Stellaris News

Stellaris is one of the finest grand strategy games on Steam, and time has only made it better as developer Paradox Interactive continues to develop it more than seven years after its original launch. It's a crown jewel in the roster of the publisher behind the likes of Crusader Kings 3, Age of Wonder 4, Cities Skylines 2, and Europa Universalis 4, yet its development team shows a consistent desire to deliver regular upgrades - even if that means making bold changes, like its latest set of "experimental" tweaks now available in a Stellaris open beta.

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Stellaris has undergone a significant amount of power creep over the years, and the speed at which we're able to burn through the entire technology tree is much higher than is healthy for the game. Due to the large number of stacking research speed modifiers, repeatable technologies are reached far too early in the game. Another power creep issue mentioned by many players, it's also become trivial to stack large numbers of ship build cost and ship upkeep reduction modifiers.

The Holiday Open Beta will be a feature branch that contains the following changes, which may or may not go into 3.11 (or 3.12, or any release at all for that matter). Similar to how we handled Industrial Districts several years ago, we're intentionally keeping these separated from core 3.11 development, isolating this in a parallel track.

• Replaced basic research technologies such as Quantum Theory with Breakthrough Technologies. Breakthrough Technologies will only appear once you have researched enough techs of your current tier and are required to research to reach the next tier.
  
• Breakthrough Technologies become easier to research based on the number of other empires you have low Tech intel on that have already researched them.
  
• Enigmatic Engineering blocks your Breakthrough Technologies from spreading.
  
• Events that give progress towards random technologies can grant progress towards Breakthrough Technologies, but will not give as much as they would a regular technology.
  

• Technology and Tradition costs are now distinct sliders in galaxy setup.
  
• Added notification message when new pop settles in zeya (Gaia planet in azilash)
  

• Adjustments made to the Galactic Doorstep origin:
  
  • Added Gateway Cost and Megastructure Build Speed modifiers to the Galactic Doorstep origin.
    
  • Galactic Doorstep event chain now directly rewards the Gateway Activation technology and gives far more progress on the Gateway Construction technology
    
• Increased the effects of Empire Size on Technology to match its effect on Traditions.
  
• Rebalanced research speed modifiers. Most sources of Research Speed now have a corresponding increase in Researcher job upkeep
  
• Removed or adjusted many sources of Ship Cost and Upkeep reductions from the game.
  
• Military Buildup Agenda now improves ship build speed and reduces claim costs. (It still reduces War Exhaustion on completion.)
  
• Naval Procurement Officer councilor now improves ship build speed.
  
• Crusader Spirit civic now improves ship build speed.
  
• Psionic Supremacy (Eater of Worlds) finisher no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Vyctor's Improved Fleet Logistics trait now reduces ship build costs by 10% instead of 20%.
  
• Progress Oriented modifier no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Match tradition in the Enmity tree bonus to ship build costs reduced to 5% instead of 10%.
  
• Master Shipwrights tradition in the Supremacy tree no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Military Pioneer trait now reduces starbase upgrade costs instead of ship build costs.
  
• Shipwright trait no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Reduced penalty the Irenic trait applies to ship build costs.
  
• Sanctum of the Eater ship upkeep reduction reduced from 10% to 5%.
  
• Mark of the Instrument ship component no longer reduces ship upkeep.
  
• Grand Fleet ambition now increases power projection instead of reducing ship upkeep.
  
• Fleet Supremacy edict no longer reduces ship upkeep.
  
• Corporate Crusader Spirit now reduces ship upkeep by 5% instead of 10%.
  
• Bulwark ship upkeep reductions reduced by 50%.
  
• Logistic Understanding, Armada Logistician, and Gunboat Diplomat traits now reduces ship upkeep while docked.
  
• Increased technology costs, especially those of higher tier technologies.
  
• The Technology curve has been changed from 1000 × 2^n to 500 × (2^n + 3^n), making the difference between an early and late-game tech more distinct.
  
