Stellaris Dev Diary #253 - Three in One 3.4 'Cepheus' Patch Notes and more!

[Alfray Stryke]

In other news, Barbaric Despoilers now get 50% chance to seize relics with their wargoal?

Huge buff for them, lol.

@Eladrin forbid me from adding a "Seize Relic" CB, so this was the best that I could get away with.

So if I understand this correctly, it means the +55% from an offspring ship cancels out the -50% penalty and leaves you with a +5% net positive bonus? (+15% if with an offspring starbase). Is this correct?

That's correct.

2 questions :
1. Will there be any ways to "nudge" subject empires into adopting your ethics?
2. Will you be able to start a federation with your subjects? Currently, you can have a federation that consists entirely of your subjects, but you have to start it with a non-subject in a roundabout way, and then kick the non-subject out. Being able to skip this would be convenient.

1. Yes.
2. I think you still need a third party to found a federation.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

The End of the Cycle is more likely to offer a Covenant if another empire is a level 5 crisis.

Well that's thematically intresting, make a deal with the devil (eldritch horror) to save the galaxy in the short term.

To quote the game's script:

 has_crisis_level = crisis_level_5 # Someone wants to destroy the galaxy? Let's give them a challenge.

 

[Eladrin]

Is anyone else having trouble loading the images towards the end of the Dev Diary?

Should be fixed now, hopefully.

Do the Offspring Outlook and Offspring Oversight modifiers stack?

No, one or the other.

Is there a limit to the number of Offspring Outlook starbase buildings an empire can have? Like with the ships?

No, it's indirectly covered by the Starbase limit.

<Espionage>

There will be more changes to espionage at a later date in Custodian patches.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Is "Cepheus" a reference to the constellation or is there some other connection I am missing?

The constellation, to quote wikipedia:

named after Cepheus, a king of Aethiopia in Greek mythology.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Out of curiosity, does this mean that if the crisis empire has access to the shroud, they would also have an increased likelihood of getting The End of The Cycle?

If there is another empire that isn't them, yes.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

mommy , i'm scared ... if that -50% get removed by the presence of the ship\station , and the bonus is simply added AND stack , thats a 120% fire rate for non TW hives ...

my rational mind tell me that the bonuses are 5% and 15% and MAY not stack with each other , my irrational mind think that hive just won 1° place for fleet power period.

it is compatible with devouring swarm , so i'm 20 times more worried about it .

The bonuses don't stack. It's -50% without an offspring overseeing the fleet, +5% with a offspring ship +15% with the starbase building.

 

[Caligula Caesar]

Is it still possible to use variables (country scope) which was set in the events for the factors in this?
In country_types.txt, that was possible.

Yes, in fact you can use more variables now. As in the min and max etc values now support script values.

Wow didnt think we were getting all of that reworked too... I feel like this isnt as high key as it should be. Rebellion mechanics were sorely needed. Is there any more info on what happens with this?


@Caligula Caesar The changes to synced text are interesting, what prompted removing it? Not complaining, genuinely curious.

Rebellions: search for the Situations dev diary a few weeks back (I'm on my phone, can't easily do that for you). There's a section for potential reworks to machine uprisings and normal rebellions that we weren't sure would get in. Basically, they did, and that provides a lot of solid information on it, although we probably made a few changes after that (can't remember for sure. At the least, the rebellions one hadn't been implemented much at all then, so it will have seen some changes as we worked out what worked well). Also note that we didn't have time to do the same for slave uprisings, yet, but the main rebellion will usually supplant the slave rebellion content at the moment.

Synced loc: basically, nasty OOSes and other broken behaviour when people playing in Chinese tried to play with people playing in other languages, combined with the fact that we are adding Japanese and Korean, which would likely have had similar issues. Additionally, our tech lead's horror when he discovered we had two systems for making locs. Also helped that it made the process of ensuring everything got translated properly more complicated.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

1. Does wider range mean Gaia-Seeders can be built on whichever of Dry/Wet/Frozen your species preference is from the start of the game?
2. Will researching the Climate Restoration tech allow for it to be built on Tomb worlds?
3. Is the increased upkeep only applied on the "wider range of planet types", or rather will the upkeep be unchanged from the current patch on worlds that match your preference?
4. Is Idyllic bloom compatible with Subterranean? If so think I have my first post patch empire.

If I remember correctly, the changes made were:

