• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

Stellaris Dev Diary #254 - 3.4.3 'Cepheus' Patch Released (Checksum 9d15)... What's Next?

Hi all!

I'm happy to announce that the 3.4.3 hotfix should now be live and available on all platforms!

On Monday I said that we were planning to address primary issues as quickly as we could and have a larger patch in a few weeks, but the team was absolutely on fire and was able to bring many of the fixes and changes that were originally scheduled for the later release into this hotfix. As a result, the 3.4.3 hotfix is significantly larger than a hotfix would usually be.

I want to stress exactly how helpful the bug reports we received were during this process - they made it possible for QA to generate a list of the biggest issues affecting the community and helped us prioritize our work, so thank you for submitting them, and please continue doing so if you run into issues.

Without further ado, here are...
#################################################################
######################### VERSION 3.4.3 ############################
#################################################################

Revolt and Planet Stability related fixes and changes:
  • When planets revolt, there is now an option to declare war on the new country immediately rather than being subjected to a 10-year truce. The revolting planet counts as the aggressor. (if the planet joins another empire, and you choose war with them, the other country is now considered the aggressor).
  • Revolt Situations no longer cause escalating stability maluses, as these could make it impossible to stop a revolt. They now give a flat 10 stability malus at all stages.
  • The modifier a pop gets from its faction's happiness now updates properly (so if you make a faction happier, it will correctly make its pops happier now).
  • Fixed it being possible for a Revolt Situation to start and immediately cancel. (They will now only start if the planet is calculated to be currently capable of succeeding the revolt)
  • Planets with Culture Shock can now only start a revolt situation after 8 years of unrest, rather than 1, as it could be quite hard to avoid a revolt on these planets. Otherwise newly-conquered planets have 4-year cooldowns.
  • Improved AI decision making on Revolt Situations.
  • Fixed cases where rebels and released empires would have traditions and techs they should not have had access to (e.g. if non-gestalt pops rebelled against a gestalt empire).
  • Fixed cases where rebels and released empires would use their parent countries scientists for research. I.e. the researcher would be active in both countries, until one country changed their task.
  • Cleaned up some unclear language in the tooltip for Revolt Situation progress (the one describing what you can do about it).
  • Void Dwellers now replace the 1 Politician (or Executive) job from Habitat Administration buildings with two Colonist jobs, which should increase their overall stability in the early game.
  • Doomsday origin starting planets will no longer clamor to revolt. (Revolt Situations are disabled on them.)

Deficit related fixes and changes:
  • To help them to deal with unexpected deficits, Empires can now purchase basic or advanced resources (specifically food or consumer goods) from the internal market if they have expenses of that type, even if they do not produce any themselves.
  • Fixed never-ending deficits - if you go into a deficit of a resource you do not produce at all, and then stop spending it (i.e. end up with both expenses and income of 0), the deficit will now resolve itself in a few months. This solves issues with machines having inexplicable food and consumer goods deficits, as well as cases where people over-spend rare resources they gained via event.
  • All resources provided for deficit bailouts now scale with the game year, instead of just those for the situation that completed.
  • Fixed a case where the situation approach to cut the maintenance of habitats would count double.
  • Fixed stray reference to Minerals in the Consumer Goods Deficit Situation.

