaders now gain trait selection moments on even levels rather than every level.
    
  • Leader positions now have a significantly greater effect on what traits will appear when they level up and gain a new skill.
    
  • Increased the base number of leader traits to pick from on level up by 1. This is intended to reduce the chance of getting exclusively poor trait options without devaluing other sources of leader trait picks too much.
    
  • Added an "Auto Select Leader Traits by Default" option to game settings, which defaults to Off. On game start or if you switch to an empire, it will toggle the setting on the Leaders tab to your selection. In Coop empires, this override only applies when the primary player of the country joins it. Changing the setting mid-game will not have any effect unless you switch countries.
• Significant improvements have been made to Message and Notification settings, providing you much more control over how you receive them.
  
  • Updated the default message settings
    
    • Revised strategic resource messages and added toast notifications
      
    • Changed trader events into notifications with unique icons. Added sound effect.
      
    • Anomaly discoveries now appear in a toast rather than popping up in the center of the screen.
      
    • Patron Newsletter event was changed into a notification
      
    • The Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
      
    • Order Restored event is now a notification
      
    • Governing Ethic Shift event has been turned into a toast
      
    • Faction Formed Events now appear as toasts following the first event
      
    • Added additional event options to Corrupt Administration event and turned it into a notification
      
    • The Toxic Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
      
    • Changed Inter-Dimensional trade increases event into a notification
• Added concept tooltips to the left Navigation Bar
  
• Added the Celestial Orrery system
  
• Transport ships can now use cloaking
  
• The Ruler Stratum has been renamed the Elite Stratum, to better differentiate them from the actual Empire Ruler
  
• The system fleet icon tooltip now shows the total of the fleets' military power listed by that icon, at the top.
  
• Added unique event options and localization for new life discovered events
  
• Reduced spammy First Contact events
  
• First Colony event - Added unique event options and rewards for Ethics
  
• Adjusted mass extinction event chain localization and picture
  
• The Betrayal event has been revamped to include multiple options
  
• Renamed government tab to overview in outliner
  
• Reduced the frequency of the Rise of the Manifesti event chain
  
• Added missing reward to fanatic materialist for Comet Sighted event
  
• Improved readability for event Covenant Formed
  
• Changed Storm Spotted alert sound to something less intrusive
  
• The low habitability popup now clearly highlights the negative effects
  
• Added the two new Society technologies Federation Code and Existential Campaigns
  
• Ironman mode is no longer required to earn most Stellaris achievements. An unmodified game checksum remains a requirement, and the use of any debug commands blocks them.
  
  • The "Victorious" achievement has been changed to "Win the game through any victory condition in Ironman mode."
    
  • Open Beta Note: Pop related achievements have not yet been updated.
• Several changes to the starbase UI to improve game flow and overall interaction
  
• Reworked Starbase window to harmonize naming and tooltips
  
• You are 4x as attractive as you were before.

Balance

• FE and Cosmogenesis Escort ships now have the same evasion value of 50
  
• Changed Curator Insight cost to empire size
  
• The Eternal Vigilance Ascension Perk can now be acquired early if you complete the Unyielding Tradition Tree.
  
• Adjusted Anomaly spawn rates to improve the pacing of the early game.
  
• Added more variance to whether or not prescripted systems will or will not appear in a given game. (They won't all appear in every single game anymore.)

Bugfix

• Fixed the issue of fleets failing to retreat from lost combat if the last ship failed to disengage.
  
• Human Pre-FTL societies now obey the Pre-FTL Civilizations game settings slider.
  
• Fixed a script error that was causing far more habitable planets to spawn in the galaxy than expected. Feel free to increase the Habitable Worlds slider if you prefer the old behavior.
  
• Fixed inconsistent capitalisation causing issues with pre-ftl pop generation
  
• Cleaned up the end-game crisis triggers. The Unbidden will no longer be the only ones to show up early to the party.
  
• Fix triggers to properly give Fissile Cores, the unique mutation for crystalline entities
  
• Treasure Hunters AIs now correctly go through the dialog events
  
• Fix Black Needle country spawning starbases
  
• Fixed too many AI empires being generated in coop games.
  
• Fixed the tooltip for obtaining the Mirror of Knowledge from the Infinity Machine not mentioning the 200 influence it also gives you
  
• Amenities icon fixed for Drone Storage and Hive Warren
  
• checks if planet owner is primitive before applying sector or system bonuses
  
• Set the nanotech ascension path interdictors to use different ship models from the swarmers
  
• Spitter Gun mutations have armor penetration
  
• Missiles mutations have numerals corresponding to tier in icons
  
• Nanite Infused Barb mutation requires nanites to build
  
• Ancient Driller Beasts mutations uses 88 as its M size cost
  
• Neutron Throwers mutation damage buff
  
• Blocked anomalies from spawning on the neutron star for Slingshot to the Stars' quantum catapult
  
• Handled dyson sphere flags on dismantling swarm while upgrading
  
• Fixed a broken tooltip inside of the "Extended Shifts" edict.
  
