Stellaris News

by Eladrin

Hi all!

When we first announced the 3.11 “Eridanus” update, we mentioned that for the patch the Custodian team would be largely focused on fixing bugs rather than new features. As part of this initiative, PDS_Iggy reached out to some community modders and incorporated some of their fixes into the base game. I wanted to spend today highlighting their contributions.
[h3]Community Fixes[/h3]​
Some changes from these mods are being partially incorporated into the base game in the 3.11 “Eridanus” update:

Ariphaos Unofficial Patch
Developed by Ariphaos with assistance from Fireprince, and incorporates multiple other mods:​

• Risa's Unofficial Patch by Risa
  
• Bug Fixes by alexrider903
  
• Bugfixes by ECHO
  
• Community Flash Patch by Roverstorm
  
• Modifiers fix by jasonpepe
  
• Unofficial Bug Patch by SirBlackAxe
  
• Glavius AI by Glavius
  
• StarNet by Savlor with assistance from OldEnt
  

VanillaFixes
Developed by Harain with support from The24thDS​

In some cases, we re-implemented their fixes or chose not to include some changes for various reasons, but we want to thank the community for being so active in helping us find and fix issues. We have marked the community contributed bugfixes with the ¤ symbol in the patch notes in order to give proper credit for them.

The list of community fixes that we will be incorporating in 3.11 is as follows:
[h3]Incorporated Community Fixes​[/h3]
Improvement​

• ¤ Gangsters should no longer assassinate Chosen Ones or Legendary leaders
  
• ¤ If a Zombie or Nerve Stapled pop manages to lie on their resume and become a specialist or ruler they should be demoted much faster
  
• ¤ Xenophobic leaders are now half as likely to accept brainslugs while Xenophilic ones are twice as likely to accept them
  
• ¤ Improved spawning logic for anomalies that clear deposits to not spawn on planets with strategic resources
  

Balance

• ¤ Empires that value other species, such as Rogue Servitors, will now get extra annoyed if you engage in genocide or necrophaging
  
• ¤ Gestalt empires can now sell their minor artifacts provided that they have access to the galactic market
  
• ¤ Marauder ships should now have a decently larger amount of armor for most shipsizes
  
• ¤ Refugees should now also be willing to flee to Rogue Servitors if they are welcomed as Bio-trophies
  

Bugfixes

• ¤ The Expel Corporation war goal now also removes Branch Offices belonging to the defender from your allies' planets
  
• ¤ A supremely unlucky pre-FTL nation should no longer be able to have multiple machine uprisings if they fight off the first one
  
• ¤ The Atomic Clock event will now properly trigger after 42 years and 3 days following the superior Stellaris Standard Calendar, which has 360 day years
  
• ¤ Authoritarianism should no longer become more popular because you have egalitarian councilors
  
• ¤ Become the Crisis AI empires will now always decline becoming vassals to awakened empires
  
• ¤ Fixed a rare case where the Shard would not turn hostile against the player
  
• ¤ Fixed a rare error that would occur if your scientist who finished a dig site died before you clicked the final dig site event
  
• ¤ Fixed the checks for the Debris Field anomaly making it rarer than it should be
  
• ¤ Fixed the Lush Planet Anomaly requiring Sol to have spawned, also updated the event rewards to work in a tileless Stellaris
  
• ¤ Hyperlanes should no longer get attached to sealed systems
  
• ¤ Imperial Fiefdom AI will no longer consider subjects to be viable overlords when they are looking for one
  
• ¤ The Fleet Maneuvers event can no longer happen in capital systems
  
• ¤ The Horizon Signal Event Chain will now correctly prioritize your head of research for narrative events
  
• ¤ The Manifesti event chain will now properly end if you apprehend them early enough
  
• ¤ The puddle technician drone job is now properly a drone job
  
• ¤ The Sentinel Order should no longer spawn in systems not connected to the rest of the galaxy, leaving everyone else to deal with the Prethoryn
  
• ¤ Upscaling the Messenger will now properly remove the negative modifiers from the ships
  
• ¤ Vultaumar III will now properly have both alloys and mineral deposits
  
• ¤ Irass III will now properly have both alloys and mineral deposits, while Irass VIII has gained its missing exotic gases
  

AI

• ¤ Improved AI decision-making for the "Find Military Applications" Artifact Action
  
• ¤ Improved AI logic when it comes to when to use the Strip Mining decision
  
• ¤ Reduced the AI willingness to accept trade deals for food or consumer goods if they don't use those resources
  
• ¤ AI Hive-Mind empires now have an increased chance to research terraforming technologies since they are unlikely to get more pop types from migration pacts.
  

