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Stellaris Dev Diary #323 - 3.10.1 "Pyxis" Beta and Next Steps

by Eladrin

Greetings!

Stellaris 3.10.0 “Pyxis” and the Astral Planes Narrative Expansion released last Thursday, and it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride, so I moved this week’s dev diary a bit earlier than usual.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Due to an error we made in metadata, many players were unable to verify ownership of the DLC at launch. We pushed a quick hotfix, which resolved these issues for some players, while also introducing a different ownership issue through a checksum error, which prevented other people from being able to properly explore the expansion. We finally managed to fix all of these problems midday on Friday. I want to thank everyone who provided bug reports and helped us diagnose the dlc ownership issues, we wouldn’t have been able to resolve them so quickly without your help.

I’m terribly sorry for the poor launch.

We’ve just put a beta branch up on Steam containing the 3.10.1 release, which is currently planned to be deployed to live on Thursday. This release includes a number of bugfixes, as well as hotkeys for the Tabbed Outliner. Let us know what you think.

The hotkeys are CTRL+A/D for switching to the previous/next tab and CTRL+Q/W/E/R for switching to a tab directly (much like Z/X/C/V switches between tabs in other UIs, such as the planetary view).

[h3]3.10.1 “PYXIS” BETA PATCH NOTES[/h3]