• Clone Soldier Ascendants can now cyberize
  
• Completing Inhibit Self-Deterministic AIs removes it from the situation log
  
• Fix the possibility to build multiple Grand Archives at the same time
  
• Only display relevant modifiers for Space Fauna ships in tooltips
  
• Reanimated space fauna ships cannot upgrade no matter what
  
• Black Needle fleet now correctly spawns to defend their base from bombardment
  
• Destroy Gravity Snare when there's no valid target anymore
  
• Broken Shackles check added for relevant Galcom events
  
• Strip Mine Decision is no longer available on artificial planets
  
• Inspired Rhetoric will no longer display a placeholder icon
  
• Fixed situations start value being added multiple times.
  
• Special system initializers now respect the habitable worlds slider in game setup (to a degree).
  
• Planetary part of ringworlds no longer take on empire color
  
• First Contact was changed into a toast and once again shows the correct localization
  
• Added missing pre sapient loc string
  
• The dismantle button has regained its missing loc string
  
• Resolved scope error caused by toast target scope being set to root
  
• Advanced start empires can no longer have mining stations over resources they do not have tech for

AI

• Fixed Prethoryn Scourge incorrectly calculating target priority for non-edible pops.

UI/UX

• Added an Assign Leader button to the leaders screen that lists available positions.
  
• Fixed it not being possible to build starbases in systems with non-central stars from the galaxy view (when a construction ship is selected).
  
• Added a message setting button in event popup windows.
  
• Hid details that aren't relevant for all species in the galaxy when the Galaxy tab is selected in the Species view.
  
• Updated the message settings screen to give more space for the message list.
  
• Changed auto-unpause on the message settings screen from a spinner to a checkbox.
  
• Adjusted centering of text and icons in toast windows. If a toast with custom description has no icon associated with the custom description, the description will now fill the entire lower section of the toast.

Localization

• Add tooltip to Cutholoid Hunter modifier
  
• Add tooltip to Voidworm Hunter modifier
  
• Turn reanimated cutholoids and voidworms ship size name consistent with other reanimated Space Fauna

Modding

• Open Beta Note: We’re still working on Zones and Buildings, and will likely change how we do some of this to be a bit friendlier. Don’t update your mods based on what you see in this build.
  
• Add `resettle_pop_group` effect that allows to resettle a specified portion of a pop group to a target planet
  
• Add first iteration of `create_pop_group` effect
  
• Add kill_pop_group effect that takes a pop group and an amount or percentage and instantly kills them
  
• Add `transfer_pop_amount` effect that transfers pops from a pop group to another
  
• Removed unused can_resettle_planet game rule and renamed can_resettle_planet_no_owner_check to can_resettle_planet.
  
• Removed can_colonize_with_pop game rule and moved its checks to can_colonize_with_species.
  
• Added the script effect "copy_traditions_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { tradition1 tradition 2 } }" that copies tradition from a target country into the scoped country
  
• Added "add_ascension_perk" and "remove_ascension_perk" effects, scope must be a country, adds or removed the specified perk syntax: add/remove_ascension_perk = perk_key
  
• Added "copy_ascension_perks_from" effect: Copies the Ascension Perks of the target country into the scoped country. They are added to the existing perks, and the potential/possible triggers are respected. The perks listed in the exceptions list are not copied. copy_ascension_perks_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { perk1 perk2 } }
  
• Added "remove_tradition" effect. Remove the target tradition from the scoped Country. remove_tradition = tradition_key
  
• Added effect "remove_tradition_tree" Remove the target tradition tree from the scoped Country. remove_tradition_tree = tradition_category_key
  
• Added spawn_design to static galaxy system data, which forces a specific design to spawn in the system.
  
• Added gamesetup_settings script for configuring the settings list in game setup.
  
• There is now an event_message_type in events that lets you override the default message type EVENT_MESSAGE_TYPE. This can e.g. provide separate message settings.
  
• Scripted loc can now be used in concept tooltips and the top bar tooltips.
  
• New on_action on_favor_gained that gets triggered when a country receives a favor.
  
• Added the used_defense_platform_capacity_percent trigger, letting you check how much of a starbases defensive platform capacity is used.
  
• Message notification background is now separated from the message type icon.
  
• New on_action on_research_option_added that gets triggered every time a new permanent research option is acquired.
  
• The actual script file and line are now printed when there are errors logged in scripted triggers and scripted effects, in addition to the previously available information.
  
• kill_pop has been replaced with kill_pop_group. For ease of use kill_single_pop and kill_all_pop scripted effects have been made.
  
• Replaced resettle_pop with resettle_pop_group.
  
• Added "playme" console command as shorthand for human_ai and ai_ignore_was_human.

If you’re ready for a confusing, possibly frustrating, and unfinished experience, and you’re on Steam, you can opt into the Open Beta.

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
   
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.0 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

We expect that the next Open Beta update, 3.99.1, will have Civilians in a more complete state, and more of the UI and AI should be in place. Buildings, Zones, and Jobs should also have more progress too.

Our next Dev Diary will be on Thursday, March 20th, but I hope to have an update to the Open Beta before the weekend.

Here is the link to Stellaris Open Beta Survey 1: Empire Timeline and Empire Focus!