Thank you for your assistance in making the galaxy a better place. Keep an eye out for the Seddom system when 3.11 arrives.

[h3]Next Week[/h3]​
The Custodian team has been burning down the bug queue at a nice rate, so next week we’ll go over some of the fixes they're adding in 3.11.

by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

It’s been two weeks, so let’s get straight into the good stuff.
[h3]Summary of Results​[/h3]
Much like the first Technology Open Beta, very experienced players formed the bulk of respondents. This time it was closer to 72% of responses coming from players with over 1,000 hours in game. (Only 1.4% said they had less than 300 hours in Stellaris, so the survey skewed very much towards our most passionate players.) Thank you all for your feedback and help.

This time, a majority of players rated technology progress as “just right”, with the remainder almost perfectly evenly split between it being too fast or too slow, with a majority consensus that the changes were beneficial overall.

Many players missed the breakthrough technologies and the general opinion tended to lean towards us pulling back a little too far. Many players commented that they liked how technology tiers 3 and higher felt more impactful, but lamented that with the removal of breakthroughs, tier 2 sort of melded into tier 1 technologies.

There was also quite a spirited discussion on the Stellaris forums regarding the pros and cons of galaxy generation sliders and their effects on new players.

Our general philosophy is that it is better to permit more customization of your play experience than less, but that the default settings should be a positive play experience for inexperienced players. New players tend not to adjust the sliders much, while veterans tend to have more understanding of the exact effects of the various settings and can customize their game to satisfy their needs - but the default settings, except for difficulty, should be sufficient for an enjoyable game. We do agree that the galaxy settings screen has grown a significant amount over the years and could benefit from some reworking, and will be placing that task on the Custodian “to-do” list for sometime in the future.

[h3]Next Steps​[/h3]
Overall, I consider the Technology Open Betas a significant success. We gathered a lot of useful information and feedback, and it gave us the chance to experiment with some systems that may or may not have panned out. We will be going forward with including the changes from the second Technology Open Beta in the 3.11 “Eridanus” update.

Breakthrough Technologies will not be coming at this time, but we may experiment with technology spread and similar effects sometime in the future.

One new change we’ll be making based on some of the data we’ve collected is that we’re moving Ascension Theory to Tier 4 from Tier 5, but it will only be available to empires that have completed at least six tradition trees. As Unity and Research are intended to be “opposing” resources to a degree, we did not want the capstone of Ascension based gameplay to be so strongly tied to the later game tech tree.

Now let’s hear about one of the other changes coming in the update.

[h3]Resort Worlds​[/h3]
Hello, Stellaris community. I'm Gatekeeper, a long-time modder who's ascended into being part of the Stellaris Content team. And if you know anything about what I've done in the past, I like planets.

One thing I've done recently is to imagine a galaxy where Resort Worlds aren't just post-apocalyptic fortress worlds. Instead, these are vibrant, dedicated havens of rest, starkly contrasting the often harsh realities of interstellar life.



The Resort Worlds technology which permits the Create Resort World planetary decision is no longer rare, and we've lowered it to tier 2. We've updated the decision’s restrictions; it no longer has a minimum planet size but can be used on planets that have upgraded capital buildings. As funny as it was (and we did it all the time), you can no longer declare a tomb or relic world a vacation paradise.

A pass has also been done on what buildings are allowed on Resort Worlds.



Instead of providing perfect habitability, Clerks, and Entertainers, Resort Worlds now provide Resort Districts that give Housing, Building Slots, and Resort Worker jobs that provide Trade, and increase Amenities and Trade Value from Living Standards across all planets of your empire. This replaces the empire-wide Amenities reduction of the old version.

