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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...
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######################### VERSION 3.4.3 ############################
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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
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  • 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!
 
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Well now, that's a whole heap of bugs to remove from my list! Excellent work!


This sounds pretty good! Will you be able to tell the construction ship to park at a starbase with Crew Quarters without interrupting the auto-build?
It would be pretty interesting if the construction ships would return to their initial locations after construction, that way I can have them return to my orbital assemblies in my vassals.
 
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If the issue with VDs is politicians, why not make a VD-exclusive alternative?

It’s a common sci-fi trope for spaceships and stations to be managed by all-powerful lead engineers. If you ever played Outer Worlds, the Groundbreaker was managed by their head of engineering. Why not something like that where politicians on VD habitats are replaced by lead engineers or overseers or something thematically similar to that?

As much as I'd like to do that, it was completely out of scope for a hotfix patch.
 
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This looks great! I wanted to know, does the new stellar devourer operation count for the ten required for tinker, tailor, soldier, blorg? Or does it suffer from the same problems arm privateers does? Would love to get a confirmation on the fixing of this achievement before I attempt it again.
 
This looks great! I wanted to know, does the new stellar devourer operation count for the ten required for tinker, tailor, soldier, blorg? Or does it suffer from the same problems arm privateers does? Would love to get a confirmation on the fixing of this achievement before I attempt it again.

Arm Privateers not counting sounds like a bug, can you make a report please.
 
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I have been lurking for awhile since my last post. I am happy with the direction the custodian team and the new lead is taking things. Aside from the current growth mechanics, many of my concerns have been addressed. I am very happy with the improvement in communication and transparency. I have purchased the remaining DLC that I had yet to buy. I will be looking forward to seeing what the future brings.
 
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Do you have migration controls on for that particular species? I'm pretty sure that's supposed to stop them from appearing on planets or habitats they're not on.
Personally I just stop them from breeding and just sell them on the slave market. I know they made them expensive to stop people just buying loads of them cheap off the AI, but now they've made selling them hugely profitable.
I like the traits of that species I slaved for my generator worlds so I allow them to grow and "migrate" the thing is a chattel slaves shouldn't be growing on a planet/habitat with only specialist jobs. The only solution is to have a 10% penalty grow on all your specialist planets to allow their grow on the generator worlds as I don't want to establish population controls
 
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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.)




Thanks for playing!
Now, now, when do we get the option to automate fleets of our choice ( or an OOB? Only half a joke, OOB would be awesome )?
 
I'm glad automated construction ships are coming back. I said they'd be missed during the sectors rework :p

While I'm here, please thinking about:

1) A starbase template and auto-build feature where you can have a few designs and set what you want a starbase to become.
2) A way to globally rebuild and upgrade defense platforms.
3) A way to find special systems, such as black holes or nebular etc. Yes, you can scroll around and find them visually, but when you control a big chunk of a huge map and want to build black hole observations it's a chore to do so.
 
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I am rather unhappy that revolts are being nerfed so hard. Enslaving and purging entire planets should not be easy, and because of how diplomacy and truces work allowing instant war declarations basically prevents coalitions
 
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These are great fixes thank you guys! Quick question though, I understand you guys fixing the more important bugs, etc first, but are you planning to fix the bug where I can only give my leader 1 title regardless of gender? Currently one of my empires is ruled by a female (empress) should a male heir follow her up their title is stuck on Empress too instead of Emperor. I can't seem to change it in the empire creator.
 
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@Alfray Stryke is it a known issue if some [] commands are not working right?

E.g. ['country_scope'.GetAdj] ['country_scope'.GetAdjective] are
returning GetName (where 'country_scope' is This, Root, From, etc, as applicable)

I've changed the text to work around this, but the below string underlined in red (via a country-scoped event) was "[Root.GetAdj] Imperial Throne,"
  • giving "[Terran Imperium] Imperial Throne"
  • when that [command] should have returned "[Terran] Imperial Throne".

In other words, "[Root.GetAdjective] Imperial Throne," and "[Root.GetName] Imperial Throne," were returning the same things.

The Country's name was "Terran Imperium" whilst its adjective, as set in empire creation, was "Terran".
1652981916635.png

Running 3.4.3 - this is a modded event, havent had a chance to check if vanilla events also suffering from this.
 