Improvements
  • Added Ctrl+A/D shortcuts to cycle through outliner tabs. Also added Ctrl+Q/W/E/R to switch to specific tabs. Added tooltips for them. These tooltips are currently in English regardless of language setting
  • Clarified tooltip headers for governor traits.
Balance
  • AI empires generated as part of the Common Ground and Hegemony origins now start with an additional Official to be assigned to the Federation
  • Blocked empire rulers and imperial heirs from getting the Planar Theorist trait
  • Commissioner subclass now increases stability from soldiers instead of providing additional soldier jobs
  • Decreased the chance for leaders to get common governor traits if they do not have a governor subclass or are not governing
  • Decreased the chance of leaders gaining job providing traits
  • Detail-Oriented has been updated to be a Destiny trait for Scholars, instead of a Veteran trait
  • Explorer subclass now has +1 Sensor Range
  • Halved the effects of the Politician trait
  • Having a Commander govern a planet or sector now provides soldier jobs
  • Increased the chances of the Prospector trait to fire.
  • Oppressive Autocracy now has the colony shelter building replace a colonist job with an enforcer job
  • Policies that increase leader starting level now greatly increase leader hiring cost and upkeep cost.
  • Rebalanced traits that affect research output from jobs while governing
  • Reduced the magnitude of most governor modifiers.
  • Removed the "can only get Council traits" restriction on rulers in Democracies, Oligarchies and MegaCorps. (For modders, this is using the is_autocracy scripted trigger)
  • Replaced Champions of the Empire +1 Initial Leader Level with +1 Additional Trait
  • Resources from Psionic Pops modifier now applies to latent psionic species.
  • Reworked Driven Educator to instead provide +25% Leader XP gain
  • Slightly decreased the bonuses from Custom AI Assistant and Sapient AI Assistant traits
  • Slightly decreased the penalties from the Neurosis trait
  • Soldier jobs now produce a small amount of base stability.
  • Traits that give homeworld jobs now require leaders to be at least level 2
  • You can no longer sell exceptional materials (astral threads and minor artifacts) to the AI.
Bugfixes
  • "The Seal" situation is aborted if you attack the formless
  • Added missing descriptions for multiple ship component categories (reactor, auras, combat computers)
  • Added missing node xp modifiers to the Astral Planes civics for gestalt empires.
  • AI empires with the Fruitful Partnership origin will stop opening seed pods on Holy Words only to get obliterated by angry fallen empires
  • All types of priest jobs (e.g. high priests, numistic priests) now benefit from the additional trade value from the Dimensional Enterprise council position.
  • Blocked Entrepreneur (Ambassador) trait for gestalt empires, fanatic purifiers, inward perfectionists and criminal syndicates
  • Blocked the Charmer and Research Exchange traits for genocidal empires and inwards perfectionists
  • Clarified that the First Contact civics give an increased chance to draw FTL travel technologies (English only)
  • Corrected all versions of Sovereign Guardianship to have 150% Empire Size from systems
  • Corrected draw weights for a number of leader traits
  • Empires can no longer spawn with multiple ministers of defense under some cases, such as being The Chosen.
  • Empires created via status quo peace deals will now correctly generate their council.
  • Explicitly blocked trading of gestalt nodes (instead of them being implicitly blocked)
  • Fixed 2 zroni digsites pointing to a deprecated title.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed you to enact the "Dayside Farm" decision multiple times on a single planet.
  • Fixed a case where the "Abandoned Star Platform" anomaly would leave the system's primary star without a deposit
  • Fixed a case where the "Ion Trail" event would occasionally pick the same system it spawned in for the follow-up event
  • Fixed a large number of planetary features that were providing incorrect bonuses due to changes with Mastery of Nature
  • Fixed a typo in the event text for the "Blinding Grief" event
  • Fixed calculations for determining trade values gained from slaves
  • Fixed commanders wearing the wrong uniform on planetary assignments.
  • Fixed crystal rift situations checking for the wrong amount of resources to validate approaches
  • Fixed Crystal Sphere stolen events not using the correct texts and picture
  • Fixed Crystal Sphere stolen events triggering when the crystal sphere situations are no longer active
  • Fixed Dark Consortium displaying flag information in tooltip instead of the standard loc key for this situation
  • Fixed Dark Consortium not locking the civic when being played from start
  • Fixed Dark Matter Breakthrough agenda always stating it will locks the civic, even if it already is
  • Fixed descriptions for Artisan Drones showing in district tooltips when none were present
  • Fixed Eager Explorers giving two +50% chances to draw Improved Structural Integrity
  • Fixed Efficient Staffing III applying the incorrect modifiers, leading to no sector modifiers.
  • Fixed habitat and archaeology lab technologies missing increased chance to be drawn from being rare technologies
  • Fixed hostile fleets being capable of crossing dimensional locks
  • Fixed Imperial Heirs sometimes spawning with the incorrect initial level for their class.
  • Fixed issue with concepts being offset for all languages using TTF (fonts)
  • Fixed missing AI weights for some council positions
  • Fixed missing localisation for Clone Army Commander traits
  • Fixed outdated tooltips in diplomacy with Trader Enclaves
  • Fixed some empires, such as Common Ground federation members or MSI, starting with duplicated council positions.
  • Fixed some triggered modifiers from leader traits not being applied.
  • Fixed starbases not inheriting modifiers from their country
  • Fixed strange wormhole breaking existing wormhole in the same system if any when spawning
  • Fixed that culled/reformatted nodes would not have a level 1 trait.
  • Fixed that culling/reformatting the Regulatory Node would not create a new one.
  • Fixed the "Dissolved" astral rift event leaving a ship stuck in an endless MIA loop
  • Fixed the Archivist trait giving scientists additional levels
  • Fixed the sector modifier for Ruthless Developer
  • Fixed Tree of Life and Lithoid Crater deposits not providing all of their bonuses
  • Fixed Urbanist trait displaying it was tier 1 and for any class when it is not a tiered trait and only for the Official
  • For players without Galactic Paragons, Officials should no longer roll GalCom traits if you are not a member of the GalCom or Federation traits if you are not a member of a Federation
  • Galactic Community Delegates now correctly multiply their diplomatic weight bonus by their level, instead of their level squared.
  • If your capital is in the Formless home system, The Vacuum Flower relic now correctly grants you Astral Threads
  • Made the first option in Black Hole Instability requiring Astral Threads instead of rewarding them
  • Only leaders eligible for a specific council position should show up as potential recruits.
  • Pre-Sapient pops no longer help you upgrade your capital buildings earlier.
  • Prospector trait should no longer fire twice for Volatile Motes
  • Removed Artisan Drone jobs from ringworld industrial segment if it is not set to factory designation.
  • Removed reference to Imperial Heirs not having unity upkeep.
  • Repaired Shattered Ringworlds now use the correct graphics
  • Scrapping the warship in the "Adrift" event now correctly awards you Alloys instead of Minerals
  • Scrapping the warship in the "Warship Destroyed" event now correctly awards you Alloys instead of Minerals
  • Stopped certain events from accidentally adding anomalies or terraforming Astral Scars
  • The Excavator trait no longer erroneously requires the Rift Sphere technology
  • The formless don't talk to you lightly anymore if you become hostile
  • The Geology Expert, Manufacturer, and Observer traits no longer state that they are Scientist traits
  • The leader trait "Trader II" now correctly applies its effect to the whole sector
  • The Manifesti's Head in the Clouds demand now checks for scientists on the council correctly
  • The Mass Extinction Event Chain should work properly again.
  • The plasmic species trait now has a slave cost of 2500 energy credits.
  • The Scout trait no longer states it applies to military fleets for scientists
  • The Tyznn Tithe trait is no longer possible to acquire by levelling up.
  • The UNE will no longer spawn a third human empire to hang out with them for no reason.
  • The Void Dweller initializing effects will no longer generate habitable worlds with no deposits.
  • Updated the upgraded version of the Assembler trait to use the correct modifiers
  • Vassalizing the formless will now transfer their system to them if you happen to own it.
  • Vibrant Storyteller is correctly marked as a Destiny trait for Scholars, not Explorers
  • When loading a save, update some modifiers that previously weren't updated.
  • You can now use the Astral Jump Astral Action if you have Psionic Jump Drives or Subspace Drives.
  • zadigal is now correctly fired if you declare war with the formless on their recruitment day
AI
  • Fixed AI assigning leaders to Galcom when it shouldn't be possible.