On behalf of the United Caphevan Commonwealth, we would like to wish you a pleasant stay on Evaggimar II.​

[h3]Next Week​[/h3]
Next week we’ll be looking at some of the fixes and changes going into the 3.11 “Eridanus” update. See you then!

by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

I hope that you all had a pleasant holiday season, and want to start off by thanking everyone that submitted feedback regarding the Technology Open Beta. That data we gained from these experiments was invaluable, so let’s get right into it.
[h3]Summary of Results​[/h3]
As expected, the players that responded to the survey were overwhelmingly passionate players that have a ton of experience with the game. Nearly 70% of responses come from players that have over 1,000 hours played in the game. This is somewhat natural for an opt-in beta over the holidays with an intimidating feedback form, so I wanted to thank you all again for filling it out.

There was a strong consensus around the military changes (ship cost and upkeep), so we’ll likely be keeping those mostly as-is.

The technology changes were naturally more controversial. Roughly 80% of responses believed that technology (especially at higher tiers) was overall too slow in the beta, but a majority still thought that the changes were beneficial to the game overall. Several of you pointed out that so many simultaneous changes compounded too strongly, and we agree. I was happy to see that your feedback matches our expectations - we expected that the Open Beta was tuned too harshly and that we would want to pull back from it before release.

The Open Beta also revealed several technical issues, including some major performance implications from how Breakthrough Technologies interacted with diplomacy.
[h3]Next Steps​[/h3]
Overall, I view the Technology Open Beta as a great success, and as such am taking the opportunity to update it and let it run for another few weeks, after which we will decide whether or not we want to continue experimentation, integrate it into 3.11 (or 3.12), or discard the initiative.

We concur that the original Open Beta went too hard on technology. We liked some of the things we were seeing, such as tier 3 and 4 technologies becoming more valuable for an extended part of the game, but felt that it delayed other critical parts too long. Breakthrough Technologies were interesting as a slowdown mechanic, but if kept would likely need some sort of temporary (non-technology or unity related) bonuses as some form of reward for the frontrunners. The excessively high costs for late tier techs pushed some critical technologies such as Ascension Theory or Mega-Engineering too late in the game, and certain undesirable behaviors (like ignoring research entirely) were too effective.

The updated Technology Open Beta should be up on stellaris_test now, with the following changes:

[h3]TECHNOLOGY OPEN BETA UPDATES[/h3]
Feature

• Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs slider added to galaxy generation. This slider adjusts technology costs based on tier and game difficulty.
  

Beta

• Removed Breakthrough Technologies.
  
• Reverted base technology costs to their 3.10.4 values - the increased cost between tiers is now handled by the Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs slider.
  
• Removed the majority of Researcher Upkeep Modifiers introduced into the Open Beta.
  
• Reverted changes to Knights research output from the Open Beta.
  

Balance

• Tweaked the tiers of technologies that increase naval cap and fleet command limit.
  
• Reduced the amount of Naval Cap granted by technologies.
  
• Significant changes to Bio-Reactors:
  
  • Bio-Reactors are now a tier 1 rare technology instead of a tier 0 technology
    
  • Bio-Reactors now reduce the food output of farmer jobs and give them a small amount of energy output.
    
  • Added a tier 2 Advanced Bio-Reactor technology and building.
    
  • Advanced Bio-Reactors further reduce the food output of farmers in exchange for a small amount of exotic gas output.
    
• Decreased the amount of research produced by unemployed pops with Utopian Abundance.
  
• Event options in the Knights' quest that improve their capital have been buffed to be better balanced compared to the options that improve knight jobs.
  

At player request, we have kept the older version of the Technology Open Beta available on stellaris_test_old. It will remain there until the release of 3.11 “Eridanus”.
[h3]Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs​[/h3]
One of the frequent points of feedback was that there was concern that newer players would be hit especially hard by the technology cost changes. We also recognize that different players have different desires for the pacing of the game, so we’ve added another slider to galaxy generation.

The Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs slider adjusts the base cost of technologies based on the difficulty of the game. Higher tiers of technology are affected to a greater degree than lower ones, so this slider essentially affects “tier width”. While this does overlap with the Technology Costs slider to a degree, it does so in a different way, so we consider each to have valid reasons to exist as separate sliders.


Disabling Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs will cause them to follow the 3.10.4 / Civilian difficulty curve. As with many other galaxy generation sliders, the Stellaris team will be balancing the game around the Normal setting.
[h3]SHOW ME MATH AND GRAPHS![/h3]
Tech Curves of basic technologies on “Normal” scaling, at different difficulty levels.

The base cost of technologies is now based on 3.10.4’s formula, y=1000*2^x, multiplied by the difficulty modifier of 1 + (q*x*d), where x=technology tier, q=difficulty adjusted tech cost galaxy setting (0 - 0.10, default 0.05), and d=difficulty (Civilian = 0, Grand Admiral = 6).

TierXCost1 technologies at different difficulties, on “Normal” scaling (q=0.05).

For the players that enjoyed the larger amount of distance between tech tiers, scaling can go up to a maximum of “Extreme”, which gives Grand Admiral a curve that is similar to, but not exactly, the Open Beta numbers. Note that technology acquisition will still be faster than the old Open Beta as we’ve removed Breakthrough Technologies.
Tech Curves of basic technologies on “Extreme” scaling, at different difficulty levels.

TierXCost1 technologies at different difficulties, on “Extreme” scaling (q=0.10).

Previous Open Beta values for reference.

We have a new feedback form for this version of the Open Beta, available here. As with the previous version, you can respond multiple times if you have different thoughts after different playthroughs. Please let us know what you think, and whether you think we’ve gone back too far in the other direction.

Currently we're planning on collecting feedback from this phase of the Technology Open Beta for two weeks, until the 1st of February, but will leave the branches available until the 3.11 "Eridanus" update releases later on in the quarter.

See you all next week!

Please note that the Technology 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 - Technology Open Beta" branch.

Please disable mods for the Technology Open Beta, they are likely to break.
In-progress games should continue on the “stellaris_test_old” branch.

[h3]Leave your feedback![/h3]
-----
[MrFreake enters to highjack the post]
Hello everyone!

Here I am again, not reading the room. Eladrin is talking about turning off your mods, and I'm here telling you to download more mods: buuuut....

#MODJAM2024 is Available Now!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Want a sneak peek at the Legendary Leaders included in #MODJAM2024? Check out the feature video:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Voting for favorite mod will run until February 11th, so there's still plenty of time to play and vote for your favorite submission here!

Hello Stellaris Community!

We're proud to announce that #MODJAM2024 is available now! Get it here!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Now's the time where the Community gets to step in, and vote for your favorite submission. Vote for your favorite #MODJAM2024 Legendary Leaders here!

What are the prizes, you ask? This year we’ve paired up again with Republic of Gamers to deliver some great prizes to our winning Modders:

1st Place: ROG Strix G17 (2023) G713 Laptop*
2nd Place: ROG Delta S Wireless Headset*
3rd Place: ROG Spatha X Wireless Mouse*
4th - 10th Place: Stellaris branded Wallet and Keychain

* Exact specifications may vary depending on winning modder’s region

Thanks to everyone for playing and voting in #MODJAM2024!

by MrFreake

Hello Stellaris Community!

I have to start off by saying how proud I am of all the participants this year. This year saw the most signups for Mod Jam we've ever had, the most design documents submitted, and (I think) the most final submissions. The modders have really put their all into these contributions, and I think they've turned out fantastic. I can't wait to see what you all think!

The Mod Jam mod will release today around 5 PM CET! You can subscribe to the workshop mod now, and get this new content as soon as it becomes available!

