Stellaris Dev Diary #323 - 3.10.1 "Pyxis" Beta and Next Steps

[PineapplePizzaPriest]

Any updates on ship and starbase cost/speed/upkeep bug? It single-handedly makes the game near unplayable for me and I was really hoping to see it fixed in the hotfix today.

 

[MadCow94]

Any chance of getting a tab that is all of the old information? That way people that don't like "outliner scroll" can use the new tabs and people that hate the new outliner (like me) can use the old one.

Edit: What happened to moving shipyards to the fleet tab?

 

[Asiak]

So am I reading these outliner changes correctly in that I'll essentially be able to make into the old outliner where it's just a straight list?

I'm sorry I've lived through the FTL changes, planets going from tiles to sectors, leadership rework, loved it all.

I've never disliked a change more then those outliner tabs.

 

[Emia_Kiritsugu]

CTRL+A/D hotkeys could be customed a bit.
Could you add a new option for Mouse side buttons? Currently, M4 works as E and M5 works as Spacebar by default.
How about setting M4 as CTRL+A, M5 as CTRL+D by default option?

If your mouse has proprietary app for key bindings customise you can set CTRL+A/D hotkeys to any mouse key. Works for my Logitech G502 (tasted on the beta patch). M4 and M5 keys are actually quite convenient for switching outliner tabs. At least it's something

 

[Panzerslothen]

and it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride

And that's putting it mildly.

Due to an error we made in metadata, many players were unable to verify ownership of the DLC at launch. We pushed a quick hotfix, which resolved these issues for some players, while also introducing a different ownership issue through a checksum error, which prevented other people from being able to properly explore the expansion. We finally managed to fix all of these problems midday on Friday. I want to thank everyone who provided bug reports and helped us diagnose the dlc ownership issues, we wouldn’t have been able to resolve them so quickly without your help.

Sounds like a bit of a nightmare, TBF. You find one critical problem, fix it... then get confused as to how you're seeing the same thing, and maybe can't understand why, and need to really think twice more again to figure it out. Quite the challenge, both technically and operationally!

I for one see all you're doing to put things right, and it's to your credit. I don't think it'd be fair to blame you & your team for the metadata/checksum bug; who could have seen that one coming? I know what it's like to have to respond to a crisis and suddenly pull a load of late shifts, as you did on Thursday/Friday, so yah, respect there.

I’m terribly sorry for the poor launch.

Hey, community, do you see this? That's an apology, that is. Take note of it!

Yes, this launch has been a right dog's breakfast. We know that, you know that - whatever. I'm certain that there has been another case of problems coming from a Thursday release, which it seems needs to be learned from again. But I've always been keen to focus on solutions, not blame (blame doesn't get anyone to resolution!).

We’ve just put a beta branch up on Steam containing the 3.10.1 release, which is currently planned to be deployed to live on Thursday. This release includes a number of bugfixes, as well as hotkeys for the Tabbed Outliner. Let us know what you think.

Now THIS is a new development. I don't think we've had a Beta of a hotfix before. Two and a half working days for a hotfix release (even if in the form of a Beta)? Personally I think that's really, really good. Nice work. I hope this isn't the only time, IF we have similar buggy launches in future.

Personally I'm impressed and quite pleased with the pace and scale of resolution efforts.

The patch has highlighted some issues with our internal development processes and we are rectifying them as we speak. Things like harder deadlines for when features need to be merged in etc.

There has been community speculation that the problems seen in recent Paradox launches have not been development team faults, but rather impositions from the managers, the money-men, and the marketers within PDX. If that is the case - and I know you cannot and would not say even if it were - then I do hope this gives you guys as the development team a really solid evidence base to push back to and say "Well, sir, we tried that with 3.10/AP, and it caused some chaos. We should avoid a repeat occurrence.".

I speak only for myself, but I'm sure a lot of the community would probably agree, that we would rather wait a week or two or three longer for a patch and a DLC update and have that much more level of polish and refinement, than have it sooner and have all of this kerfuffle.

