Stellaris Dev Diary #345 - Upcoming 3.12.3 Improvements

[Eladrin]

Hello everybody!

Last week we released 3.12.2 to the public, and since then we’ve been working on further post release support. Today we’ll be going into some of the things we’re planning for a 3.12.3 release. Currently we’re looking at next Thursday as the tentative release date, but we’ll keep you posted.

Selected Changes and Improvements from the Changelog​

Following the deluge of feedback from the release of The Machine Age, 3.12.3 will include the following changes:

• Selecting the “physical” path for Synthetic Ascension will unlock the advanced machine traits from the Modularity path for Machines.
• Selecting the “virtual” path for Synthetic Ascension will unlock the Virtual Economic Policy from the Virtuality path for Machines. (Though the policy has been rebalanced.)
• The unique planetary features added from the Transformation situation are now kept when turning a planet into an ecumenopolis or restoring a shattered ringworld.
• Synthetic authorities have been rebalanced.
• The Commodities Consolidation situation will now show if you are on track to produce enough consumer goods or if you do not have enough storage space to the quota.
• The Virtuality, Modularity and Nanotech tradition trees now have agendas.
• Cybernetic Creed:
  • Embracing a Cybernetic Creed no longer forces a template onto your species.
  • Embracing a Cybernetic Creed now gives +10% Faction Approval when they become your sole Spiritualist faction (This does not apply if you unite the Creeds).
  • Embracing a Cybernetic Creed now awards a unique country modifier for that Creed.
  • Non-Spiritualist pops in a Cybernetic Creed empire now only have the Cybernetic Creed traits removed instead of all Cyborg traits.
• Synthetic Fertility:
  • Your choice in the Virtual Salvation event now influences the Synthetic Society Shift in the Digital Refactoring event chain.
  • Finishing the situation now grants access to the Subsidized Identity Backups and Optimized Identity Creation edicts.
  • Completing the Synthetic Fertility event chain will now grant additional robot modification trait points and picks and award a unique free trait for your synthetically ascended population.
• Refugees won't willingly resettle to the Synaptic Lathe anymore.
• Dark Matter Engines have been reduced from +60% Resource Production to +40%
• Virtuality Adoptions grants a -15% metallurgist and artisan production

Solar System Tooltips​

As a small QOL UX improvement, if you can construct Arc Furnaces or Habitats, the tooltips for solar systems will now include a summary of the system potential for both megastructures.

​

Kill-a-Structure​

Long have the conquered Hyper Relays of your fallen enemies been the bane of your economy, however in 3.12.3, this will be changing with the addition of the ability to dismantle select kilostructures.

Kilostructures that will be allowed to be dismantled (for a moderate energy and time investment) will be limited to:

• Gateways
• Hyper Relays
• Dyson Swarms
• Arc Furnaces

As always, modders will have the ability to extend this to their megastructures (and make us weep in horror).

The pesky UNE will soon have their railway network dismantled!​

Even better if you have a Scavenger civic, dismantling buildings, districts and kilostructures will give you a slight refund on any physical resources used to construct them.

​

Election Tweaks​

We’ve added the ability for Civics (and other sources of country modifiers) to easily modify the length and variance of election terms along with the government screen now showing the length of election terms in your empire. Two civics have made use of these changes

Worker Cooperative now has a -50% to Election Term Length making it have the same as a regular Democracy.

Meanwhile, Shadow Council now grants +5 to Election Term Variance, as the powers-that-be in the shadows ensure elections never occur on a regular basis.

What’s Next​

If all goes according to plan, next week’s dev diary will be the 3.12.3 release notes. I expect that we'll have one more release after that before we head off for the summer, so keep on submitting bug reports and suggestions, they’re very helpful for allocating post-release support resources.

See you next week!

 

[Alfray Stryke]

What about Orbital Rings? In a recent game, the Scourge killed a few but something bugged out and it kept leaving the remains of multiple rings behind on one planet.

Got a bug report with a save for us to look at?

1) Will this give synthetic fertility access to virtual pops in any way? That would be incredible!

They've been able to get the virtual trait on their pops from day 1, pick a virtual authority swap after completing the synthetic tradition tree.

2) We now have with worker cooperative a civic for Mega Corps that reduce the term to a 10 year election. What i really would like to have is a civic that changes it to lifelong terms like dictatorial or even like imperial with a dedicated heir. Is something like that planned?

