Stellaris Dev Diary #354 - Stellaris 3.13.1 'Vela' Preliminary Release Notes

[Eladrin]

Hi everyone!

Today’s dev diary is going to be a relatively short one. The 3.13.1 ‘Vela’ patch is planned for next Tuesday, September 24th, and we have a set of preliminary release notes for you to look over.

The biggest change is probably the removal of Nexus storms from the early game pool.

The Vela cycle will be a very short one, since the 3.14 ‘Circinus’ update and Grand Archive is already bearing down on us.

Preliminary Release Notes​

On to the release notes!

Spoiler: 3.13.1 ‘Vela’ Preliminary Release Notes

Balance

• Added free pop to first blocker for planetscapers
• Decreased Storm Creation costs and buffed Astrometeorology job
• Stormriders and Subterranean get less devastation from storms
• Scientist governors now also reduce devastation from storms
• The Nexus Storm of 2211 will no longer happen. (Nexus Storms have been removed from the Early Game storm pool.)

Bugfix

• A Fallen Empire cannot ask for a scientist that is exploring an Astral Rift
• Added traits to hired marauder leaders
• Added victory score to the two new precursor relics
• All starting council positions are also filled without Galactic Paragons
• Fixed a spelling error in the event Stormbound Sighted
• Fixed empire designs with different randomized names sometimes preventing each other from spawning in galaxy generation.
• Fixed machine name lists using ruler names for all non-envoy leaders.
• Fixed randomly generated rulers not using regnal names when they should.
• Fixed the concept tooltip for Storm Riders in the Storm Chasers origin tooltip
• Fixed the handling of scientist heirs in the Stormfall event Cosmic Shapes
• Fixes to Unique planets from Cosmic Storms:
  • Unique planets from Cosmic Storms can no longer spawn in the starting cluster of an empire
  • Reduced the size of the unique planets from Cosmic Storms
• Fixing Rick the Cube tooltip in the additional content being misleading
• Payload Padding technology now properly apply its effects
• Removed Double Jobs for Gestalts on Ecumenopolis
• Solar storm orbital resource modifiers now applying correctly
• The Crimson Crawlers: Cooked Consumption planet modifier now has a yellow border
• The Storm Touched trait is made available for individual machines
• The Strip Mine Planet decision is only allowed once per planet
• adAkkaria chain actually ends now when its over
• Added a job weight to Storm Dancers so that pops actually want to work the job
• Allow proper switching between corporate and non corporate planetscapers civic
• Fixed descriptions for the special projects Stabilize the Collision and Harmonize the Collision
• Fixed the secrets of the new precursors
• Fixing resetlement cost modifiers not being capped by minimum economic modifier mult define
• Made militarist empires with imperialist factions less likely to become vassals
• Made the Irradiated Wasteland planet modifier produce +10% physics research
• Planetscapers on Ocean Paradise will now get their blockers as promised
• Removed the mention of sector automation from the planet designation tooltip
• Saturated Filters can now be removed by the one who conquered the planet
• Tempest Invocator storm placement will now be canceled if you lose the selected Scientist.
• The Tempest Invocator's range is now centered on the selected Scientist's location.
• Voidforged may not access Geo-Engineering Inc anymore
• Fix to Initiate Storm replacing Sustain Storm if you have the Galactic Weather Control Ascension Perk
• Several Tempest Invocator fixes

Stability

• Changed cosmic storm spawn cooldown scale to prevent CTD
• Fixed CTD in fleet manager when reinforcing fleets with ships without fleet size
• Fixed CTD when in-game music player has no permission to write to playlist file

Modding

• Added regnal_second_names_female and regnal_second_names_male to namelists.
• Added use_regnal_name to effects that create leaders.
• Fixed randomly generated empires in static galaxies having missing data if the player empire is randomly generated.
• Removed ruler_names from namelists and added regnal_full_names. When generating regnal names, non-regnal full names will no longer be used if a regnal name is available, but if no regnal name is available, normal names will be used.

Next Week​

Next week’s dev diary will be at 18:00 instead of 13:00, and will have more new stuff than this one.

See you then!