As a personal champion of internal politics having the internal stability of CK3 is a tricky business. Even in that game, there are people who despise it when they lose sections of their empire and have to integrate it back in after a messy inheritance. If your sectors started spinning off into independent nations some Stellaris players would love that while others would rage quit on the spot. Just know we are having discussions about it, but nothing is planned.

Good points well presented. I have previously been a vocal proponent of the fabled 'Internal Politics' update, but for a while now I've been rowing back on that and admitting it probably isn't as much of a priority as I thought. I've noticed other users here starting to do the same thing. Besides the obvious fact that none of us can collectively agree on what we mean by such a nebulous and vast term as 'Internal politics rework/update', AND besides the valid points which you mention here, Iggy, I think the War mechanics are much more deserving of a review. Or something else, possibly Espionage. I don't really know, TBF.

 

[Vielmann]

Any chance of having an easier hotkey for tabbing around in the outliner? I personally would like the tab key used for this (blocked while in planet view as it is used there too and in planet view you usually don't use the outliner that much) . Tabs are switched pretty often and the tab key is a lot less prone to fatfingering. As others have mentioned mouse 4/5 are great candidates as well, but I would probably be annoyed for a while due to having to relearn these.

 

[Eladrin]

Now THIS is a new development. I don't think we've had a Beta of a hotfix before. Two and a half working days for a hotfix release (even if in the form of a Beta)? Personally I think that's really, really good. Nice work. I hope this isn't the only time, IF we have similar buggy launches in future.

The steam beta lets us get it to you before the certification process is complete. Since there were enough fixes in this one, I wanted you to get access to it as quickly as possible. (It also helps us identify more things for 3.10.2.)

 

[Vielmann]

It's a limitation of our old engine. If you look at CK3 and Vicky 3 you can see that they both have support for that.

As there seems to be a possibility of changing hotkeys in the files, but not in the game, would an external tool to change keybinds in the launcher (or started in the launcher) be possible?

 

[Rillian1980]

Hi great work on the patch. Any word on the AI as seems significantly weaker in terms of fleet power than 3.9?

 

[Seridur]

So, do i get it right, that we can have our outliner tabs configured a way that each tabs have everything, but for example the first tab would have the civilian stuff at top, military at bottom, and the second tab it could have the other way around? so we can decide to scroll or switch?

 

[luxeritib]

• Reduced the magnitude of most governor modifiers.

For those who are interested.
+5% bonus per level on planet got nerfed to +2%
+2.5% bonus per level on sector got nerfed to +1%

And also, commissioner's soldier jobs now give only +1 stability, so you have to use a lot of soldiers to tank stability(meaning martial law is no longer viable).
Analyst's Collaborator trait got heavily nerfed(+35% to +10%) and there's some bug in Collaborator lvl 2(Sector bonus gives +37.5% bonus instead of +3.75%)

 

[malakhglitch]

Ah! I can play on 3.10.1 this weekend! That's good news

 

[Seridur]

For those who are interested.
+5% bonus per level on planet got nerfed to +2%
+2.5% bonus per level on sector got nerfed to +1%

And also, commissioner's soldier jobs now give only +1 stability, so you have to use a lot of soldiers to tank stability(meaning martial law is no longer viable).
Analyst's Collaborator trait got heavily nerfed(+35% to +10%) and there's some bug in Collaborator lvl 2(Sector bonus gives +37.5% bonus instead of +3.75%)

It's a difficult question how powerful governors should be. Too much bonus then the already high powercreep kicks in, too little no one bothers having governors.

Maybe the bonuses could work like this: instead of x%/level they would be 5% + 2%/level above one. So even a first level governor would give noticable something, but wouldn't get to +50% at lvl 10.