Not planned, but I like the idea.

Doesn't Cosmogenesis desperately need a nerf? I'm seeing screenshots of over a million research coming from the Lathe. At the very least, we need to be able to tell when empires take the perk, so that we can immediately prepare to fight them before they run away with the game.

I believe Mr. Cosmogone has been looking at it, I'm not sure what he's got planned though.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

What!? How does this work? What are the steps I need to take? Is this a policy I need to tick? A reform I need to make?

The Digital Refactoring event chain you should get after completing Synthetic ascension allows you to choose if you want your government to be focused on the physical or virtual, choosing to go virtual replaces the Synth trait on your pops and leaders with the Virtual trait.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

The outliner in my current game is clogged with dozens of copies of ruined orbital rings from long wars with the Khan and Contingency. Sometimes the orbital ring is destroyed but respawns in working condition after I reclaim the system, while still leaving a ruined orbital ring as well. Other times, it remains destroyed but still duplicates.

Can we get a bug report for this please?

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Did i really miss that? I was talking about the instant generation of pops to fill all jobs. If yes i have to give it a second try.

You get the trait, the instant pop generation is from finishing the Virtuality tradition tree.

 

[Eladrin]

Is there any possibility of adding machine portraits with human appearance?

< I'm considered the Human robot portrait.

Can we please get more focus on fixing broken things and bugs? It will be about 3 weeks since the xpac came out and there's a lot of broken stuff that I've seen and read about here....

This is a select list of some of the upcoming changes and fixes that I thought players would be most interested in. If you have found lots of broken stuff, please report what you find in the bug report forum.

I believe Mr. Cosmogone has been looking at it, I'm not sure what he's got planned though.

Don't panic about this. We're not nerfing Cosmogenesis into the ground.

There will be some adjustments to how the lathe works, though it'll still be extremely powerful at what it does, and the Fallen Empires will have more of an opinion regarding unworthy upstarts exploring technologies that they are unworthy of. The Materialist Fallen Empire will also remember that their historic job is literally to prevent people from researching dangerous technologies that could threaten the universe, and may have some words.

Unless you're their Scion, of course. Then your antics are cheeky and amusing.

These changes will also impact empires that acquire such technologies through non-Cosmogenesis means. (But of course, as they'll have fewer of them, they won't stack quite so much.)

Cosmogenesis is still a Crisis path. There must be reasons to not always pursue it.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I'd rather they didn't get the ability to assimilate organics. It doesn't make narrative sense and makes the two pathways boringly similar. But some sort of buff to offset the fact that bio synths will have the traits and more would be good. Like extra trait picks or something.

Modularity gets to stick more traits on their pops.

Robot/Synth Trait Points:

• Base: 0
• Synthetic Tradition Tree: +2
• Technologies: +4
• Total: 6

Machine Trait Points:

• Base: 1
• Modularity Tradition Tree: +4
• Technologies: +4
• Total: 9

Robot/Synth Trait Picks:

• Base: 4
• Synthetic Tradition Tree: +2
• Total: 6

Machine Trait Picks:

• Base: 5
• Modularity Tradition Tree: +4
• Total: 9

Even with the +2 Points/+1 Picks from Mechanist (and Synthetic Fertility in 3.12.3), Machine empires with Modularity can still get more Trait Points and Picks on their species.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Will Democratic Crusaders no longer have the “Is an Oligarchy” negative opinion modifier toward Worker Cooperatives? Especially with their elections now following the democratic norm, hopefully they’ll get an exemption from the Corporate authority.

Good idea!

Weird. I was certain that I had Adaptive Frames there.

As others have mentioned, you've got the Virtual trait there (and the radio tower icon on your leaders is their Virtual trait).

So basically you can go through the entire conclave sequence and just treat a faction like trash, and they'll never forget it, but if you embrace it you get a little bit more approval with them? Is this just for blind playthroughs with the Creed factions or is it for some other reason? I can't imagine being too excited for an extra 10% faction approval.

Note that by "Embrace the Creed" we mean that you choose for them to become your sole Spiritualist faction. We want all 5 options to feel equally rewarding.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

What happened to the Commodities Consolidation situation information changes? We had them for all of a day, before it went back to the old (more limited) information.

Why include it as an update if you're only going to roll it back so soon?!

Are you running any mods? Looking at the changes between 3.12.3 and 3.12.4 I can't see anything that might have affected this.