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Stellaris Dev Diary #291 - First Contact is Out, What’s Next?

Hi everyone!

It’s now been a bit over a week since the First Contact Story Pack released, and it’s been great hearing your stories and experiences.

While some things slipped through into the initial release, like the Great Filter becoming nigh impenetrable if nobody’s watching, overall Canis Minor was the most stable release we’ve ever had on Stellaris - to the point where red flags were being raised whether the Crash Reporter was working properly.

Watch the video DD​

A couple of days ago we pushed the 3.7.3 hotfix to take care of a few of the more pressing issues.

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#################### VERSION 3.7.3 - Hotfix Patch ######################​

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Fixes and Changes
  • Every single atomic pre-FTL will no longer nuke themselves if they are not being observed.
  • Fixed Contingency worlds not being properly cracked by devolving beam.
  • The Solarpunk Empire will no longer stay pre-FTL if you decide to steal from them.
  • Admirals should no longer be able to gain both versions of the trickster trait.
  • The Solarpunk empire will no longer gain a new fleet every single month.
  • Fixing custom diplomatic action sounds playing for unrelated empires.
  • Missing localizations are added in English. Proper translations are expected with the following patch.
  • Fallen empire buildings should no longer disappear when you conquer their planets.
  • The Ministry of Culture should no longer disappear after you finish building it.
  • The Artist Enclave should no longer offer to sell you a Ministry of Culture if you already bought one.
  • Non-Xenophobe empires can once again enable displacement purging.
  • The Accepted Plea for Protection opinion modifier is now granted to the subject towards the overlord instead of to the overlord towards the subject.
  • Randomly generated machine empires now have a chance to use the toxoid machine options if you own the corresponding DLC
  • Removed a TODO Opinion Modifier String.
  • Fixed Broken Shackles offering Payback information about the MSI even if they got already destroyed
  • Fixed a bug when cloaked ship cannot progress special project inside closed borders
  • Admiral doesn't get killed anymore when you upgrade the MSI flagship
  • Torpedo and Frigate technology now requires you to have researched Corvettes.
  • The Separatist Planet will no longer nuke themselves if you lose your capital to space fauna.
  • Broken Shackles empires with the Parliamentary System civic will instead have Unshackled Politics fire one month after game start instead of one year after game start.
  • You can no longer select the Fear of the Dark version of the Sol system without the Fear of the Dark origin.
  • Fixed Liberation wars not showing up for Payback empires.
  • Fixed events related to the Out of Warranty event chain not firing.
  • Fix being able to build an observation post over Haven using the fleet order button
  • The Accepted Plea for Protection opinion modifier now grants +150 opinion.
  • The Observation Insight Situation now remembers what approach you had when it last finished.

We’re currently working on another patch, planned for a few weeks from now, to resolve more bugs, balance issues, and add some localization fixes.

So far, some items of particular interest include:
  • Fixed an issue where a Payback empire using the End Threat (Payback) war goal against the MSI could end with a whimper instead of as intended.
  • Gave the Grand Herald archaeo-tech components.
  • Buffed MSI by giving them some bonus naval capacity and starting technologies.
  • The Raise Awareness espionage operation now prevents pre-ftl Awareness from naturally decaying for 5 years.
  • Hive-Minds with both Cordycepic Drones and Stargazers now start with 3 reanimated amoebae.

Please keep posting bug reports in our forums, they’re a great help to us.

Speaking of other reports that are a great help, and since I mentioned the Crash Reporting tool earlier, I have a message to share from our Tech Lord.

The Tech Lord Speaks​


Hey, I am Lorenzo, your friendly neighborhood Tech Lord. I just wanted to spend a second talking about releases and the work that we do behind the scenes once a new shiny version of the game is there, downloading. Game development is no joke, like any other business, and releasing a new patch is not the beginning of the end, but barely the end of the beginning. Our team puts heroic effort into delivering the best product to you, but hey, mistakes or oversights happen. Sometimes the result is a hilarious bug, like the tendency of pre-FTL societies to prematurely end their lives by nuclear means. Sometimes the result is this dreaded window.