Stability
  • Fix for crash when running unlock_council_slots effect.


UI
  • Added text to system debug tooltip to separate the different lists of modifiers.
  • Anomaly view "Research Time" label is hidden when the research time is hidden.
  • Changed Change Scientist hotkey in Situation Log anomaly view to G.
  • DLC list is now shown in the Cooperative game setup.
  • Fixed empire creation UI remaining visible while ACB is open.
  • Fixed layout of "no scientists" text in anomaly view.
  • Fixed portrait frame appearing to the left of the anomaly UI if you have no science ships with scientists.
  • Fixed portrait tooltip in anomaly view incorrectly saying that you can right-click to remove the leader.
  • In the anomaly window, if you get a valid scientist while no scientist is selected, that scientist is automatically selected.
  • In the anomaly window, the Change Scientist button is disabled if there is no valid scientist available.
  • Updated the leader ethics tooltip to mention planetary and sector governor ethics attraction
  • Fixed leader XP bar showing the wrong tooltip
Modding
  • Added a init_effect field to spawn_natural_wormhole effect
  • Added additional documentation to 00_base_classes.txt
  • Moved events action.504 and .505 to event leader.200 and .201
  • Removed initial_effect_custom_loc from agendas. The initial effect's tooltip is now directly built from the initial effect
  • The link_wormholes effect can now be used on the bypass scope


Please note that the 3.10.1 "Pyxis" Open Beta is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it.
Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test - 3.10.1 Open Beta" branch.


Some notes for Linux users that are encountering crashes - we have potential workarounds for two of them:
  • If you are crashing on startup, players have reported that starting Steam, disabling the internet, then loading the game bypasses the issue. Internet can be reenabled afterwards.
  • If you are crashing while hosting a multiplayer game on Ubuntu 20.04, switching to Cross Platform multiplayer appears to resolve the issue. It is also not present on Ubuntu 22.04.

At this time we are still tracking down Mac stability issues.