Today we're going to be talking about the final 11 submissions that haven't been seen, so without further ado:
[h3]Vizierch Raffar by BrettlesSr [/h3]


Inspiration: I had a couple of inspirations for Raffar - one was the classic trope of the scheming vizier, so I wanted to make a leader you knew you shouldn’t trust but who was rewarding enough to risk playing with fire. Then I’ve added lots of ideas loosely inspired from WH40k’s Necrons and Dr Who’s Cybermen into the mix for good measure.
[h3] Zob, Collector of Minds by Starchitect[/h3]


Inspiration: I loved collecting and tending to my leaders long before Paragons made them cool, they can be the backbone of the kind of RP focused gameplay I enjoy most. Zob takes that leader gardening instinct to the next level, as Zob only gains power as you add your own leaders and your own story to Zobs. Trait stacking can also be a fun exercise for the min-maxer in me, and Zob facilitates that in what is hopefully, a limited and manageable way.
[h3] Daniel Reinhard by Jin2188 [/h3]


Inspiration: I’ve had the idea of this character in my head for some time, as the primary antagonist of an IP I never got onto paper. I decided to introduce the idea of Reinhard’s character to a wider community to see their opinions and acquire feedback. I’m aware of the power fantasy of wanting to play ‘the bad guys’, and figured that this was a good way to feed into that. Religion is also an idea I wanted to explore heavily with my as-of-yet nonexistent IP, diving into some of the benefits and drawbacks with the worship of deities and spirituality in general. Reinhard represents the bad parts of religion/spirituality; the authoritarianism, the corruption of values, the blind obedience to dogma, while his counterpart, Michael Faulkner (who is mentioned in-game, and who you may encounter in a playthrough with Reinhard) represents the good aspects; the community, the moral values, and the idea of the larger collective working together for the common good. I was heavily inspired by real-world evils associated with religion, with Reinhard himself being inspired by what I believe most cult leaders to be like; con-men who don’t actually believe anything they’re saying, but they say it anyway in order to gain power. Power is a central concept to Reinhard’s character, he’s a nihilist who believes that nothing matters except securing one’s own personal welfare, even at the expense of others. This mod is more of a proof of concept, since I wanted to make an expanded version where you could recruit Michael Faulkner as a leader as well, but I was only allowed to create a single recruitable leader for this ModJam, so I settled on this. I do intend to release this expanded version in the future, however.
[h3] Ursa Major by Honeytheyellowbear[/h3]


[h3] The Spymaster Ralph Fasmid by bbt104 [/h3]


Inspiration: Our inspiration for Ralph Fasmid came from movies and shows such as Casablanca, SpyKids, Chuck, The Kingsman, and Bourne. Casablanca was our main inspiration for his design, Chuck was the inspiration for him to be exclusive to Megacorps. Bourne inspired a small event that only happens if you dismiss him.
[h3]Mictla, Whispering Aggregation by pat173 [/h3]


Inspiration: My inspiration for Mictla's concept originated from reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time trilogy, where I aimed to craft an entity that exuded a really alien and almost horror-like essence.

In terms of gameplay I wanted a leader focused mainly on one or two aspects of the game. Mictla's bonuses are heavily on what you'd expect from the society group of technologies. I also wanted them to feel to stand out, so I implemented a unique way for them to level up as they don't gain experience over time.

Lastly I wanted to design Mictla so that it could have an impact on the player's experience. So that if the player chose to, there would be drastic changes in your empire based on your decisions and approach with Mictla's events.

We're going on an adventure!

[h3]Nar by Lithrandil2[/h3]


[h3]Spirit of the Junction, by Blue Commander [/h3]


[h3] The Synthmind Sage by Nepnep5150 [/h3]


[h3] Venerable Bubbles by Regunes [/h3]


Inspiration: “To be honest I prefer Cyto”
[h3] Naodeus by Dredaich [/h3]


Inspiration: In my pen & paper campaign (Pathfinder 1e) Naodeus is a benevolent magical being from beyond the outer realms trapped in the campaign world. Talil is a city founded by his adopted children. Right after I learned of the Paragon update I wanted to make this leader. This ModJAM was an excuse to do so.

####

And that's it for the Legendary Leaders included in this year's Mod Jam, 26 in total! What do you think? Which one are you most excited to play?

Just a reminder #MODJAM2024 will release at 5 PM CET today! (January 11th, 2024)