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Stellaris Dev Diary #161 - Development Update

Hello everyone!

For this week’s dev diary we chose to switch the order of a couple of dev diaries to be able to give you some updates earlier rather than later.

The Stellaris brand has understandably been under more scrutiny than usual for the last few months, and we want to address situations related to work-in-progress art in Federations. As an example, we had some UI design mockups (shown during PDXCon) that contained placeholder art. We want to make clear this is not how the game will appear in its final version.

Moving on to Federations: During PDXCON 2019 we said that we would give more information on the expansion later during the year – and today we want to share some news that Federations is targeted for release in early 2020. Although we understand that some of you might be disappointed that Federations will not be released in December, we want you to know that we are taking more time to make sure that the next update is going to be amazing.

In addition, to give us the best chance of improving some of the pain points you’ve shared with us, we have assigned some of our team members to focus solely on trying to improve performance and AI. It is very important to us that 2.6 does not compound any of the current issues with the game, and that we can take the time we need to address some of the issues remaining from 2.2. It’s important to remember, however, that working on these kinds of issues is not a sprint, but a marathon – it's something that is constantly being worked on over longer periods of time.

If you want to read more about performance, and how we work to maintain it over time, we shared some more information on this topic in Dev Diary #149.

While we have been unable to give concrete information or specifics related to these issues, we can say that it is very important to us. With that said, it's important for us that you know that your feedback is not being ignored, even if we have no news to share.

We want to thank you for being such a dedicated community and helping us by providing feedback and reporting issues with the game. We appreciate this to no end and encourage you to continue voicing your thoughts to us.

From the beginning of next year, we’ll be doing a series of dev diaries dedicated entirely to answering questions related to specific topics each week. The schedule for those dev diaries will be released later in December when we’ll summarize and round up the year.

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That is it for this week! Dev diaries will resume their regular schedule, and as promised last week, next week we will be talking about some of the new things affecting diplomacy, such as Envoys.

P.S:
Since this dev diary had no pictures I felt it was necessary to add something, so here's a picture of the premade Lithoid-empire that some of you have been asking us to add to the Lithoids Species Pack! (Will also be updated with 2.6)

upload_2019-11-21_15-28-57.png
 
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In addition, i know many of you have mentioned jobs performance specifically, and I'd like to add we're investigating it.
Much appreciated :> Thank you for looking into it!

Don't forget we all love the game so much! It's why people are so passionate about the topic I imagine. It's just a damn good game! Much love to everyone on the team <3
 
With how vocal a part of the community was about a update on performance, "how they were ignored, there was no communication on that topic" and some hard feeling etc.

I hope that this should make these people feel better and stop the rampage of "but what about performance" posts in almost every thread.
There has been comment on this subject before. And the answer has always and will always be the same: bug fixing is hard, be patient, we understand you want better.

I guarantee the mewling doesn't stop because of this.
 
P.S:
Since this dev diary had no pictures I felt it was necessary to add something, so here's a picture of the premade Lithoid-empire that some of you have been asking us to add to the Lithoids Species Pack! (Will also be updated with 2.6)
But, but... Where are the puns?!
 
As someone who has been complaining on the subreddit about the performance and ai issues, I really appreciate this post. Taking the time to polish the new content, the resources devoted to addressing the problems people have been raising, the series of dev diaries answering questions - all great stuff, and I think this should going a long way towards easing the community's concerns. Thank you.
 
Hopefully there's time to address the shortcomings of Philosopher King (Which the new Premade species will have) with 2.6, as it stands it doesn't have much value when Increased Leader Level cap also affects Ruler Level cap, making direct increases to Ruler Cap somewhat redundant.
 
Nice new room background and symbol. I just thought it would be cool to get some Lithoidlike background.
I'm fine to wait some more time for better quality DLC and free patch.
 
The acknowledgement of performance issues and willingness to delay the expansion to give more development time can help assuage a lot concerns with the state of the game.

I am looking forward to seeing the results of the performance improvements when they come to fruition.
 
I'm really glad to hear the Stellaris team is delaying the release of Federations. Stellaris is the kind of game I expect to be playing for the next five years, so what matters most to me is the quality and polish of each expansion. Thanks for the honesty.
 
That is it for this week! Dev diaries will resume their regular schedule, and as promised last week, next week we will be talking about some of the new things affecting diplomacy, such as Envoys.

Shout out to r/Stellaris who just had to hear about AI and performance instead of about envoys and diplo changes, thanks guys.
 
Well this is reassuring.

It's great to see that these long stated complaints are being looked into. I'll still hold off on a day one purchase and reserve my judgement til then, but it's nice that there is some acknowledgement of the problems, so thanks for this.

Its nice to see that complaints do get noticed.
 
Great news. Happy to wait till next year, get the Christmas break out of the way so once release quick updates can follow to address any issues.

P.S just make sure Federations doesn't end up with half the galaxy vs the other half all the time in super alliances. Should be some mechanics to also encourage the split up of Federations (aka Brexit) or its dissolution. Be nice to have a wargoal = Disband Federation/Alliance. This would be like the Soviets going to war against NATO or the Chinese to destroy the US alliance system in the Pacific as examples.

Still need to allow space for those play styles that don't want to be in a Federation or Alliance.
 
Nice new room background and symbol. I just thought it would be cool to get some Lithoidlike background.
Uh? Pretty sure neither the background nor symbol are new. Only the preset empire itself is.
 
Do you have any plans to reduce micro somehow? Right now I think it's brain cell melting.
I would love a tech tree since the tech system is so complex now, I think guessing which tech belongs to which category is counter-productive and you will just have to google it to min-max properly.
 
We did get news that Federations is in 2020, no rushed pre-Christmas release. This alone is worth more than any tidbits about Envoys we could've gotten.
I respectfully disagree with you. While I understand the community’s concerns about the release date, AI, and performance, I think that they could have just told us at the end of the diplomacy DD “By the way, we are hoping that we can release Federations early 2020.” Also, I was exited to see how the new diplomacy system would work (but that is just a personal thing, and unimportant for the discussion at hand).
 
Moving on to Federations: During PDXCON 2019 we said that we would give more information on the expansion later during the year – and today we want to share some news that Federations is targeted for release in early 2020. Although we understand that some of you might be disappointed that Federations will not be released in December, we want you to know that we are taking more time to make sure that the next update is going to be amazing.

In addition, to give us the best chance of improving some of the pain points you’ve shared with us, we have assigned some of our team members to focus solely on trying to improve performance and AI. It is very important to us that 2.6 does not compound any of the current issues with the game, and that we can take the time we need to address some of the issues remaining from 2.2. It’s important to remember, however, that working on these kinds of issues is not a sprint, but a marathon – it's something that is constantly being worked on over longer periods of time.

This is what lots of people wanted to hear, so thank you for not make me lose my faith and hope on you :)

Also, i for one, don't have any problem with this occupying a DD. Performance>DLC is my thinking :D