3.10.2 is already in progress, in which we are continuing to hunt down stability problems (especially for Linux and Mac users), fixing more bugs, and adding more customization to the Tabbed Outliner.

Outliner Customization WIP Mockup of what we’re planning. Might not exactly end up looking like this.

[h3]Event Chain Subtitles​[/h3]
In the last Dev Diary, we said we’d provide a form so you can submit events that you think should have subtitles added to them.

Here's a link to a form where you can suggest events for review.

Thanks for your assistance!

[h3]What’s Next​[/h3]
We’re going to continue watching your bug reports and feedback, fixing things, and working on 3.10.2, so you can enjoy the new content the way it was meant to be.

Thanks for playing Stellaris!

Astral Planes is discounted 10% until November 27th.

Narrative-focused expansion Astral Planes released for Stellaris

It might be time for my next 100 hour run in Stellaris with the narrative-focused and exciting sounding Astral Planes expansion, along with a free update now available.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/11/narrative-focused-expansion-astral-planes-released-for-stellaris

Astral Planes Ownership Hotfix Released - checksum (462c)



Hello Stellaris Community,

Shortly after the release of Astral Planes yesterday, we began receiving reports of players being unable to verify ownership of the new DLC. These reports began as a sporadic issue that gradually worsened as the time passed since release. About an hour after release, the Dev Team identified a configuration issue with the Astral Planes DLC and put together a new build that we believed would resolve this issue for players.

Unfortunately, while this build resolved the DLC Ownership issue for the vast majority of players, there were some players that this fix did not work for, with a higher proportion of those players being Linux and MacOS users. The Stellaris team has spent today digging into the DLC Ownership issue, and working on potential solutions.

We believe that we have now found the root cause of the DLC Ownership issue - a mismatch between the DLC checksum as reported by the DLC and as calculated by the game, and we have come up with a fix that should work for all players. This fix is live now, and should resolve these issues as far as we can reproduce internally.

If after installing this latest update, you still continue to experience issues with verifying DLC Ownership:


  • (Windows) Run Steam as an Administrator - exit Steam, right-click the Steam shortcut and click “Run as Administrator”
  • Verify Game Files - In Steam, right-click Stellaris, Properties, Local Files, and Verify Local Files


If none of these things resolve your issues, please let us know in the comments below or on the Stellaris Bug Report forums.

We would like to thank everyone who took the time to leave their feedback and share their experience with DLC Verification, and those who took the time to try some of the more... unorthodox suggestions and workarounds that have been going around the community over the last 24 hours.

From everyone on the Stellaris Team, we would like to apologize to our players for the inconvenience with the Astral Planes release.

Astral Planes is available now!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2534090/Stellaris_Astral_Planes/

[h2]Astral Planes is available now![/h2]

Take a step into the unknown with Astral Planes, navigating an array of wonders and dangers alike. Travel through Rifts in space and time for a glimpse of strange, new realities. What will you discover, in a universe beyond limits?

Astral Planes includes:

  • Core Mechanics
    • Astral Scars
    • New Site Type: Astral Rift
    • New Resource: Astral Thread
    • Astral Harvesting - Technology to harvest Astral Threads
    • Rift Sphere - Technology to explore Astral Rifts Rifts
    • "Rift in Space" Situation - Unlocks Rift Sphere tech.
    • Random Stage 2 Rift Situation Events
  • 30+ Rift Sites - each site contains branching narratives, featuring multiple potential endings and a chance at powerful new rewards
  • 8 New Relics
  • Astral Actions
    • 10 New Astral Actions
    • 4 Additional Astral Actions that will swap depending on research (requires Overlord)
  • The Formless
  • 1 Origin - Riftworld Origin
  • 4 Civics
    • Hyperspace Speciality
    • Dimensional Worship
    • Dark Consortium
    • Sovereign Guardianship
  • New Sounds, Music and Visual Effects
    • 3 New Music Tracks from Andreas Waldetoft
    • 70+ New Event Pictures
    • 80+ New Sound Effects


* Some content may require DLC sold separately

3.10 "Pyxis" Free Custodian Update


Before you jump into the game, check out the latest from our Custodian Development team: the 3.10 “Pyxis” Custodian Update! Here is a link to the full patch notes.