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I can’t express how disappointed I am that the issue with being unable to dismiss mercenary fleets gained from annexing a vassal hasn’t been fixed. This is utterly game-breaking. If you annex a vassal you have to permanently pay for a gigantic fleet.

This is a huge let-down and I really counted on it being fixed by the weekend.
While not ideal you can always just run the fleet into a leviathan or the marauders

Im still holding out for the fix to the GDF using your naval capacity though
 
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@Alfray Stryke is it a known issue if some [] commands are not working right?

E.g. ['country_scope'.GetAdj] ['country_scope'.GetAdjective] are
returning GetName (where 'country_scope' is This, Root, From, etc, as applicable)

I've changed the text to work around this, but the below string underlined in red (via a country-scoped event) was "[Root.GetAdj] Imperial Throne,"
  • giving "[Terran Imperium] Imperial Throne"
  • when that [command] should have returned "[Terran] Imperial Throne".

In other words, "[Root.GetAdjective] Imperial Throne," and "[Root.GetName] Imperial Throne," were returning the same things.

The Country's name was "Terran Imperium" whilst its adjective, as set in empire creation, was "Terran".
View attachment 841188
Running 3.4.3 - this is a modded event, havent had a chance to check if vanilla events also suffering from this.

Not something that rings a bell to me, but a bug report if this is happening in vanilla would be great.
 
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Even if the Megastructures weren't on the outliner, just a way to find them easier in general would be fantastic. It would also be absolutely insanely awesomely turbo rad if didn't have to click 'upgrade" on gateways anymore and could just build them in one stage even if it cost the same resources and time as it does now. If I don't instantly drop what I'm doing and click the "go to" button on the pop up to build the next stage of the gateway, there's a roughly 0% chance I'm ever finding that half built gateway again
Why not use the shortcuts?
 
I personally don't know anything about the merging of robot pops, but the Megastructure outliner and fleet outliner reordering have been on my table for quite some time already. It has just been pushed around several times due to putting priority on the 3.4 free update and the assigned UX designer moving teams.

I would like to try and address the fact that the outliner has grown a bit out of control for the space allocated to it as we've added more and more features into the game and making these changes before we do that work would lead to some double work, which isn't efficient use of our time and that's also lead to that work being delayed.

But rest assured that as soon as I have a UX designer by my side in this task, I will push for making it happen!
I also want to stress that we do read the suggestions forum, so keep posting and voting in there :)
Try to also get a Branch Office Expansion Planner onto that list as well. It really would make using Branches so much easier and convenient.

This message brought to you by Megacorp.
 
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If you click the Automate Construction button, that Construction Ship will build the nearest mining or research station, then repeat until it runs out of possible mining or research stations to build. Then it'll sit there waiting patiently. If a new opportunity to build a mining or research station appears (for example, if you researched a technology that gave you access to a strategic resource, discovered a new deposit, or conquered or expanded into a system), it will go there and start building.

It does not build anything other than the basic mining or research stations.
So, will we end up with a lot of construction ships beeing stuck in edge systems all over our empire, b.c. that is where the last 10 deposits "appeared" promiting every ship from the empire to go there? and then taking years to reach the other side of the empire to build the bases over there. Thats how it feelt the AI was doing it for long time at least (haven't played 3.4 yet)
 
Any hope we could get a fix for galaxy map icons?

Screen Shot 2022-05-17 at 12.09.47 PM.png


With the new BUILD HYPE addition the galaxy's UI is just getting more crowded, and it doesn't handle this crowding well.

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.

Nice. That's been needful for quite some time. Than you!

Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.

Did you add Auto Explore instead of or in addition to the current Auto Survey?

The distinction would be that Auto Explore does an Explore System for systems which aren't revealed on the map, but which can't be surveyed.

Nemesis-era fog of war greatly hindered Auto Survey from working as it did previously, because the previous behavior required that all unrevealed systems were surveyable -- and now they are not, a system can be both unknown and unsurveyable, and if these systems are between the science ship and any surveyable systems, the science ship will give up because it only knows to look for surveyable systems adjacent to revealed systems.

If you added actual Auto Explore that would be awesome.

The current Auto Survey is broken -- so it's convenient to not have it tech-locked, but it's going to break as soon as you meet an alien empire. You will need to manually micro your ship towards surveyable systems before Auto Survey will function again.

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.

Do you have a reasonable regression test framework?

If not, would you be interested in paying someone a lot of money to write one?
 
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