• Reduced output of researcher jobs
  
• Researchers and their gestalt equivalents now produce 3 of each research instead of 4
  
• Head Researchers now produce 4 of each research instead of 6
  
• The effectiveness of Ministry of Science has been halved
  
• Astral Researchers now produce 5 physics and 1 of each other research instead of 5 physics and 2 of the other researches.
  
• Knights of the Toxic God balancing:
  
  • Slightly reduced the research output for Knight and Lord Commander jobs
    
  • Refactored how the output scaling for Knights from Squires functions, these now behave as normal additive modifiers instead of multiplicative modifiers
    
  • Knights now correctly inherit production modifiers from researchers and administrators
    
  • Slightly reduced the unity and research output for Knight and Lord Commander jobs
    
  • Knight output modifiers now only apply to resources, like other job output modifiers
    
  • The Fortress Habitat Designation for Knights no longer provides +1 Defensive Army per pop on the habitat, instead each Squire job provides +1 Defensive Army
    
  • Squires now increase the resource output of Knights by 2.5% not 2% per Squire.
    
  • The Luminous Blades modifier from the Knight's Quest now removes the alloy upkeep of knights and gives +25% Army damage instead of an empire-wide +1.5% alloy production modifier per knight
    
• Delegate GalCom focus traits now have a small chance to give favors.
  
• Reworked and rebalanced the Erudite, Cyborg, Synthetic, Psionic, Chosen One, and Chosen of X traits to include new leader assignments.
  

• Repairing The Black Crown should no longer fire generic gateway repaired events.
  

• Added `last_resolution_category_changed` trigger
  

• Significantly reduced the yearly chance for leaders to gain negative traits.
  
• Due to player feedback, the Micromanager negative trait for Commanders now increases fleet upkeep instead of reducing command limit.
  
• The Lethargic negative trait for Commanders now also reduces fleet upkeep.
  
• The Nervous negative trait for Commanders now also increases disengagement chance.
  
• Having the Antagonistic Diplomatic Stance will now appease your factions asking for you to have a Strong Diplomatic Stance.
  

• Added some failsafes to generate council positions and gestalt nodes in various edge cases where they weren't created or disappeared
  
• Clarified reformed tooltip for Dark Consortium civics
  
• Declining to Hunt for the Hyacinth should now correctly remove the event chain.
  
• Fix Astral Harvesting not available for heavily conquering empires
  
• Fixed a typo in the pre-FTL Provide Technology Tooltip.
  
• Fixed Civics not swapping to their alternative when switching Governments
  
• Fixed missing loc for the Fear of the Dark Admiral trait
  
• Fixed the Accelerated Time Astral Planes Modifier having a description for a title.
  
• Removed a redundant tooltip from the Synthetic Evolution event
  
• Ruler clothing selection in the empire designer is now respected
  
• Some planet modifiers that were getting incorrectly applied twice should now only be applied once.
  
• Updated the All Crisis Strength tooltip to accurately state that it doubles the strength of each subsequent crisis.
  
• Your ice miners will no longer make your Mercenaries homeless if they happened to have built their base above an ice asteroid.
  

• AI Empires will now be more willing to hire leaders for their science ships as long as they believe they can afford the Unity upkeep.
  

• Fixed XP not being shown in XP bar tooltip for gestalt rulers and councilors.
  

• collapsable_leader_container should now calculate the correct height no matter the amount of horizontal slots.
  
• Fixed lock_country scope change incorrectly stating that the output scope was a bypass, when it is actually a country
  

• Replaced basic research technologies such as Quantum Theory with Breakthrough Technologies. Breakthrough Technologies will only appear once you have researched enough techs of your current tier and are required to research to reach the next tier.
  
• Breakthrough Technologies become easier to research based on the number of other empires you have low Tech intel on that have already researched them.
  
• Enigmatic Engineering blocks your Breakthrough Technologies from spreading.
  
• Events that give progress towards random technologies can grant progress towards Breakthrough Technologies, but will not give as much as they would a regular technology.
  

• Technology and Tradition costs are now distinct sliders in galaxy setup.
  
• Added notification message when new pop settles in zeya (Gaia planet in azilash)
  

• Adjustments made to the Galactic Doorstep origin:
  
• Added Gateway Cost and Megastructure Build Speed modifiers to the Galactic Doorstep origin.
  