If you experience bugs or other issues on 3.10 “Pyxis”, on a new save, without mods, please take the time to fill out a report on the bug report forums!

3.10 “Pyxis” brings with it a consolidation of Leader Classes, vastly improving leader’s usefulness, and addressing some community concerns with regards to the Leader Cap introduced with 3.8 “Gemini”, as well as introducing a new Council Legitimacy Mechanic, further updates on the Additional Content Browser, and improving the Outliner by introducing tabs to help you manage your late-game Empires.

As we mentioned at the 3.9 “Caelum” release, we softened up the leader cap, as many in the Community were finding it too restrictive to gameplay. At the time, we mentioned this was a temporary solution while we worked on a more comprehensive leader rework.

Enter, the Leader Consolidation

With leaders becoming more important to your empire following the 3.8 ‘Gemini’ release alongside Galactic Paragons, there were some rough edges leftover and experiences that could be better.

Taking into account our internal vision of how leaders should work, and combining it with feedback we’ve gathered from the Community during the time since the 3.8 “Gemini” released, we have put together a system of leaders that we feel will address many concerns, and eliminate or lessen the rough edges and bad experiences.

The Leader Consolidation reduces the number of Leader Classes from four to three:
Commanders - are the military-focused leaders in your empire. These leaders can lead fleets, armies, be governors or sit on your Empire Council.
Officials - are the Administrative class of leaders, and focus on governing your empire’s planets, maintaining relationships with Federations and the Galactic Community, or can further focus your Empire Council to either diplomacy or internal production
Scientists - focus on developing your empire’s knowledge of the universe, exploration, and discovery, or can govern planets in your Empire (replacing the Assist Research functionality)

Each leader can now gain one of four Veterancy Subclasses, allowing you to specialize your leaders even further:

Commanders
  • Admiral - Focuses on Fleets and general naval combat
  • General - Focuses on taking planets and assaulting static defenses - Armies, Planetary Bombardment, Ground Combat, and attacking defensive structures such as Starbases are the General’s forte
  • Commissioner - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Martial Law)
  • Strategist - Focuses on the Council, especially the Minister of Defense position


Official
  • Delegate - Focuses on Federations and the Galactic Community
  • Industrialist - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Industry and Development)
  • Ambassador - Council Focus (Diplomacy, Espionage, and First Contact), especially suited for the new Minister of State position
  • Advisor - Council Focus (Economy)


Scientist
  • Explorer - Focuses on Surveying and Exploration
  • Academic - Focuses on Archaeology and Anomalies
  • Analyst - Focuses on Planetary Governance (Assist Research)
  • Statistician - Focuses on the Council, especially the Minister of Science position


To make leveling up feel more rewarding for those of you who do not own Galactic Paragons, traits chosen upon leveling up will now be weighted towards the job your leaders are currently performing.

Changes to the Leader Capacity

In 3.10 “Pyxis”, each Leader class has its own leader capacity, and exceeding that capacity for one Leader type will only affect that leader class.

The effects of being over capacity have been changed as well: being double your Leader Capacity will now result in unity upkeep for that leader class increasing by 100%, and XP gain for that leader class dropping by around 47%.

Planetary and Sector Governance

As some of you may have noticed from above, all three Leader Classes can now govern your Empire’s worlds. Each Leader class has certain inherent bonuses to governing planets that scale with their Leader level, in addition to the bonuses provided by choosing the planetary governor-styled Veterancy Subclass:

Governing Effects (effects increase with Leader Level):
Commanders:
  • Ruler and Specialist Pop output: -5%
  • Worker and Slave Pop output: +5%
  • Crime: -2
  • Empire Size from Pops: -2%
  • Stability from Soldiers: +2


Officials:
  • Basic, Advanced and Strategic Resources from Jobs: +5%
  • Empire Size from Pops: -2%


Scientists:
  • Physics, Society and Engineering Research from Jobs: +5%
  • Empire Size from Pops: -2%


These effects apply to the planet the leader is ruling, and if that planet is the sector capital, will apply half their effects to the planets in the sector. Throughout the game, we’ve gone and ensured that the majority of governor-related traits and leader effects apply at full strength to the planet they are governing and at half strength to all other planets in the same sector, if they are governing the sector capital.