Pre-purchase Stellaris: Cosmic Storms alone or with a discount as part of Stellaris: Season 08!​

 

[Eladrin]

I've added a couple more to the bugfixes that got missed in the previous export.

• Fix to Initiate Storm replacing Sustain Storm if you have the Galactic Weather Control Ascension Perk
• Several Tempest Invocator fixes

I'll be poking around about some of the others mentioned in the thread.

When Season 8 was announced, I did some math and realized it was going to be a very aggressive release schedule.

Yes, it is. After Grand Archive, it'll be time to breathe and for another push with the Custodians on technical debt and bugs.

 

[Eladrin]

Does this cover the bug with delving the secrets of the Inetians also? (As a related issue with event chains).

No but this one should.

• Fixed the secrets of the new precursors

 

[Eladrin]

Can you go back to two DLC/year with Season 9? Both this year and last year the aggressive schedule has caused things to break at a faster clip than they can be fixed, and there's apparently not been enough time allocated to finish polishing up feature improvements that were being addressed (e.g. the ongoing ship component bugs or habitat orbital management). The AI quality in particular has also degraded from where it was several patches ago.

Any fixes that would have been in a standalone 3.13.2 will still be going into 3.14.1. (Including those fixed in the dedicated bugfix days between now and then.)

We've learned a lot from this year, and will definitely be arranging the schedule differently next year.

What is the new size?

Generally planets in Stellaris should have a base planet size between size 15-20, capping out at 25. In extremely limited instances we let them go up to 30.

The Metal and Arboreal World planets are now between size 18-22, the Previously Terraformed planet is size 18-25, and the Collided planet is now size 25-30. The planet modifiers on several of these add extra districts on top of this - the Arboreal World planet modifier has +8 max districts, for example, making it effectively 26-30, and the Collided Planet 29-34.

More importantly, why have so many patches pushed in?

For the last couple of years, we have stuck to a release cadence of one every quarter. Stellaris is a living game and the evolution of the game is part of our promise to the players. If you're on Steam, you can follow the instructions here to stay on a specific release if you prefer stability.

That said, my intention is to slow down a bit after this and concentrate most major gameplay changes in a single release during the year. (Caveat: If there's a release focusing on a mechanic, it's still going to change that mechanic.) For 2026, that's planned for the Q2 release, and I expect that we'll be replacing the normal Q1 release with an Open Beta instead.

Now, that's not to say that if a mechanic isn't working out that we wouldn't change it in, say, a Q4 release. It's a general intention rather than shackles.

 

[Eladrin]

Nothing about pathing through storms

Some save games where this is especially egregious would be really helpful. I've seen some screenshots that are clearly not behaving as expected, so I know it's happening.

Locally, I'm seeing my fleets pathing through storms, though they do tend to minimize the number of jumps in storm systems if possible.

Spoiler

The behavior is tied to a define, FLEET_PATHFINDING_COSMIC_STORM_WEIGHT, that currently adds 100 days to the "cost" per system that has a storm in it, but that shouldn't cause it to take a circuit around the galaxy instead of go through three systems. In my picture, if I sent the ships to Vurul it'll path around the storm, but if Baeeruta is the destination they cut across it.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

So they're more in line with the other planets then.

I suppose using Astrocreator Azaryn terraforming on a Deceptive Giant remains the only way of getting a size 50 world after all.

I thought we fixed that bug - will make a note to investigate it during the next dedicated bugfix day.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Never mention exploits to the devs >w<

On the contrary, tell us all the exploits you find!

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Do you mean "for 2025", or was the 2026 correct and deliberate?

No, no, we meant 2226

 

[Eladrin]

Do you mean "for 2025", or was the 2026 correct and deliberate?

The Worm and Cosmogenesis have messed with my understanding of linear time.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Is it deliberate that industrial districts now create only a single fabricator job instead of 2 for machine empires (I'm playing as XT-489). Overnight, after the update, I went from comfortably producing 400+ alloys per month to 90, with a dozen or more unemployed pops on all of my forge worlds.

Just to reply in this thread, here's Grunts' post about the upcoming patch from yesterday.

Hello everyone, I have returned, bearing the Word of Eladrin. We are seeing your reports and are currently looking into getting one more patch out to you all before Grand Archive, especially concerning the missing jobs for machines.