• The Idyllic Bloom civic (both normal and hive-mind) can be taken alongside the Life-Seeded and Shattered Ring origins.
• Empires with the civic, that do not have the Life-Seeded or Shattered Ring origins, start with a Phase 1 Gaia-Seeder building on their homeworld to represent their terraforming attempts thus far, if there is a free building slot.
• The Phase 1 Gaia-Seeder building is buildable on all planet types regardless of habitability or preference.
• There are no new requirements to build a Gaia-Seeder on planets that are of the same planet type as your homeworld.
• Phase 2, 3, and 4 upgrades for the Gaia-Seeders should require additional terraforming technologies depending on the climate of the planet compared to that of your homeworld:
  • For empires with “normal” habitability:
    • Once you've researched Terrestrial Sculpting, you can upgrade to Phase 2, 3 and 4 Gaia-Seeders on planets within the same climate type as your homeworld (e.g. Tropical preference can build Gaia Seeders on Continental and Ocean worlds).
      • Gaia-Seeders on worlds with the same climate as your habitability preference, but are not of that planet type, have their upkeep increased by 1.25x
    • Once you've researched Ecological Adaptation, you can upgrade to Phase 2, 3 and 4 Gaia-Seeders on planets of other climates than your homeworld (e.g. Tropical preference can build Gaia-Seeders on Arid and Tundra worlds).
      • Gaia-Seeders on worlds with a different climate as your habitability preference have their upkeep increased by 1.50x
    • Once you've researched Climate Restoration, you can upgrade to Phase 2, 3 and 4 Gaia-Seeders on Tomb Worlds.
      • Gaia-Seeders on Tomb Worlds have their upkeep increased by 1.75x
  • For empires with “special” habitability (e.g. Gaia World or Shattered Ring)
    • Once you've researched Ecological Adaptation, you can upgrade to Phase 2, 3 and 4 Gaia-Seeders on planets with wet, dry or cold climates.
      • Gaia-Seeders on worlds with a normal climates have their upkeep increased by 1.50x
    • Once you've researched Climate Restoration, you can build Gaia-Seeders on Tomb Worlds.
      • Gaia-Seeders on Tomb Worlds have their upkeep increased by 1.75x
• The same restrictions apply to the Gaia-Seeder holding.
• I don't think the Subterranean origin blocks the civic.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Composer of Strands

As a teaser, taking Xeno-Compatibility helps.

 

[Caligula Caesar]

We forgot to attach the scripting documentation for the next version. Here it is

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Does this include any actually useful tech other than Jump Drive?

Hyper Relays are useful.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

It’s limited to vassals and overlords. On the stream they mentioned trading fleets between normal empires was the original plan for how mercenaries would work, but during testing it turned out to be very OP and difficult to balance.

So the system was scaled down and limited to overlords/vassals, while the mercs were redesigned as enclaves.

The intention is now mostly to allow Overlords to lease the special ships that Bulwarks and Scholaria get access to at tier 3.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Thank you for the clarification.

If I may, a few more questions:

* Similar to how we can use allied Hyper Relay networks, can we use allied Quantum Catapults?
* Is the AI sophisticated enough to plan a proper Hyper Relay route across their space, or will they simply spam them across all their systems?
* Are there any specified number changes anywhere for how much Defense Platforms were buffed? No exact numbers were mentioned for them in the Balance section of the patch notes. Or will we have to wait for the update to drop to see for ourselves?

1. I've not tried this, so I'm not sure.
2. The AI will generally prioritise building hyper relays connecting their colonies to their planets, but given enough time I've seen them build them across their empires - but to be fair, I do that as well. The upkeep costs are low enough.
3. Going by memory:
   • Hitpoints were doubled
   • Build time was halved
   • Range increased by 10%
   • Fire rate increased by 20%
   • Tracking increased by 10%

 

[Alfray Stryke]

This really needs to apply to the necrophage origin as well. Currently if you are a necrophage empire and release a sector as a vassal it will delete all chambers of elevation and can't build new ones. This makes potential vassal play as a necrophage empire either impossible or extremely difficult as you need only slave pops in a sector.

It should apply to necrophage already - if it isn't working, please drop us a bug report.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Does this require the new DLC?

No, these changes are part of the 3.4 patch.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Apologies if this has been asked/explained elsewhere, but how exactly does the subjugation casus belli work now?
My assumption from reading the patch notes is that your policy determines the contract preset you use (default vassal/subsidiary/etc.) when you win a subjugation war, then you can negotiate with your new subject on stricter/more lenient terms, but I can't seem to find a concrete answer.

• The Subjugation CB is automatically awarded to empires that are inferior to you (no more asking them to be your subject and getting rejected to get the CB).
• When you declare war you can choose to declare a war of subjugation to make them a vassal or tributary (for non-corporate empires) or a subsidiary (for megacorps), or a protectorate if you are too technologically advanced.
• Your subjugation policy determines the initial agreement that a vassal or subsidiary will have. The initial agreement for tributaries can't be changed.
• Agreement negotiations have a cooldown of 5 years.
• Different factions in your empire will have opinions on your subjugation policy.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

So, having a Prodpectorium etc is something that must be negotiated, not something a subject could start as?

Yes, except in the case of a player with the Imperial Fiefdom origin.

What is the difference between Vassals and Subsidiaries?

Vassals cannot have corporate overlords. Subsidiaries replace vassals and tributaries for corporate overlords. There's also a bunch of agreement term restrictions that each of them have.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I'd work at Paradox if they'd be willing to move their HQ along with their entire dev team over here to the US.

It's a good deal, PDX. I won't make this offer again.

I moved to Sweden 2 years ago, I’d rather not have to move to the US so soon.

 

[Offe]

hmm, I don't recall seeing discussion of this previously, did I miss it somewhere? I've been asking for something like this (AI using the market more effectively) in various bug reports for a long time now. Do we know any details of this change, the logic to how it works?

This could be a real big improvement to difficult situations for late-game AI. Thanks @Offe

I forgot to include a lot of things in the dev diary because it was already quite long and also because there was a big delay in writing the dev diary and making the AI changes.

The big thing in this specific change is that AI could end up in situation where it would sell low amounts of resources each month, but due to having a large deficit it would not be enough for them to build anything. For example they are -200 minerals per month and buy 100 each month on the market.