1679406255869.png
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Like no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no patch survives contact with the players. But we are aware of this, and every time we release a new patch, somewhere in our offices there’s a group of developers sitting down, constantly monitoring the stability of the game, patiently waiting for the inevitable fire to spark: luckily most of the time there’s no real fire, just some tiny candle flames.

And this brings me straight to my point: thank you all for your reports! When you press that “send button”, detailed information on the crash are collected and sent to us for investigation. This info is usually enough to point out the problem, but often not enough to identify the cause of it: that’s when your comments come into play! Tell us what you were doing when the crash happened, even the most tiny detail could help us!

They say that an image is worth 1000 words: let me tell you a beautiful story in four acts with an image, then:
1679406289693.png

(Thanks from the bottom of my heart, anonymous player: your reports were immensely useful in finding the issue and fixing it )​

Thanks, Lorenzo, and thanks again to all of you that submit detailed bug reports and crash logs. The more information we have, the easier it is to track down some of these sometimes troublesome issues.

Want to help out?​

We currently have two ways that you can help out improving the Stellaris experience for existing players, new players, and directly effect development of the game!

Since @Alfray Stryke has finished his duties with First Contact, and has transitioned back to the Custodian team, he is currently running a feedback thread looking for constructive, directed feedback on AI Diplomatic interactions.

We are looking for feedback on the AI's willingness to accept diplomatic pacts, become subjects or overlords and form federations, in particular with other AI empires. Some of the changes for 3.8 “Gemini” we are considering are requiring a Trust threshold for the AI to offer certain diplomatic agreements and improvements on the AI weights for Diplomatic traditions.
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You can find the feedback thread here!

The other way to help influence the development of Stellaris, is a survey from our User Research department. This survey is designed to give us feedback on what you like/dislike about Stellaris, and will be taken into account while we're planning future development for Stellaris.

You can complete the survey here!

First Contact Art Competition​

stellartis.png

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Always able to be relied on for questionable puns, the Stellaris Community team announced our StellARTis Competition yesterday! Leave your First Contact-inspired artwork in this thread, for a chance to win a code for First Contact or a copy of Stellaris to give to a friend! Contest runs until April 3rd, and the winning entries will be chosen by the Stellaris Art Department!

So What’s Next?​

We’re not quite ready to talk about 3.8 ‘Gemini’ yet, but here’s a peek at one thing we’re going to start rolling out in it.

1679406320922.png

Nesting Concepts will initially only be present in Galaxy Settings​

Next week we’ll be going over more of the things planned to go into the 3.7.4 patch. See you then!
 

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Seing that pretty first contact art, reach me a very old question, will be a time, when a Paradox Team, taking a breath from the classic grand strategy, EU, CK, VIC, HOI (and Stellaris ofc) and mainstreamed hackneyed topics (Rome, Greece, World Wars, Napoleon), will do some Bronze Age Grand Strategy (with that beautiful art)?

Anyway, I know is not the place, but regarding to first contact egyptianicing precious pic and "what's next" topic, I felt the need of saying it.
 
Dementor4 said:
You can pretty easily make your own "common ground" origin just by making another empire with your species and set it to always spawn. I do this when I play Clone Troopers.
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In my example, I was talking about different aquatic species in the same federation. Your way to make that don't works to me.
 
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Dementor4 said:
You can pretty easily make your own "common ground" origin just by making another empire with your species and set it to always spawn. I do this when I play Clone Troopers.
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I think you might be mistaking common ground for lost colony. Common ground is the one which starts you in a federation with your neighbours, I do not think there is any easy way to emulate that one short of just restarting until you spawn next to the right empires.
 
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Millbot said:
-I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that the federated origins really need some love because the downsides for taking them are pretty huge. Most challenging starts aren't nearly as bad as those two origins, which is bad when you consider those two origins are suppose to be challenging starts. At least if you play them as intended, I know there are ways to cheese them.
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They are extremely strong for early warmongering. I don't know why you would want to buff those origins even further.
 
Nogralek said:
They are extremely strong for early warmongering. I don't know why you would want to buff those origins even further.
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Eating one or both of your federation members out the gate isn't intended play. I did make a point of stating both origins are crap if you play them as intended.