Planetary governors will always supersede the sector governor, if one exists. Thus you might have an Industrialist overseeing your core sector and assign a Commissioner to a planet where that pesky Criminal Syndicate has set up shop in order to drive down crime.

As mentioned earlier, each leader class also has a veteran subclass dedicated to governance, which is required to gain governor veteran traits. Many of the traits from the Industrialist (Governor), Pioneer (Governor), Protector (General), and Analyst (Scientist) have been distributed throughout the various governing subclasses during the rework.

Minister of State

The Minister of State, a new Empire Council Position available to the base-game, increases the effectiveness of your Empire’s Envoys. Owners of Galactic Paragons will now be able to use the Reorganize Council Agenda to reassign all Council positions (with the exception of the Ruler), but replacing the starting Council Positions will come with a cost.

  • Minister of Defense: -25% Naval Capacity
  • Minister of State: -25% Diplomatic Weight
  • Head of Research: -25% Research Speed


Certain Civics (currently Inwards Perfection and Fanatic Purifiers) block access to the Minister of State position and will instead start with their Civic Council Position unlocked.

Council Legitimacy

Back in 3.8 we added Council Legitimacy. Although it had no mechanical effects, it was a good step to represent the degree to which factions in your empire approve of how the empire is run, the council, empire policies and so on. In 3.10, having high Council Legitimacy will give a bonus to Council Agenda Speed (capping at +25% at 100% Legitimacy) and having low Council Legitimacy will give a penalty to Council Agenda Speed (capping at -50% at 0% Legitimacy). For modders, these values are determined by defines.

Since Council Legitimacy is a weighted sum of the approval of each faction multiplied by their support in the empire, this means that empires with relatively few factions (each of which have high approval) should manage to pass Agendas more quickly.

Galactic Diplomacy

Officials can now be assigned as Federation Representatives and Galactic Community Emissaries instead of Envoys. An Official assigned to one of these positions gives the same effects as a number of Envoys equal to their level did back before 3.10. Thus, your envoys are now freed to improve or harm relations with other empires or build spy networks in them.

For Officials that are assigned to either the GalCom or your Federation, there is now a veteran subclass (Delegate) and a variety of veteran traits that can be used in these assignments.

Is that all?

Over the course of the Leader Consolidation, we’ve rebalanced the majority of civics that were leader related or themed. As part of this, we've also changed effects that previously made it too easy to support a near-infinite number of vassals. While reworking leader classes and traits, we’ve also gone through and rebalanced leader adjacent tradition trees and ascension perks. There are some great changes in there, and we hope you have fun discovering the new things you can do!

Outliner Improvements​

Another bit of feedback we’ve gotten a lot is that the outliner has gotten cumbersome over the years. While we’ve added some ability to customize it in past releases, in 3.10.0 we’re adding Outliner Tabs.

In this first version of the tabbed outliner, we have four tabs: Government, Ships, Politics, and Structures. These tabs will appear in the outliner once they’re relevant.

Notification bubbles can be activated on the tabs to let you know if there’s something of interest on them. Green ones are for non-urgent things like “a planet got colonized and has been added to the Government tab”, while red ones are a call to action, like “your science ship has no scientist”.

We look forward to seeing your feedback on this first version of the outliner rework!

Thanks for reading! You can pick up Astral Planes on Steam Now! And if you experience bugs or other issues with 3.10 “Pyxis”, you can report on them on the Stellaris Bug Report forums!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2534090/Stellaris_Astral_Planes/