• Galactic Doorstep event chain now directly rewards the Gateway Activation technology and gives far more progress on the Gateway Construction technology
  
• Increased the effects of Empire Size on Technology to match its effect on Traditions.
  
• Rebalanced research speed modifiers. Most sources of Research Speed now have a corresponding increase in Researcher job upkeep
  
• Removed or adjusted many sources of Ship Cost and Upkeep reductions from the game.
  
• Military Buildup Agenda now improves ship build speed and reduces claim costs. (It still reduces War Exhaustion on completion.)
  
• Naval Procurement Officer councilor now improves ship build speed.
  
• Crusader Spirit civic now improves ship build speed.
  
• Psionic Supremacy (Eater of Worlds) finisher no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Vyctor's Improved Fleet Logistics trait now reduces ship build costs by 10% instead of 20%.
  
• Progress Oriented modifier no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Match tradition in the Enmity tree bonus to ship build costs reduced to 5% instead of 10%.
  
• Master Shipwrights tradition in the Supremacy tree no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Military Pioneer trait now reduces starbase upgrade costs instead of ship build costs.
  
• Shipwright trait no longer reduces ship build costs.
  
• Reduced penalty the Irenic trait applies to ship build costs.
  
• Sanctum of the Eater ship upkeep reduction reduced from 10% to 5%.
  
• Mark of the Instrument ship component no longer reduces ship upkeep.
  
• Grand Fleet ambition now increases power projection instead of reducing ship upkeep.
  
• Fleet Supremacy edict no longer reduces ship upkeep.
  
• Corporate Crusader Spirit now reduces ship upkeep by 5% instead of 10%.
  
• Bulwark ship upkeep reductions reduced by 50%.
  
• Logistic Understanding, Armada Logistician, and Gunboat Diplomat traits now reduces ship upkeep while docked.
  
• Increased technology costs, especially those of higher tier technologies.
  
• The Technology curve has been changed from 1000 × 2^n to 500 × (2^n + 3^n), making the difference between an early and late-game tech more distinct.
  
• Reduced output of researcher jobs
  
• Researchers and their gestalt equivalents now produce 3 of each research instead of 4
  
• Head Researchers now produce 4 of each research instead of 6
  
• The effectiveness of Ministry of Science has been halved
  
• Astral Researchers now produce 5 physics and 1 of each other research instead of 5 physics and 2 of the other researches.
  
• Knights of the Toxic God balancing:
  
  • Slightly reduced the research output for Knight and Lord Commander jobs
    
  • Refactored how the output scaling for Knights from Squires functions, these now behave as normal additive modifiers instead of multiplicative modifiers
    
  • Knights now correctly inherit production modifiers from researchers and administrators
    
  • Slightly reduced the unity and research output for Knight and Lord Commander jobs
    
  • Knight output modifiers now only apply to resources, like other job output modifiers
    
  • The Fortress Habitat Designation for Knights no longer provides +1 Defensive Army per pop on the habitat, instead each Squire job provides +1 Defensive Army
    
  • Squires now increase the resource output of Knights by 2.5% not 2% per Squire.
    
  • The Luminous Blades modifier from the Knight's Quest now removes the alloy upkeep of knights and gives +25% Army damage instead of an empire-wide +1.5% alloy production modifier per knight
    
• Delegate GalCom focus traits now have a small chance to give favors.
  
• Reworked and rebalanced the Erudite, Cyborg, Synthetic, Psionic, Chosen One, and Chosen of X traits to include new leader assignments.
  

• Repairing The Black Crown should no longer fire generic gateway repaired events.
  

• Added `last_resolution_category_changed` trigger
  

• One (1) Legendary Leader
  
• Two (2) or more flavor events that occur after the leader has been hired
  
• One (1) or more events that lead to the option to recruit the Legendary Leader
  
• One (1) or more unique Solar System Initializer(s) where the event(s) to recruit the Legendary Leader begin
  
• One (1) scripted_effect that will spawn your legendary leader's solar_system_initializer (to be fired from solar_system scope)
  

• 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