Subject and Agreement related fixes and changes:
  • Subjects should no longer flip-flop between regular subject types and protectorate.
  • Fix issue where a new subject created from a Status Quo would be made up of the wrong systems.
  • Subjects can no longer sign Defensive Pacts or Guarantee Independence of other empires.
  • Releasing a sector as a subject or enlightening a pre-ftl civilization now ignores the cooldown on agreement negotiation.
  • Increased the effects of Relative Power on AI acceptance of agreement negotiation.
  • Added base acceptance for subsidiary.
  • Tweaked AI acceptance of resource contribution terms, making them more likely to accept harsher tithes/subsidies.
  • AI overlords and subjects will now be more likely to accept specialist subject types that disagree with their ethics.
  • Set minimum Advanced Resources tax for Prospectorium to 15% from 30%
  • Fixed ACTION_DEMAND_SUBJUGATION_NOTIFICATION and ACTION_ASK_TO_BECOME_SUBJUGATED_NOTIFICATION loc keys.
  • Fix for trade deals that are accepted and then canceled immediately.
  • Fixed AI not taking relative power into account when considering subjugation proposals.
  • You can no longer set the priority of overlord catalytic or metallurgist jobs.
  • Overlord catalytic jobs no longer have the pre-3.4 penalties for food deficits.
  • Corporate overlords now have access to the protectorate subject type.
  • Slaves can now be "employed" as mind-thralls.
  • Fixed issue when removing/replacing overlord removes the corporate holdings.
  • The Divided Patronage loyalty penalty is now correctly removed from existing subjects when taking Shared Destiny, Feudal Society or Franchising.
  • You can no longer immediately see the secret fealty status of sectors released as subjects.
  • Rebalanced trade weights for specialist subject leaders.
  • Subjects that are converting to a specialist subject can continue conversion even if they should flip to a protectorate.
  • Subjects that are converting to a specialist subject cannot flip to a protectorate due to low tech level.
  • Empires can no longer have negative diplomatic weight.

Game Stability related fixes and changes:
  • Fixed crash connected with resettling the last pop of a species.
  • Fixed a rare crash in the Situations interface.
  • Fixed crash with modded shipsets.
  • Fixed a crash that would happen when generating very large galaxies with high hyperlane density.
  • Fixed a crash related to Federation Laws.

Ship related fixes and changes:
  • Ship starting experience modifiers now work when provided empire-wide (e.g. Fleet Supremacy edict)
  • Fixed tracking not countering evasion.
  • Added missing ship components for Offspring ships.
  • Mercenary fleets are now buffed by Offspring Auras
  • Added missing L2 Battleship section for Offspring Battleships.
  • Fixed ship build and upgrade cost modifiers not being applied correctly when retrofitting ships.
  • Fixed certain AIs (the ones with Calamitous Birth and Private Colony Ships) never colonizing.
  • You can no longer found mercenary enclaves using fleets belonging to your federation or the galactic community.

Other fixes and changes:
  • Legacy Human portraits have been re-added as an option in empire creation.
  • Fixed pops that grow as specialists on Colonies.
  • Fixed pops which go into a loop of swapping jobs with unemployed specialists constantly resetting strata demotion timers.
  • Amenity job management is now activated even when there are no resources available for planet automation.
  • Fixed an issue where planet automation could not use resources from their local sector stockpile.
  • Planet automation will now check that the unemployed pops can work the jobs that the automation would build, e.g. preventing specialist job creation for slave pops.
  • Reduced the amount of research given by merc dividends.
  • Fixed an issue where systems with primitives in them would not be transferred correctly during a status quo war resolution.
  • Non-Prophet Organization now correctly checks for the Teachers of the Shroud origin.
  • Fixed the Stellar Performance achievement not being awarded properly.
  • Subterranean empire are now shown uncapped mining districts on uncolonised worlds.
  • The Crystalline Bane modifier is now removed if you kill the Crystal Kraken in a dishonorable manner.
  • Progenitor Nest deposit is no longer removed when terraforming a planet into a hive-world.
  • Hive worlds now provide an offspring drone for progenitor hives instead of a spawning drones.
  • Fixed the Cyro Pod warrior event for xenophobes.
  • Meeting the artist enclave now sets the correct flag.
  • Added tooltip on create office branch button when players could not open a branch office.
  • Shroudwalker greeting event now fires only once.
  • Fixed tooltip for starbase resource silos.

###################
New Known Issues
###################

  • Localization for non-English languages related to these changes will be coming in a future update.
  • When negotiating an agreement, if the other party does not wish to accept the terms but does not have the influence necessary to decline, the eventual notification says that the deal timed out and auto-declined when in fact it was auto-accepted.

So what's next?

We'll be continuing to keep an eye on things, so keep those bug reports and feedback flowing. Currently our plan is to have a 3.4.4 update in a few weeks, that will contain localization updates for the 3.4.3 hotfix, more fixes and balance adjustments.