I'd also argue beelining for the nearest uncontacted empire without doing any surveying, also isn't intended play either, if that was going to be your suggestion. Hell, a non-federated empire is going to probably have an easier time because they can both build a fleet and start exploiting their guaranteed habitable worlds, while their science ships seek out the nearest empire to blitz down.

Also pretty sure they fix some of the stuff that let people really abuse those starts.
 
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Millbot said:
Eating one or both of your federation members out the gate isn't intended play. I did make a point of stating both origins are crap if you play them as intended.

I'd also argue beelining for the nearest uncontacted empire without doing any surveying, also isn't intended play either, if that was going to be your suggestion. Hell, a non-federated empire is going to probably have an easier time because they can both build a fleet and start exploiting their guaranteed habitable worlds, while their science ships seek out the nearest empire to blitz down.

Also pretty sure they fix some of the stuff that let people really abuse those starts.
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I'm not talking about conquering your federation pals. I'm talking about conquering first normal AI neighbor you meet with the federation fleet that was built with the alloys from all three federation members. Seems like a strong, thematic and intended way to play hegemony to me. Also colonization hurts early warmongering so normal empire would have a harder time doing that.
 
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Nogralek said:
I'm not talking about conquering your federation pals. I'm talking about conquering first xeno neighbour you meet with the federation fleet that was built with the alloys from all three federation members. Seems like a strong, thematic and intended way to play hegemony for me. Also colonization hurts early warmongering so normal empire would have a harder time doing that.
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It's kind of okay-ish but it can easily drop off, depending on how much your pseudo-vassals participate. Also if your fleets get smashed by a bad engagement, that can cause the Hegemon status to move to one of the other fed members which is a massive pita.
I think you're probably better off playing some other empire that doesn't have to worry about managing two pseudo-vassals' contribution to the war.
I look at Hegemon and I think... Well, yes, I could use the 20 ships that they'll give me 15 years into the game, or I could play Clone Soldiers and have 100 ships 15 years into the game, and still have habitables. Or I could play Necrophage and have two Primitives I could immediately claim, or I could just lean on the increased Specialist Pop Output to build more of my own & better ships.
 
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Honestly, having been forced to deal with genocidal empires on my doorstep in solo games, while playing builds that aren't optimized for early warfare. I've found that you can build up a fleet and take them down. So someone that wants to zerg down their neighbors is going to get more bang for their buck going with an origin or build that isn't federated, right out of the gate. At best, the fleet from your hegemon is overkill and it's a pretty crummy deal when you consider what all you've given up. No guaranteed habitable worlds, potentially boxed in and honestly the partially completed diplomacy tree is a bad deal. It leaves you in an awkward spot where you either have to delay getting your first perk because you opt to invest in a better tree for early game; especially, given your handicap, or you get your first perk earlier but have completed a tradition tree that doesn't really help much in the early game.

Also you're ignoring that we have two federation starts and galactic union has always been terrible.

I think I'd rather the devs nerf the starting fleet for federation starts down in capability or out of existence, if it means fixing a number of issues with that both starts really weak.

Finally, it's always possible that they do things to make early zerg rushes less viable.
 
Sorry, but did you stopped to think that some of us prefer to roleplay as pacifists instead of wasting time "zerging" their neighbors or commiting interstellar war crimes?

The game put an Fallen/Fanatic Purifier in your doorstep , only one hyperlane and/or bad guaranteed planets? Then simply restart the blasted game! Quite simple, right?
 
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Andy_Dandy said:
The more settings, the harder to agree on settings before a MP-game, so you can actually play one...... ;)
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The only setting I would want to see is one that disables vanilla empires. I want a galaxy inhabited by my own empires -- including non-Earth based human empires.
Anemetius said:
give us an option to pick what kind of FE we want to spawn, and let us spawn FE from players created empires - not random
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I agree 100% with your suggestion.
 
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Anemetius said:
give us an option to pick what kind of FE we want to spawn, and let us spawn FE from players created empires - not random
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I am pretty sure there is already a chance of this happening, I am certain I have seen fallen empires based on my custom ones.

I know that is not what you were asking for, but just in case you did not know.
 
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