 

[battle7895]

The issue with end game event trigger crashing the game is still present

 

[Terran91]

Good points well presented. I have previously been a vocal proponent of the fabled 'Internal Politics' update, but for a while now I've been rowing back on that and admitting it probably isn't as much of a priority as I thought. I've noticed other users here starting to do the same thing. Besides the obvious fact that none of us can collectively agree on what we mean by such a nebulous and vast term as 'Internal politics rework/update', AND besides the valid points which you mention here, Iggy, I think the War mechanics are much more deserving of a review. Or something else, possibly Espionage. I don't really know, TBF.

Why so? There is the certain player's benefits in Stellaris, because of which they buy game and dlc. And, i think, product managers from PDX know these benefits.

In my opinion, it is:
1) The pleasure of exploring the unknown (exploring space and anomalies in the early and, now, middle game)
2) The satisfaction from solving the tasks of creating a prosperous state (a well-balanced growing economy)
3) The satisfaction of dominating other players (NPCs of all kinds and live players. This can also include all crises).

Internal policy gives expansion both to p.2,3. Strengthening the role of factions, leaders, and any new mechanics will give more tasks to create a prosperous state (now it's only 3 mechanics: happiness from factions, the speed of implementation of council programs and negative traits of leaders) and will create a new mechanic to dominate others players (as war, federations, the galactic community and espionage are doing now).

I do not dispute that other mechanics can and should be improved, such as, for example, espionage and foreign policy. But I see greater benefits at lower costs in the implementation of politics, factions, leaders and the council, because a significant part of this has already been implemented in the game, but does not have a strong effect on the gameplay.

 

[luxeritib]

• Detail-Oriented has been updated to be a Destiny trait for Scholars, instead of a Veteran trait

What happens to renowned paragon, Nasuz Demetor? Doesn't he have both Vibrant Storyteller and Detail-Oriented? Does he have 2 Destiny traits now?

 

[fourteenfour]

Hotkeys are nice.

TL;DR
However the real annoyance is the features I interact with the most are forced to separate tabs.

Colonies, Construction Ships, and Science ships. All early game elements I need to interact with consistently. Now I need to jump across tabs to do this. That is poor UI.




You need to just provide us the means to assign any item to any tab. Give it up, the majority do not like your tabbed outliner. There are two ways to save this.

Remove it or simply allow us to customize the content of each tab as we see fit so we have different items and different sort orders. If you are feeling particularly responsive to requests them even go so far as to let use detach tabs as well.

To be blunt, some of your groupings do not make sense nor provide for fluid game play.

 

[st360]

I have a question.

A lot of people in the community noticed that the last 2 DLCs had large powercreeps.

Things like advisors giving a huge, flat amount of + resources in Paragons. And now in Astral Rifts the ethernal throne from the formless giving a 40 size gaia world or doubling physics research. *And* it makes leaders immortal, *and* that paves over a lot of limitations, *and* worst of all, you can now combine it with the Overtuned trait (better leaders at the cost of - lifespan which is now set to immortal).

Will the developers keep a sharper eye on powercreep and be more intentional on toning down rewards in new DLCs?

 

[Quipore]

Concerning the customization of the Outliner:

PLEASE let us re-order our fleets and armies. The same way we an with planets, let us reorder our fleets. I love getting Bubbles or another event fleet, but as time progresses I hate having "1st fleet. Bubbles. 2nd fleet." drives me bonkers.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I have a question.

A lot of people in the community noticed that the last 2 DLCs had large powercreeps.

Things like advisors giving a huge, flat amount of + resources in Paragons. And now in Astral Rifts the ethernal throne from the formless giving a 40 size gaia world or doubling physics research. *And* it makes leaders immortal, *and* that paves over a lot of limitations, *and* worst of all, you can now combine it with the Overtuned trait (better leaders at the cost of - lifespan which is now set to immortal).

Will the developers keep a sharper eye on powercreep and be more intentional on toning down rewards in new DLCs?

It's something we've been discussing internally and that I would like us to look at for 3.11, but as always no promises.