A sneak peek of some of the things we're looking at for the planned patch include the following:
  • The Imperial Fiefdom will start with colonies close to every member of their empire, so nobody will feel left out of the fold. Those who feel particularly loyal will now also be able to remain a vassal of the empire after the civil war has started.
  • Added Hydroponics Station designation for habitats. This designation removes 2 housing from Habitation Districts in exchange for adding 1 farmer jobs.
  • Ships now gain 5 exp per day in battle instead of 1.
  • Doubled the base unity output of telepaths.
  • Khan should no longer be hostile to mercenaries.
  • Admirals no longer abandon their post on leased fleets.
  • Planetary automation will no longer seek to build gene clinics if you are a synthetically-ascended empire.
  • Planetary automation will now seek to clear blockers as soon as there is any need. It now uses the same formula as the indicator on the outliner: i.e. if it is limiting the number of districts OR if there are buildings that could be built by clearing the blockers OR if planet growth speed is reduced (previous behaviour was to only check the first of those).
  • Fixed issue where planetary automation would upgrade Necrophage Centers of Elevation (which is often undesirable as it may lead to you running out of necrophytes)
  • Newly colonized planets will now have their planet automation turned on if they are in an automated sector
  • Made some clarifications for the Shroudwalkers, so it is clearer what asset you are getting from them and how the planet modifier works.
  • You can no longer build an orbital ring around a planet with a destroyed orbital ring.
  • Added is_human_species scripted trigger if you want additional portraits to be considered humans.
  • Added on_fleet_lease_started/ended on_actions for more friendly mod compatibility
  • Added is_human_species scripted trigger if you want additional portraits to be considered humans.
We also have some quality of life automation improvements planned for 3.4.4:
  • Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.
  • Construction ships now have an Automated Construction mode, which will automatically build Research and Mining Stations over appropriate deposits. (It will not automatically build Observation Stations, Hyper Relays, or other constructions.)

Automated Construction

Thanks for playing!
 
  • 135Love
  • 107Like
  • 5
  • 4
Reactions:
The game knows what resolution it will use before it runs. The mod cannot know that -- the mod is loaded after the game's code loads it, which is after the game's own code (for obvious reasons).

It's not reasonable to demand that a mod should cover all resolutions.

It is reasonable to demand that the game -- which has control of more, and has earlier control, than any mod -- could load a different UI at different resolutions.

you're arguing against a claim i did not make. i was specifically responding to a claim that the other person made, which was that the mod could cope with all of that. it clearly does not.

as for having the game load different UIs contextually, that's a whole kettle i'm not going to try to dig far into for a codebase i don't have direct familiarity with. but from working on user interface stuff on other things, i know that sufficiently matured designs can be extremely brittle on this front if they weren't designed to account for it from the beginning. stellaris seemingly wasn't.

plus i also know from experience with those other projects that if you end up shipping multiple distinct layouts that have to be independently maintained, that starts getting into design synchronization issues. that's a different user experience (and developer effort) pitfall that's usually quite problematic.
 
  • 5
  • 1
Reactions:
Just to quote the actual devlog where it was mentioned: #250

There was a report here: where it is shown, that the ring turned hostile because ownership is determined by the station. take over the station and the ring belongs to you.
the way it is written though doesnt exclude this scenario. it could be possible that you still cant invade the planet. so whatever it is, those rings are weird
If you test it in the current patch, the ring doesnt defect and stays on your side even if you lose the starbase. I attached save earlier in the thread showing this.
 
  • 4
Reactions:
Vanilla Stellaris UI need to hit a balance between aesthetic appeal, information detail and acessibility so we are never going to end up with something like TinyOutliner.
Can you please at least give us something like this?

planetary%20designations.png


Also, there's a lot of information I'd love to add to interfaces like Planets and Sectors or Resettlement that we simply can't, such as planet designation, planet designation icons, or total number of pops.

Why must it all be so annoyingly hardcoded?
 
  • 1
Reactions:
I'd like to request a QoL improvement. Would it be possible to separate the Orbital Rings from the Starbases in the Outlier? It would help to organize the information in a better way
 
  • 3Like
  • 3Love
Reactions:
this argument would be a lot stronger if the mod successfully handled the lower resolutions at the same time as it handles higher resolutions. it does not.
Because the base game already is designed around those resolutions the Custodian talks of. Why should a mod meant to resize the UI to fit larger resolutions support what the base game already supports?
edit: i'm reaching the unfortunate conclusion there may not be any currently-working mods for increased listed district types that functions sanely at 1440x720. the idea of having to make my own fills me with dread.
Try this one: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2654043078
 
Hello together,
since there is a lot of discussion about the UI, i would like to suggest another QOL addon:

If some kind of anomaly or other menu closes the planetary view. You cannot always remember the last planet.
Therfore the suggestion would be minimizing the planetary view, a go back function or a highlight in the outliner. Then you can continue working on the same planet without struggling finding it again. Well, this is a general thing with long lists (e.g. species modding has the same issue), but if you have more than 30 planets, the closing of the planetary view is bothering me.

Regards,
Moe
 
  • 1
Reactions:
  • Fixed crash connected with resettling the last pop of a species.
Oh good, the game might actually be playable again. I had to abandon several runs because of this bug in 3.3, so I just gave up on playing. 3.4.x has some neat stuff (and excuse me, the return of automated construction ships in 3.4.4?!?!?!?), but this is the only thing that will actually get me to return to the game.
 
1653142116414.png


Um, why is this off-center now? Wouldn't it be better if it was just the repaired/constructed sections that were properly centered instead?

Before:
Spawned/generated intact sectionsTech, Habitable, Seam
Repaired/constructed sectionsTech, Seam, Habitable
Ruined sectionsHabitable, Seam, Tech

Now:
Spawned/generated intact sectionsHabitable, Seam, Tech
Repaired/constructed sectionsHabitable, Seam, Tech
Ruined sectionsHabitable, Seam, Tech

Suggested:
Spawned/generated intact sectionsTech, Habitable, Seam
Repaired/constructed sectionsTech, Habitable, Seam
Ruined sectionsTech, Habitable, Seam

I think the habitable section should be at the center of each four sides.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Haha
  • 1
Reactions:
  • Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.
  • Construction ships now have an Automated Construction mode, which will automatically build Research and Mining Stations over appropriate deposits. (It will not automatically build Observation Stations, Hyper Relays, or other constructions.)
It took Paradox seven years to add what everyone was asking since the release.
 
  • 7
Reactions:
I feel like those icons shouldn't overlap like that but resort to only showing a few of them, but anyway!
I tried my hand at restructuring the UI to be able to show more of them. There are so many icons that can be shown for a system though so it was hard making something that never overlapped and still looked OK. I gave me some newfound respect for our UX designers :p

But yeah, this is also an issue that I would like to try to convince a UX designer to collaborate with me on.
If we can find a way to show all of that information without making a mess of the galaxy view, it's certainly something I want to do!
What if you shifted some of the icons on both sides of the system name? Randomly spawned items (archeology sites, wormholes, unrepaired gateways) are shown on the left. Built infrastructure (starbases, megastructures), stays on the right.

Though I'm not sure how you'd handle cases where there's 3 or more icons of either type, since it'd still be cluttered.
 
What if you shifted some of the icons on both sides of the system name? Randomly spawned items (archeology sites, wormholes, unrepaired gateways) are shown on the left. Built infrastructure (starbases, megastructures), stays on the right.

Though I'm not sure how you'd handle cases where there's 3 or more icons of either type, since it'd still be cluttered.
Does the height of the icon set matter? Because if you're allowed to hex grid it, you get something like this
wormhex.png

which fits 7 icons. And you can keep it at two row for 5.
 
  • 5Like
  • 4Love
Reactions:
Does the height of the icon set matter? Because if you're allowed to hex grid it, you get something like this
View attachment 842068
which fits 7 icons. And you can keep it at two row for 5.
I've thought about that as well though I think it'd be best to keep it at two rows.

I wonder if it's feasible to push some of them to the Details Map Mode. While I'd always want to see where there are gateways and wormholes I have little interest in completed archaeological digs. Then I think an argument could be made either way for a lot of them. How often do I really need to have a look to see where my Megastructures are for example. As long as there's a bias for keeping things not in your space visible I'd be okay with hiding quite a few of them when in the non-detailed mode.
 
  • 1
Reactions:
Thanks for the rapid turn around on this massive fix. The DLC feels like the largest we've gotten in years, so doing all of these fixes can't have been easy. So great job and congrats to the team.
 
  • 2
Reactions: