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Stellaris Dev Diary #374 - Announcing the 3.99.0 "Phoenix" Open Beta

Surprise! An early Stellaris Dev Diary!

Last week I mentioned that on Friday we’d evaluate the current build, and I’d see if I could provide a timeline for the Open Beta. Things have been progressing well, so we’ve decided to put a very early version of some of the 4.0 changes to test a few aspects of the new systems.

The Stellaris 4.0 update changes a lot of things - you can find a lot of the details in the dev diaries of the last two months. This first build of the 3.99 Open Beta only contains a focused subset of the changes, and many are still in a work-in-progress prototype state. It is not polished, or even done yet.

The 3.11 Technology Open Beta very quickly found some performance issues with the Breakthrough Technologies that we were experimenting with, and as the pop systems have advanced far enough to be mostly functional, I want to get some broader gameplay done on that system in particular, even if the rest of the systems have not yet reached a fully playable state. A week of Open Beta gets more testing done than we can do internally over months, even if this isn’t at a level that I would historically have been comfortable releasing to the public. (Just so you know what you’re opting into!)

We also have a feedback survey available that focuses primarily on the Empire Timeline and Focus systems. (Later weeks will have new surveys on different topics.)

So What’s in the Build?​

Last week’s dev diary provides a fairly accurate update about the current state of the build.

Precursor Selection, the Databank, and Species Modification are all functional.

The Databank


Species Modification

The general game pacing adjustments, changes to galaxy generation, and notification changes are all in. The leader pacing changes are in, but we’re reviewing how leaders interact with the new economy before evaluating what changes to make to the traits themselves.

Empire Timeline and Focuses are in a functional, borderline releasable, state. We have added a number of Milestones that will appear on the Timeline, though there’s some polish we’re planning to do before release. Most of the basic Focus Tasks that we want are in, along with some of the Progression rewards for completing them.

Timeline and Empire Focus

The Trade and Logistic described in Dev Diary #369 are largely in, but some of the branch office changes and functionality are still on the to-do list.

Logistic Ship Upkeep in Friendly Space


Buying Energy in the Market


Basic implementation of Pop Groups and the new Job system are in. This includes simultaneous Pop Growth and Auto-Migration, a partial colonization UI, and a partial update to the Planet UI itself. The major economic changes relating to Districts, Zones, and Buildings are only partially in, but I wanted to get the pop changes under some pressure as soon as possible.

Current State of the Planet UI

We also renamed “Bonus Workforce” to “Job Efficiency”.

Any Known Issues or Things You Want to Tell Us?​

The Ship Designer, Hard Reset origin, and Mammalian portraits are all in separate development branches, and will not be appearing during the Open Beta.

This build of the Open Beta build will not support Gestalts, unusual planets like Habitats or Ringworlds, or especially unusual civics, origins, or playstyles. Many Ascensions may be in a strange or dysfunctional state. Since many of the more interesting civics and origins aren’t supported yet, we strongly recommend playing the United Nations of Earth or the Commonwealth of Man, or custom empires similar in complexity. Expect things like Virtuality or Clone Army to be fairly broken right now.

You will likely start with an Amenities shortage at the start of the game. We haven’t decided whether this models an overpopulated homeworld nicely or if we consider it a bug. (It will be less dire once more of the buildings are available.)

Significant parts of the planet UI are still in development, including most “flavor” elements.​


If you manually build a colony ship, it will not appear in the colonization UI. (They can still be used to colonize a planet by pressing the Colonize fleet order.)

How to Colonize if you manually built a Colony Ship

Since the Zones UI is still in progress, you cannot get access to the menu to replace them right now. You’re stuck with your Earth Space Age Industry for this build.

Earth

The Early Space Age zone doesn’t currently have any other buildings you can put into it, so being stuck with it is kind of unfun.

We have not yet updated the Diplomacy traditions to reflect that Form Federation is now a technology.

Clerks haven’t been annihilated yet, and many non-”core” jobs have not been fully converted into the new system. Traditions and other things that modify Clerks have not yet been updated.

Civilians are currently an uncapped job rather than being associated with City District development. Living standards have not yet been updated to provide bonuses to Civilians rather than Unemployed Pops.

Planetary Logistic Upkeep currently pays you Trade if you have surpluses. While it takes money to make money, that’s not exactly what we were going for.

The UI element on the Management tab that is intended to show the size change of each pop group since last month is always “- 0”

Defensive Armies don’t spawn, so every planet will immediately surrender when bombarded. (Ground combat fixed?)

Some strings may not be present, and some icons are placeholder purple. Many.

The Unemployment entry in the planet UI is a little overenthusiastic. Yes, pops grow into their parents’ strata and get upset if they can’t get a job worthy of their upbringing right away, but it shouldn’t be a pressing matter until their numbers get over 100.

The AI isn’t great at picking zones yet. It nods sagely at the first thing it finds that it can afford and decides it’s an offer it can’t refuse.

The base “colony” designation has not yet been removed. Our intention is for the Colonist jobs provided by the Reassembled Ship Shelter to provide the benefits of the old colony designation. (And will thus expire when you upgrade your planetary capital rather than when you reach a certain number of Pops.)

We can’t guarantee multiplayer stability on this build, but we have identified an immediate economic Out of Sync issue that occurs when Windows and non-Windows users are playing together.

Here are the release notes for this build:

Stellaris 3.99.0 ‘Phoenix’ Open Beta Release Notes​

Features​

  • Pops and Pop Groups
    • One of the biggest changes in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, and one of the primary focuses of this Open Beta, is the new Pop system. Rather than being individuals, Pops are now grouped based on Species, Strata, Ethics, and Faction, mostly for calculation purposes. As part of this change, Pop numbers have been increased by a factor of 100, allowing more granular manipulation of Pops by various systems.
    • All Pop Groups on a planet have simultaneous growth every month following the existing Logistic Growth formulas.
      • Underrepresented pops are no longer given population growth bonuses.
      • Fractional growth is not retained from month to month - if a Pop Group would have fractional growth, it has a chance to gain 1 pop that month based on that fraction.
      • All migration is now handled through the auto-migration system rather than push and pull that previously affected pop growth.
      • As more granular and simultaneous pop growth is now possible, the minimum growth for small colonies has been removed. Early colonization will be extremely reliant on migration from the empire capital.
      • Open Beta Note: Xenocompatibility no longer produces hybrid pops, but has not yet been updated to pool all planetary species into a single group for logistic growth purposes. When this is complete, we are likely to remove the Xenocompatibility galaxy setup toggle.
    • A Civilian stratum has been added to represent the masses that do not generally contribute to the empire’s military economy.
      • Open Beta Note: Civilians are intended to replace Clerks, which will be removed in a future Open Beta update.
    • Empires now begin with 2000 more pops, most of whom will be Civilians.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #370.
  • Planet UI, Zones, Workforce, and Jobs
    • The other major economic change in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update is a revamp to how jobs work.
    • Rather than Districts and Buildings being especially similar, we are shifting to a model where:
      • Planets produce and consume resources through Jobs.
      • Districts provide Jobs based on their development. (Mining District: Add 200 Housing and 200 Miner jobs per development level.)
      • Zones manipulate what Jobs are provided by Districts. (Foundry Zone: Replace 200 Civilian jobs and 200 Housing with 100 Metallurgists per development level.)
        • Open Beta Note: Currently the Zones are simpler, and will just provide the jobs. It is our intention for most Zones to convert rather than add.
      • Buildings are planet-unique and change what the Jobs produce. (Mote Harvesters: Technicians now also produce Volatile Motes.)
      • Pops produce Workforce that fills up Jobs.
    • Open Beta Note: The Planet UI is still very much a work in progress.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #371.
  • Empire Focuses and Timeline
    • The Situation Log now contains a tab for the Empire Timeline, which keeps track of important milestones of your playthrough.
    • The Timeline tab also contains a set of Empire Focus Tasks, which are intended to assist players with forming short and medium terms that align with their empire’s nature, while reducing the randomness of the tech tree.
      • Empires can choose between Conquest, Exploration, and Development as their primary Empire Focuses. You will still gain Tasks from other categories, but they will generally be weighted towards your choice. Some Tasks are basic “Core” Tasks, and will provide progress along all three tracks.
      • Completing Tasks provides progress towards Guaranteed Technology unlocks that are considered critical for that playstyle. You still need to research the technologies, they only provide the research option when you reach progress milestones. If you already have the technology unlocked or as a permanent research option, there is no alternate reward.
      • Because Task completion is retroactive and there are no alternate rewards, there should be no benefit in waiting to complete any that you have.
      • Should you end up with a Task that you find uncompletable or that you do not wish to complete, you can discard it and gain a new Task for a small cost in Unity.
      • It is our intention that empires that behave consistent with their Empire Focus should naturally complete the Tasks of that category.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #368.
  • Trade has been revamped into a standard resource.
    • Trade is now used as the Market currency.
    • The Trade Routes system has been removed.
    • Ships now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on whether they are docked (free), friendly space (reduced), neutral space (normal), or hostile space (expensive).
      • Larger ships tend to have higher upkeep.
      • The multipliers based on location are set in defines.
      • Juggernauts do not have logistical upkeep, and reduce the logistical upkeep costs for ships in their system by 75%.
      • Resources blocks can now include a "logistics" block, which is currently only used by ships.
    • Planets now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on their local resource deficits. This represents the additional costs of diverting freighters to transport materials between planets.
      • Local deficit costs vary based largely on the base market value of the resources in question.
    • Trade Policies can set how much of your Net trade after logistics upkeep is converted into other resources.
    • Added galaxy setup sliders for Fleet Upkeep Logistics Costs and Planetary Deficit Logistics Costs.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #369.
  • The main help button now displays the Databank window where you can explore brief articles on many in-game concepts, reducing the need to navigate to external information sources.

Improvement​

  • Adjective leader trait names reverted, for example Inquisitor to Inquisitive
  • Colonization flow has been improved.
    • You can now pre-select a colony designation and turn on planet automation before colonizing a planet, which will apply when the planet has finished colonizing.
    • Colonization now completes when 100 colonists have grown or migrated to the new planet.
  • Significant improvements have been made to the Species UI.
    • One template per species can be set as the default template for that species, and other subspecies can be set to integrate over time into that default template.
      • Open Beta Note: Current rate of pop integration is likely to change to be slower as well as monthly.
    • The trait selection UI when creating a new template has been improved.
    • The special project window pops up and can be started immediately after creating a new template if desired. It is no longer absolutely necessary as you can use integration to slowly convert your existing pops.
  • The Habitable Worlds slider in game setup now has a 'Rare' setting. There will still be a handful of habitable worlds in the galaxy, mostly from special events and guaranteed habitable worlds. Normalized initializer spawn odds to use a handful of scripted variables.
  • Added galaxy precursor selection to game setup.
  • Leader Adjustments:
    • As part of our game pacing and interruption reduction pass, leaders now gain trait selection moments on even levels rather than every level.
    • Leader positions now have a significantly greater effect on what traits will appear when they level up and gain a new skill.
    • Increased the base number of leader traits to pick from on level up by 1. This is intended to reduce the chance of getting exclusively poor trait options without devaluing other sources of leader trait picks too much.
    • Added an "Auto Select Leader Traits by Default" option to game settings, which defaults to Off. On game start or if you switch to an empire, it will toggle the setting on the Leaders tab to your selection. In Coop empires, this override only applies when the primary player of the country joins it. Changing the setting mid-game will not have any effect unless you switch countries.
  • Significant improvements have been made to Message and Notification settings, providing you much more control over how you receive them.
    • Updated the default message settings
      • Revised strategic resource messages and added toast notifications
      • Changed trader events into notifications with unique icons. Added sound effect.
      • Anomaly discoveries now appear in a toast rather than popping up in the center of the screen.
      • Patron Newsletter event was changed into a notification
      • The Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
      • Order Restored event is now a notification
      • Governing Ethic Shift event has been turned into a toast
      • Faction Formed Events now appear as toasts following the first event
      • Added additional event options to Corrupt Administration event and turned it into a notification
      • The Toxic Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
      • Changed Inter-Dimensional trade increases event into a notification
  • Added concept tooltips to the left Navigation Bar
  • Added the Celestial Orrery system
  • Transport ships can now use cloaking
  • The Ruler Stratum has been renamed the Elite Stratum, to better differentiate them from the actual Empire Ruler
  • The system fleet icon tooltip now shows the total of the fleets' military power listed by that icon, at the top.
  • Added unique event options and localization for new life discovered events
  • Reduced spammy First Contact events
  • First Colony event - Added unique event options and rewards for Ethics
  • Adjusted mass extinction event chain localization and picture
  • The Betrayal event has been revamped to include multiple options
  • Renamed government tab to overview in outliner
  • Reduced the frequency of the Rise of the Manifesti event chain
  • Added missing reward to fanatic materialist for Comet Sighted event
  • Improved readability for event Covenant Formed
  • Changed Storm Spotted alert sound to something less intrusive
  • The low habitability popup now clearly highlights the negative effects
  • Added the two new Society technologies Federation Code and Existential Campaigns
  • Ironman mode is no longer required to earn most Stellaris achievements. An unmodified game checksum remains a requirement, and the use of any debug commands blocks them.
    • The "Victorious" achievement has been changed to "Win the game through any victory condition in Ironman mode."
    • Open Beta Note: Pop related achievements have not yet been updated.
  • Several changes to the starbase UI to improve game flow and overall interaction
  • Reworked Starbase window to harmonize naming and tooltips
  • You are 4x as attractive as you were before.

Balance​

  • FE and Cosmogenesis Escort ships now have the same evasion value of 50
  • Changed Curator Insight cost to empire size
  • The Eternal Vigilance Ascension Perk can now be acquired early if you complete the Unyielding Tradition Tree.
  • Adjusted Anomaly spawn rates to improve the pacing of the early game.
  • Added more variance to whether or not prescripted systems will or will not appear in a given game. (They won't all appear in every single game anymore.)

Bugfix​

  • Fixed the issue of fleets failing to retreat from lost combat if the last ship failed to disengage.
  • Human Pre-FTL societies now obey the Pre-FTL Civilizations game settings slider.
  • Fixed a script error that was causing far more habitable planets to spawn in the galaxy than expected. Feel free to increase the Habitable Worlds slider if you prefer the old behavior.
  • Fixed inconsistent capitalisation causing issues with pre-ftl pop generation
  • Cleaned up the end-game crisis triggers. The Unbidden will no longer be the only ones to show up early to the party.
  • Fix triggers to properly give Fissile Cores, the unique mutation for crystalline entities
  • Treasure Hunters AIs now correctly go through the dialog events
  • Fix Black Needle country spawning starbases
  • Fixed too many AI empires being generated in coop games.
  • Fixed the tooltip for obtaining the Mirror of Knowledge from the Infinity Machine not mentioning the 200 influence it also gives you
  • Amenities icon fixed for Drone Storage and Hive Warren
  • checks if planet owner is primitive before applying sector or system bonuses
  • Set the nanotech ascension path interdictors to use different ship models from the swarmers
  • Spitter Gun mutations have armor penetration
  • Missiles mutations have numerals corresponding to tier in icons
  • Nanite Infused Barb mutation requires nanites to build
  • Ancient Driller Beasts mutations uses 88 as its M size cost
  • Neutron Throwers mutation damage buff
  • Blocked anomalies from spawning on the neutron star for Slingshot to the Stars' quantum catapult
  • Handled dyson sphere flags on dismantling swarm while upgrading
  • Fixed a broken tooltip inside of the "Extended Shifts" edict.
  • Clone Soldier Ascendants can now cyberize
  • Completing Inhibit Self-Deterministic AIs removes it from the situation log
  • Fix the possibility to build multiple Grand Archives at the same time
  • Only display relevant modifiers for Space Fauna ships in tooltips
  • Reanimated space fauna ships cannot upgrade no matter what
  • Black Needle fleet now correctly spawns to defend their base from bombardment
  • Destroy Gravity Snare when there's no valid target anymore
  • Broken Shackles check added for relevant Galcom events
  • Strip Mine Decision is no longer available on artificial planets
  • Inspired Rhetoric will no longer display a placeholder icon
  • Fixed situations start value being added multiple times.
  • Special system initializers now respect the habitable worlds slider in game setup (to a degree).
  • Planetary part of ringworlds no longer take on empire color
  • First Contact was changed into a toast and once again shows the correct localization
  • Added missing pre sapient loc string
  • The dismantle button has regained its missing loc string
  • Resolved scope error caused by toast target scope being set to root
  • Advanced start empires can no longer have mining stations over resources they do not have tech for

AI​

  • Fixed Prethoryn Scourge incorrectly calculating target priority for non-edible pops.

UI/UX​

  • Added an Assign Leader button to the leaders screen that lists available positions.
  • Fixed it not being possible to build starbases in systems with non-central stars from the galaxy view (when a construction ship is selected).
  • Added a message setting button in event popup windows.
  • Hid details that aren't relevant for all species in the galaxy when the Galaxy tab is selected in the Species view.
  • Updated the message settings screen to give more space for the message list.
  • Changed auto-unpause on the message settings screen from a spinner to a checkbox.
  • Adjusted centering of text and icons in toast windows. If a toast with custom description has no icon associated with the custom description, the description will now fill the entire lower section of the toast.

Localization​

  • Add tooltip to Cutholoid Hunter modifier
  • Add tooltip to Voidworm Hunter modifier
  • Turn reanimated cutholoids and voidworms ship size name consistent with other reanimated Space Fauna

Modding​

  • Open Beta Note: We’re still working on Zones and Buildings, and will likely change how we do some of this to be a bit friendlier. Don’t update your mods based on what you see in this build.
  • Add `resettle_pop_group` effect that allows to resettle a specified portion of a pop group to a target planet
  • Add first iteration of `create_pop_group` effect
  • Add kill_pop_group effect that takes a pop group and an amount or percentage and instantly kills them
  • Add `transfer_pop_amount` effect that transfers pops from a pop group to another
  • Removed unused can_resettle_planet game rule and renamed can_resettle_planet_no_owner_check to can_resettle_planet.
  • Removed can_colonize_with_pop game rule and moved its checks to can_colonize_with_species.
  • Added the script effect "copy_traditions_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { tradition1 tradition 2 } }" that copies tradition from a target country into the scoped country
  • Added "add_ascension_perk" and "remove_ascension_perk" effects, scope must be a country, adds or removed the specified perk syntax: add/remove_ascension_perk = perk_key
  • Added "copy_ascension_perks_from" effect: Copies the Ascension Perks of the target country into the scoped country. They are added to the existing perks, and the potential/possible triggers are respected. The perks listed in the exceptions list are not copied. copy_ascension_perks_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { perk1 perk2 } }
  • Added "remove_tradition" effect. Remove the target tradition from the scoped Country. remove_tradition = tradition_key
  • Added effect "remove_tradition_tree" Remove the target tradition tree from the scoped Country. remove_tradition_tree = tradition_category_key
  • Added spawn_design to static galaxy system data, which forces a specific design to spawn in the system.
  • Added gamesetup_settings script for configuring the settings list in game setup.
  • There is now an event_message_type in events that lets you override the default message type EVENT_MESSAGE_TYPE. This can e.g. provide separate message settings.
  • Scripted loc can now be used in concept tooltips and the top bar tooltips.
  • New on_action on_favor_gained that gets triggered when a country receives a favor.
  • Added the used_defense_platform_capacity_percent trigger, letting you check how much of a starbases defensive platform capacity is used.
  • Message notification background is now separated from the message type icon.
  • New on_action on_research_option_added that gets triggered every time a new permanent research option is acquired.
  • The actual script file and line are now printed when there are errors logged in scripted triggers and scripted effects, in addition to the previously available information.
  • kill_pop has been replaced with kill_pop_group. For ease of use kill_single_pop and kill_all_pop scripted effects have been made.
  • Replaced resettle_pop with resettle_pop_group.
  • Added "playme" console command as shorthand for human_ai and ai_ignore_was_human.

Okay, How Do I Opt Into the Beta?​

If you’re ready for a confusing, possibly frustrating, and unfinished experience, and you’re on Steam, you can opt into the Open Beta.

  1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
  2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.0 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

Game Properties in Steam


Steps to Test

What’s Next?​

We expect that the next Open Beta update, 3.99.1, will have Civilians in a more complete state, and more of the UI and AI should be in place. Buildings, Zones, and Jobs should also have more progress too.

Our next Dev Diary will be on Thursday, March 20th, but I hope to have an update to the Open Beta before the weekend.


 
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The problem with that is that not every pop is necessarily a citizen, depending on the species rights they could also be residents or slaves.
True, but still closer to accurate than civilians. We could try and come up with a better term, but right now I can't really think of one.

Maybe residents?
 
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True, but still closer to accurate than civilians. We could try and come up with a better term, but right now I can't really think of one.

Maybe residents?

Couldn't the job name change based on the living standard?

I get that it's nice for beginners to have 1 job name, but since different living standars will (I assume it will stay like it is now) change the output of these pops, it would make sense (to me), since it is a different "job" they are doing.
 
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My experience is that this is a very, VERY long way from any functional state. It's not even functional on the conceptual stage, yet, which is a bit worrying. Main problems (aside from it being so broken you can't properly test anything):

- New Zone/Building system severely limits planet customizability
- Focus system is largely pointless and has some extremely hard to fulfill, or completely out of your playstyle, things you need to do. Re-rolling has a very miniscule effect since the same card can come back immediately, and if you end up with two impossible/unreasonable cards, these two can now loop together, making you waste infinite Unity.
- The larger numbers are cool, but seeing as they fluctuate by the hundreds each day, it makes it very hard to understand what's going on. Worse yet, pop groups seem to fluctuate wildly between jobs sometimes, leading to uneven production and making it impossible to get an overview of what is happening.
- Producing Consumer Goods and Unity seems to be extremely difficult early game.
- Trade changes are nice, I like them, but it has made Energy kind of a "meh" resource. It's not used for building anything, so it's just sitting there, filling up your stockpile once your upkeep is met. It's basically Food 2.0. So you're now consigned to constantly selling two resources.
- The UI makes most features either unusable or so difficult to understand that no serious testing can be made.

Overall, I am actually worried here. The more I mess about with this beta, the less I have faith that there's even a design in mind for the system. Right now it feels a lot like "I threw this together to see if it'll even work". Not "We have an idea for a new system, here's how it'll work:"

This is especially clear with just how anemic planets feel now that you can't customize them anymore. I've yet to find a zone that doesn't have 2-3 buildings that will always be built. Even worse, with the myriad of tech/event buildings around, how will you even have planets to build them on without going giga-wide?
 
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Okay, some quick notes:

- the situation tag for "Find an alien life" does not fire/gets complete after Fallen Empires contact you;
- the development "have 5k pops" is more or less autocompleted;
- sometimes pops just straight up disappear.

Couldn't play more in these 20 minutes, but I'll try more this week.
 
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My experience is that this is a very, VERY long way from any functional state. It's not even functional on the conceptual stage, yet, which is a bit worrying. Main problems (aside from it being so broken you can't properly test anything):

- New Zone/Building system severely limits planet customizability
- Focus system is largely pointless and has some extremely hard to fulfill, or completely out of your playstyle, things you need to do. Re-rolling has a very miniscule effect since the same card can come back immediately, and if you end up with two impossible/unreasonable cards, these two can now loop together, making you waste infinite Unity.
- The larger numbers are cool, but seeing as they fluctuate by the hundreds each day, it makes it very hard to understand what's going on. Worse yet, pop groups seem to fluctuate wildly between jobs sometimes, leading to uneven production and making it impossible to get an overview of what is happening.
- Producing Consumer Goods and Unity seems to be extremely difficult early game.
- Trade changes are nice, I like them, but it has made Energy kind of a "meh" resource. It's not used for building anything, so it's just sitting there, filling up your stockpile once your upkeep is met. It's basically Food 2.0. So you're now consigned to constantly selling two resources.
- The UI makes most features either unusable or so difficult to understand that no serious testing can be made.

Overall, I am actually worried here. The more I mess about with this beta, the less I have faith that there's even a design in mind for the system. Right now it feels a lot like "I threw this together to see if it'll even work". Not "We have an idea for a new system, here's how it'll work:"

This is especially clear with just how anemic planets feel now that you can't customize them anymore. I've yet to find a zone that doesn't have 2-3 buildings that will always be built. Even worse, with the myriad of tech/event buildings around, how will you even have planets to build them on without going giga-wide?

All good points and I’m also a bit concerned with how much needs a polish before we test the mechanics themselves. There’s a dev live stream tomorrow so hopefully that means there’s a more stable patch and we can see how they interact with it.
 
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My experience is that this is a very, VERY long way from any functional state. It's not even functional on the conceptual stage, yet, which is a bit worrying. Main problems (aside from it being so broken you can't properly test anything):

- New Zone/Building system severely limits planet customizability
- Focus system is largely pointless and has some extremely hard to fulfill, or completely out of your playstyle, things you need to do. Re-rolling has a very miniscule effect since the same card can come back immediately, and if you end up with two impossible/unreasonable cards, these two can now loop together, making you waste infinite Unity.
- The larger numbers are cool, but seeing as they fluctuate by the hundreds each day, it makes it very hard to understand what's going on. Worse yet, pop groups seem to fluctuate wildly between jobs sometimes, leading to uneven production and making it impossible to get an overview of what is happening.
- Producing Consumer Goods and Unity seems to be extremely difficult early game.
- Trade changes are nice, I like them, but it has made Energy kind of a "meh" resource. It's not used for building anything, so it's just sitting there, filling up your stockpile once your upkeep is met. It's basically Food 2.0. So you're now consigned to constantly selling two resources.
- The UI makes most features either unusable or so difficult to understand that no serious testing can be made.

Overall, I am actually worried here. The more I mess about with this beta, the less I have faith that there's even a design in mind for the system. Right now it feels a lot like "I threw this together to see if it'll even work". Not "We have an idea for a new system, here's how it'll work:"

This is especially clear with just how anemic planets feel now that you can't customize them anymore. I've yet to find a zone that doesn't have 2-3 buildings that will always be built. Even worse, with the myriad of tech/event buildings around, how will you even have planets to build them on without going giga-wide?
Something people miss. This means the Dyson Sphere just became much, much, much worse. Honestly, making trade NOT a resource you directly handle and keeping energy CREDITS the currency seems an easy solution. Just have a "stockpile" of 'logistics' which is produced by trade the way trade currently produces energy/other stuff depending on trade policy.
 
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Clearly we need those human brains to put into the robots.
Recycling is important.

Moltoids???
Molt = shedding of skin, hair or feathers.
A new species type where individuals evolve from one form (species template) to another during their lifetime, after being exposed to elemental stones or something?
Would be fitting for an expansion with a biological focus.

The problem with that is that not every pop is necessarily a citizen, depending on the species rights they could also be residents or slaves.
True, but still closer to accurate than civilians. We could try and come up with a better term, but right now I can't really think of one.

Maybe residents?
Couldn't the job name change based on the living standard?

I get that it's nice for beginners to have 1 job name, but since different living standars will (I assume it will stay like it is now) change the output of these pops, it would make sense (to me), since it is a different "job" they are doing.
From an earlier dev diary it seemed like citizens and residents were already split into two different strata, where the residents' stratum is called "Residents" and the citizens' stratum is called "Civilians". Has this been changed in the beta, so that citizens and residents both sit in the same available-for-migration stratum?

(Personally, if they still get different strata, I would prefer if the stratum names started with "Ordinary", "Regular" or "Common", such as "Ordinary Resident" and "Ordinary Citizen". I do not look forward to having to clarify whether "Resident" refers to all pops with that species right, or specifically to the migration-ready residents.)
 
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Something people miss. This means the Dyson Sphere just became much, much, much worse. Honestly, making trade NOT a resource you directly handle and keeping energy CREDITS the currency seems an easy solution. Just have a "stockpile" of 'logistics' which is produced by trade the way trade currently produces energy/other stuff depending on trade policy.
That was the plan all along: to nerf the global market to the ground instead of it being your shop-em-all goto mall for button mashing.
 
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Tried it. I haven’t played this game in a LONG time, so I decided to jump in with this 3.99 “beta” just for fun.

I like the new pop rescaling, sorta. The numbers didn’t seem to be very stable though, 139 pops were showing up as 1390 on a different field, for instance. I wasn’t sure that was a coincidence.

After expanding to the point where I met my first alien species, I rapidly went super negative on both energy and consumer goods.

Dumping resources into energy buildings & consumer goods production didn’t do anything… in fact, the deficits just kept getting more and more negative. It’s almost like trying to fix the problems directly made the deficits worse.

I did see flashes where the consumer goods jumped up to -0 from -20 or -40, but it lasted only a fraction of a second before going negative again, which was strange.

The regular exploration gameplay was something to get used to. That could be because the game changed a lot since the last time I played though so I’ll leave that aspect out of this post…

…except for…

Anomalies interface: ugh!
Last time I played, the anomalies didn’t have their own tab, and were interfaced easier through the scientists in the ships themselves. I very rapidly realized the old methods didn’t work. Random scientists were crossing known space to research the anomalies on the opposite side of the hyper lane network. The “closest” or selected scientist is no longer the default.

I learned with this update that you now have a default “preferred” scientist investigating anomalies, that is rarely the closest one to the anomaly, and it keeps getting reset to your councilor every once in awhile, so you can’t just click “research” without first taking some steps…

It’s necessary to start by checking each anomaly you haven’t researched, then locating the difficulty number of the anomaly you thought you were interfacing with, then once you found out which anomaly is which, you return to locate the one you thought you selected before you realized you had to look for it, then you need to find your scientist locations to determine which one you actually wanted to use, usually the “closest one”, and then you need to get back into the anomaly tab to change the default scientist to the closest or more preferred one… and then you can click “research”.

I stopped trying to research anomalies after a few tries. I stopped trying to balance my bad production deficits. I’m not dumb so I quit trying to use these features. Hope this description helps.

Edit -
…and I just realized the original post has a survey. Maybe I’ll cut and paste this into that form.
 
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Anomalies interface: ugh!
Last time I played, the anomalies didn’t have their own tab, and were interfaced easier through the scientists in the ships themselves. I very rapidly realized the old methods didn’t work. Random scientists were crossing known space to research the anomalies on the opposite side of the hyper lane network. The “closest” or selected scientist is no longer the default.
I haven't tried the beta yet (waiting for 3.99.1), but on live anomalies would pop up via an event (configurable if you want to pause or not) and you would decide in that window whether to let the scientist that discovered it research it immediately or ignore it (and later send someone via the galaxy map right-click Research Anomalies). I never use the Anomalies tab.

There was a brief window with I think 3.6 where they took away the pop-up event notification for anomalies, and then they promptly brought it back a patch later because everyone hated how it made it harder to find out when you discovered anomalies and more difficult to assign someone to research them without wasting a bunch of travel time (because your scientist doesn't wait, they have planets to survey!). I saw the brief note in the open beta patch notes that anomalies are now toasts and it sounds like going back to that no-notification experiment, though I'm hoping it's customizable in the message settings this time. The crusade to eliminate pop-up events that interrupt your gameplay (good!) sometimes has undesirable side-effects like making features more difficult to interact with (bad!).
 
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Buildings are planet-unique and change what the Jobs produce. (Mote Harvesters: Technicians now also produce Volatile Motes.)
Farmers produce exotic gases then? This feels like a bit of a switch-up, traditionally energy districts were associated with exotic gases and agriculture districts with volatile motes.
 
I haven't tried the beta yet (waiting for 3.99.1), but on live anomalies would pop up via an event (configurable if you want to pause or not) and you would decide in that window whether to let the scientist that discovered it research it immediately or ignore it (and later send someone via the galaxy map right-click Research Anomalies). I never use the Anomalies tab.

There was a brief window with I think 3.6 where they took away the pop-up event notification for anomalies, and then they promptly brought it back a patch later because everyone hated how it made it harder to find out when you discovered anomalies and more difficult to assign someone to research them without wasting a bunch of travel time (because your scientist doesn't wait, they have planets to survey!). I saw the brief note in the open beta patch notes that anomalies are now toasts and it sounds like going back to that no-notification experiment, though I'm hoping it's customizable in the message settings this time. The crusade to eliminate pop-up events that interrupt your gameplay (good!) sometimes has undesirable side-effects like making features more difficult to interact with (bad!).
Yeah. I just went through the survey and they only asked questions about the empire timeline and the focus feature and some other third thing that confused me what they were talking about, all three of which I totally missed.

I never did get to see the new features because the anomaly system sidetracked me… I actually thought I was doing something wrong because I hadn’t touched this game in forever (and I am aware that they rebuilt the game already once or twice since I last played).

Then I noticed the economy fell apart and I wasted time trying to get those numbers back to at least zero before something bad happened…
…before the “ticking time bomb”- looking/“game over”-like progress bar put me into a civil war or something… all I know is there was a lot of red on the screen…

edit -wait was that a new feature or has that been in the game already? Maybe I’m too far removed from the recent game to be a useful beta tester…
…instead of actually trying out the features in the survey.
 
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Hey Eladrin & team! I wanted to suggest since you’re already changing the pop counts can you just make it millions or billions? Just move that decimal. Even if it’s presented as 1mill etc.

You’re already changing it so maybe just make it thematic as well? I want to be able to imagine exactly how many people I’m killing! You can disambiguate that pop number once and for all! I think it would really help the RP and story building of the game.

When it was low numbers we could imagine 1= a billion…now that it’s 1000s it’s not clear what that means. Please consider!
 
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That was the plan all along: to nerf the global market to the ground instead of it being your shop-em-all goto mall for button mashing.
You still get there all the same, except now you use TV and Energy Credits have become yellow food and another "dead" resource. I don't see how this is really an improvement in any way. You still get the same outcome just with more cumbersomeness.


Hey Eladrin & team! I wanted to suggest since you’re already changing the pop counts can you just make it millions or billions? Just move that decimal. Even if it’s presented as 1mill etc.

You’re already changing it so maybe just make it thematic as well? I want to be able to imagine exactly how many people I’m killing! You can disambiguate that pop number once and for all! I think it would really help the RP and story building of the game.

When it was low numbers we could imagine 1= a billion…now that it’s 1000s it’s not clear what that means. Please consider!
Ohhh, we could make it even more simply. Just change it from 1000s to 1M So you have like 80M pops on that planet. The M standing for millions!
 
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Yeah. I just went through the survey and they only asked questions about the empire timeline and the focus feature and some other third thing that confused me what they were talking about, all three of which I totally missed.

I never did get to see the new features because the anomaly system sidetracked me… I actually thought I was doing something wrong because I hadn’t touched this game in forever (and I am aware that they rebuilt the game already once or twice since I last played).

Then I noticed the economy fell apart and I wasted time trying to get those numbers back to at least zero before something bad happened…
…before the “ticking time bomb”- looking/“game over”-like progress bar put me into a civil war or something… all I know is there was a lot of red on the screen…

edit -wait was that a new feature or has that been in the game already? Maybe I’m too far removed from the recent game to be a useful beta tester…
…instead of actually trying out the features in the survey.
I assume the red line thing is a situation, which is the system they migrated rebellions to a couple of years ago (along with other special timed-event chains). The new part is the zone/district/building/population/trade changes. Also, sounds like the economy is busted on the current open beta branch, which is why people are having amenities/CG/economy issues.

I don't think it's bad for you to be testing the beta. We frequently see posts from players coming back after several years and new players will also encounter many of the same questions. Based on the comments here and elsewhere, I think the beta version is a bit too rough to effectively come up with feedback for the topics in the survey since the timeline/focus system inherently require playing a while into a save and that's tough to do with the open beta bugs and economy.

The game director is reading this thread though, so if there wasn't some place to fit feedback in the current survey, here should be fine.
 
Surprise! An early Stellaris Dev Diary!

Last week I mentioned that on Friday we’d evaluate the current build, and I’d see if I could provide a timeline for the Open Beta. Things have been progressing well, so we’ve decided to put a very early version of some of the 4.0 changes to test a few aspects of the new systems.

The Stellaris 4.0 update changes a lot of things - you can find a lot of the details in the dev diaries of the last two months. This first build of the 3.99 Open Beta only contains a focused subset of the changes, and many are still in a work-in-progress prototype state. It is not polished, or even done yet.

The 3.11 Technology Open Beta very quickly found some performance issues with the Breakthrough Technologies that we were experimenting with, and as the pop systems have advanced far enough to be mostly functional, I want to get some broader gameplay done on that system in particular, even if the rest of the systems have not yet reached a fully playable state. A week of Open Beta gets more testing done than we can do internally over months, even if this isn’t at a level that I would historically have been comfortable releasing to the public. (Just so you know what you’re opting into!)

We also have a feedback survey available that focuses primarily on the Empire Timeline and Focus systems. (Later weeks will have new surveys on different topics.)

So What’s in the Build?​

Last week’s dev diary provides a fairly accurate update about the current state of the build.

Precursor Selection, the Databank, and Species Modification are all functional.


The general game pacing adjustments, changes to galaxy generation, and notification changes are all in. The leader pacing changes are in, but we’re reviewing how leaders interact with the new economy before evaluating what changes to make to the traits themselves.

Empire Timeline and Focuses are in a functional, borderline releasable, state. We have added a number of Milestones that will appear on the Timeline, though there’s some polish we’re planning to do before release. Most of the basic Focus Tasks that we want are in, along with some of the Progression rewards for completing them.


The Trade and Logistic described in Dev Diary #369 are largely in, but some of the branch office changes and functionality are still on the to-do list.

View attachment 1263993

View attachment 1263994

Basic implementation of Pop Groups and the new Job system are in. This includes simultaneous Pop Growth and Auto-Migration, a partial colonization UI, and a partial update to the Planet UI itself. The major economic changes relating to Districts, Zones, and Buildings are only partially in, but I wanted to get the pop changes under some pressure as soon as possible.


We also renamed “Bonus Workforce” to “Job Efficiency”.

Any Known Issues or Things You Want to Tell Us?​

The Ship Designer, Hard Reset origin, and Mammalian portraits are all in separate development branches, and will not be appearing during the Open Beta.

This build of the Open Beta build will not support Gestalts, unusual planets like Habitats or Ringworlds, or especially unusual civics, origins, or playstyles. Many Ascensions may be in a strange or dysfunctional state. Since many of the more interesting civics and origins aren’t supported yet, we strongly recommend playing the United Nations of Earth or the Commonwealth of Man, or custom empires similar in complexity. Expect things like Virtuality or Clone Army to be fairly broken right now.

You will likely start with an Amenities shortage at the start of the game. We haven’t decided whether this models an overpopulated homeworld nicely or if we consider it a bug. (It will be less dire once more of the buildings are available.)

Significant parts of the planet UI are still in development, including most “flavor” elements.​


If you manually build a colony ship, it will not appear in the colonization UI. (They can still be used to colonize a planet by pressing the Colonize fleet order.)


Since the Zones UI is still in progress, you cannot get access to the menu to replace them right now. You’re stuck with your Earth Space Age Industry for this build.


The Early Space Age zone doesn’t currently have any other buildings you can put into it, so being stuck with it is kind of unfun.

We have not yet updated the Diplomacy traditions to reflect that Form Federation is now a technology.

Clerks haven’t been annihilated yet, and many non-”core” jobs have not been fully converted into the new system. Traditions and other things that modify Clerks have not yet been updated.

Civilians are currently an uncapped job rather than being associated with City District development. Living standards have not yet been updated to provide bonuses to Civilians rather than Unemployed Pops.

Planetary Logistic Upkeep currently pays you Trade if you have surpluses. While it takes money to make money, that’s not exactly what we were going for.

The UI element on the Management tab that is intended to show the size change of each pop group since last month is always “- 0”

Defensive Armies don’t spawn, so every planet will immediately surrender when bombarded. (Ground combat fixed?)

Some strings may not be present, and some icons are placeholder purple. Many.

The Unemployment entry in the planet UI is a little overenthusiastic. Yes, pops grow into their parents’ strata and get upset if they can’t get a job worthy of their upbringing right away, but it shouldn’t be a pressing matter until their numbers get over 100.

The AI isn’t great at picking zones yet. It nods sagely at the first thing it finds that it can afford and decides it’s an offer it can’t refuse.

The base “colony” designation has not yet been removed. Our intention is for the Colonist jobs provided by the Reassembled Ship Shelter to provide the benefits of the old colony designation. (And will thus expire when you upgrade your planetary capital rather than when you reach a certain number of Pops.)

We can’t guarantee multiplayer stability on this build, but we have identified an immediate economic Out of Sync issue that occurs when Windows and non-Windows users are playing together.

Here are the release notes for this build:

Stellaris 3.99.0 ‘Phoenix’ Open Beta Release Notes​

Features​

  • Pops and Pop Groups
    • One of the biggest changes in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, and one of the primary focuses of this Open Beta, is the new Pop system. Rather than being individuals, Pops are now grouped based on Species, Strata, Ethics, and Faction, mostly for calculation purposes. As part of this change, Pop numbers have been increased by a factor of 100, allowing more granular manipulation of Pops by various systems.
    • All Pop Groups on a planet have simultaneous growth every month following the existing Logistic Growth formulas.
      • Underrepresented pops are no longer given population growth bonuses.
      • Fractional growth is not retained from month to month - if a Pop Group would have fractional growth, it has a chance to gain 1 pop that month based on that fraction.
      • All migration is now handled through the auto-migration system rather than push and pull that previously affected pop growth.
      • As more granular and simultaneous pop growth is now possible, the minimum growth for small colonies has been removed. Early colonization will be extremely reliant on migration from the empire capital.
      • Open Beta Note: Xenocompatibility no longer produces hybrid pops, but has not yet been updated to pool all planetary species into a single group for logistic growth purposes. When this is complete, we are likely to remove the Xenocompatibility galaxy setup toggle.
    • A Civilian stratum has been added to represent the masses that do not generally contribute to the empire’s military economy.
      • Open Beta Note: Civilians are intended to replace Clerks, which will be removed in a future Open Beta update.
    • Empires now begin with 2000 more pops, most of whom will be Civilians.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #370.
  • Planet UI, Zones, Workforce, and Jobs
    • The other major economic change in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update is a revamp to how jobs work.
    • Rather than Districts and Buildings being especially similar, we are shifting to a model where:
      • Planets produce and consume resources through Jobs.
      • Districts provide Jobs based on their development. (Mining District: Add 200 Housing and 200 Miner jobs per development level.)
      • Zones manipulate what Jobs are provided by Districts. (Foundry Zone: Replace 200 Civilian jobs and 200 Housing with 100 Metallurgists per development level.)
        • Open Beta Note: Currently the Zones are simpler, and will just provide the jobs. It is our intention for most Zones to convert rather than add.
      • Buildings are planet-unique and change what the Jobs produce. (Mote Harvesters: Technicians now also produce Volatile Motes.)
      • Pops produce Workforce that fills up Jobs.
    • Open Beta Note: The Planet UI is still very much a work in progress.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #371.
  • Empire Focuses and Timeline
    • The Situation Log now contains a tab for the Empire Timeline, which keeps track of important milestones of your playthrough.
    • The Timeline tab also contains a set of Empire Focus Tasks, which are intended to assist players with forming short and medium terms that align with their empire’s nature, while reducing the randomness of the tech tree.
      • Empires can choose between Conquest, Exploration, and Development as their primary Empire Focuses. You will still gain Tasks from other categories, but they will generally be weighted towards your choice. Some Tasks are basic “Core” Tasks, and will provide progress along all three tracks.
      • Completing Tasks provides progress towards Guaranteed Technology unlocks that are considered critical for that playstyle. You still need to research the technologies, they only provide the research option when you reach progress milestones. If you already have the technology unlocked or as a permanent research option, there is no alternate reward.
      • Because Task completion is retroactive and there are no alternate rewards, there should be no benefit in waiting to complete any that you have.
      • Should you end up with a Task that you find uncompletable or that you do not wish to complete, you can discard it and gain a new Task for a small cost in Unity.
      • It is our intention that empires that behave consistent with their Empire Focus should naturally complete the Tasks of that category.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #368.
  • Trade has been revamped into a standard resource.
    • Trade is now used as the Market currency.
    • The Trade Routes system has been removed.
    • Ships now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on whether they are docked (free), friendly space (reduced), neutral space (normal), or hostile space (expensive).
      • Larger ships tend to have higher upkeep.
      • The multipliers based on location are set in defines.
      • Juggernauts do not have logistical upkeep, and reduce the logistical upkeep costs for ships in their system by 75%.
      • Resources blocks can now include a "logistics" block, which is currently only used by ships.
    • Planets now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on their local resource deficits. This represents the additional costs of diverting freighters to transport materials between planets.
      • Local deficit costs vary based largely on the base market value of the resources in question.
    • Trade Policies can set how much of your Net trade after logistics upkeep is converted into other resources.
    • Added galaxy setup sliders for Fleet Upkeep Logistics Costs and Planetary Deficit Logistics Costs.
    • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #369.
  • The main help button now displays the Databank window where you can explore brief articles on many in-game concepts, reducing the need to navigate to external information sources.

Improvement​

  • Adjective leader trait names reverted, for example Inquisitor to Inquisitive
  • Colonization flow has been improved.
    • You can now pre-select a colony designation and turn on planet automation before colonizing a planet, which will apply when the planet has finished colonizing.
    • Colonization now completes when 100 colonists have grown or migrated to the new planet.
  • Significant improvements have been made to the Species UI.
    • One template per species can be set as the default template for that species, and other subspecies can be set to integrate over time into that default template.
      • Open Beta Note: Current rate of pop integration is likely to change to be slower as well as monthly.
    • The trait selection UI when creating a new template has been improved.
    • The special project window pops up and can be started immediately after creating a new template if desired. It is no longer absolutely necessary as you can use integration to slowly convert your existing pops.
  • The Habitable Worlds slider in game setup now has a 'Rare' setting. There will still be a handful of habitable worlds in the galaxy, mostly from special events and guaranteed habitable worlds. Normalized initializer spawn odds to use a handful of scripted variables.
  • Added galaxy precursor selection to game setup.
  • Leader Adjustments:
    • As part of our game pacing and interruption reduction pass, leaders now gain trait selection moments on even levels rather than every level.
    • Leader positions now have a significantly greater effect on what traits will appear when they level up and gain a new skill.
    • Increased the base number of leader traits to pick from on level up by 1. This is intended to reduce the chance of getting exclusively poor trait options without devaluing other sources of leader trait picks too much.
    • Added an "Auto Select Leader Traits by Default" option to game settings, which defaults to Off. On game start or if you switch to an empire, it will toggle the setting on the Leaders tab to your selection. In Coop empires, this override only applies when the primary player of the country joins it. Changing the setting mid-game will not have any effect unless you switch countries.
  • Significant improvements have been made to Message and Notification settings, providing you much more control over how you receive them.
    • Updated the default message settings
      • Revised strategic resource messages and added toast notifications
      • Changed trader events into notifications with unique icons. Added sound effect.
      • Anomaly discoveries now appear in a toast rather than popping up in the center of the screen.
      • Patron Newsletter event was changed into a notification
      • The Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
      • Order Restored event is now a notification
      • Governing Ethic Shift event has been turned into a toast
      • Faction Formed Events now appear as toasts following the first event
      • Added additional event options to Corrupt Administration event and turned it into a notification
      • The Toxic Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
      • Changed Inter-Dimensional trade increases event into a notification
  • Added concept tooltips to the left Navigation Bar
  • Added the Celestial Orrery system
  • Transport ships can now use cloaking
  • The Ruler Stratum has been renamed the Elite Stratum, to better differentiate them from the actual Empire Ruler
  • The system fleet icon tooltip now shows the total of the fleets' military power listed by that icon, at the top.
  • Added unique event options and localization for new life discovered events
  • Reduced spammy First Contact events
  • First Colony event - Added unique event options and rewards for Ethics
  • Adjusted mass extinction event chain localization and picture
  • The Betrayal event has been revamped to include multiple options
  • Renamed government tab to overview in outliner
  • Reduced the frequency of the Rise of the Manifesti event chain
  • Added missing reward to fanatic materialist for Comet Sighted event
  • Improved readability for event Covenant Formed
  • Changed Storm Spotted alert sound to something less intrusive
  • The low habitability popup now clearly highlights the negative effects
  • Added the two new Society technologies Federation Code and Existential Campaigns
  • Ironman mode is no longer required to earn most Stellaris achievements. An unmodified game checksum remains a requirement, and the use of any debug commands blocks them.
    • The "Victorious" achievement has been changed to "Win the game through any victory condition in Ironman mode."
    • Open Beta Note: Pop related achievements have not yet been updated.
  • Several changes to the starbase UI to improve game flow and overall interaction
  • Reworked Starbase window to harmonize naming and tooltips
  • You are 4x as attractive as you were before.

Balance​

  • FE and Cosmogenesis Escort ships now have the same evasion value of 50
  • Changed Curator Insight cost to empire size
  • The Eternal Vigilance Ascension Perk can now be acquired early if you complete the Unyielding Tradition Tree.
  • Adjusted Anomaly spawn rates to improve the pacing of the early game.
  • Added more variance to whether or not prescripted systems will or will not appear in a given game. (They won't all appear in every single game anymore.)

Bugfix​

  • Fixed the issue of fleets failing to retreat from lost combat if the last ship failed to disengage.
  • Human Pre-FTL societies now obey the Pre-FTL Civilizations game settings slider.
  • Fixed a script error that was causing far more habitable planets to spawn in the galaxy than expected. Feel free to increase the Habitable Worlds slider if you prefer the old behavior.
  • Fixed inconsistent capitalisation causing issues with pre-ftl pop generation
  • Cleaned up the end-game crisis triggers. The Unbidden will no longer be the only ones to show up early to the party.
  • Fix triggers to properly give Fissile Cores, the unique mutation for crystalline entities
  • Treasure Hunters AIs now correctly go through the dialog events
  • Fix Black Needle country spawning starbases
  • Fixed too many AI empires being generated in coop games.
  • Fixed the tooltip for obtaining the Mirror of Knowledge from the Infinity Machine not mentioning the 200 influence it also gives you
  • Amenities icon fixed for Drone Storage and Hive Warren
  • checks if planet owner is primitive before applying sector or system bonuses
  • Set the nanotech ascension path interdictors to use different ship models from the swarmers
  • Spitter Gun mutations have armor penetration
  • Missiles mutations have numerals corresponding to tier in icons
  • Nanite Infused Barb mutation requires nanites to build
  • Ancient Driller Beasts mutations uses 88 as its M size cost
  • Neutron Throwers mutation damage buff
  • Blocked anomalies from spawning on the neutron star for Slingshot to the Stars' quantum catapult
  • Handled dyson sphere flags on dismantling swarm while upgrading
  • Fixed a broken tooltip inside of the "Extended Shifts" edict.
  • Clone Soldier Ascendants can now cyberize
  • Completing Inhibit Self-Deterministic AIs removes it from the situation log
  • Fix the possibility to build multiple Grand Archives at the same time
  • Only display relevant modifiers for Space Fauna ships in tooltips
  • Reanimated space fauna ships cannot upgrade no matter what
  • Black Needle fleet now correctly spawns to defend their base from bombardment
  • Destroy Gravity Snare when there's no valid target anymore
  • Broken Shackles check added for relevant Galcom events
  • Strip Mine Decision is no longer available on artificial planets
  • Inspired Rhetoric will no longer display a placeholder icon
  • Fixed situations start value being added multiple times.
  • Special system initializers now respect the habitable worlds slider in game setup (to a degree).
  • Planetary part of ringworlds no longer take on empire color
  • First Contact was changed into a toast and once again shows the correct localization
  • Added missing pre sapient loc string
  • The dismantle button has regained its missing loc string
  • Resolved scope error caused by toast target scope being set to root
  • Advanced start empires can no longer have mining stations over resources they do not have tech for

AI​

  • Fixed Prethoryn Scourge incorrectly calculating target priority for non-edible pops.

UI/UX​

  • Added an Assign Leader button to the leaders screen that lists available positions.
  • Fixed it not being possible to build starbases in systems with non-central stars from the galaxy view (when a construction ship is selected).
  • Added a message setting button in event popup windows.
  • Hid details that aren't relevant for all species in the galaxy when the Galaxy tab is selected in the Species view.
  • Updated the message settings screen to give more space for the message list.
  • Changed auto-unpause on the message settings screen from a spinner to a checkbox.
  • Adjusted centering of text and icons in toast windows. If a toast with custom description has no icon associated with the custom description, the description will now fill the entire lower section of the toast.

Localization​

  • Add tooltip to Cutholoid Hunter modifier
  • Add tooltip to Voidworm Hunter modifier
  • Turn reanimated cutholoids and voidworms ship size name consistent with other reanimated Space Fauna

Modding​

  • Open Beta Note: We’re still working on Zones and Buildings, and will likely change how we do some of this to be a bit friendlier. Don’t update your mods based on what you see in this build.
  • Add `resettle_pop_group` effect that allows to resettle a specified portion of a pop group to a target planet
  • Add first iteration of `create_pop_group` effect
  • Add kill_pop_group effect that takes a pop group and an amount or percentage and instantly kills them
  • Add `transfer_pop_amount` effect that transfers pops from a pop group to another
  • Removed unused can_resettle_planet game rule and renamed can_resettle_planet_no_owner_check to can_resettle_planet.
  • Removed can_colonize_with_pop game rule and moved its checks to can_colonize_with_species.
  • Added the script effect "copy_traditions_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { tradition1 tradition 2 } }" that copies tradition from a target country into the scoped country
  • Added "add_ascension_perk" and "remove_ascension_perk" effects, scope must be a country, adds or removed the specified perk syntax: add/remove_ascension_perk = perk_key
  • Added "copy_ascension_perks_from" effect: Copies the Ascension Perks of the target country into the scoped country. They are added to the existing perks, and the potential/possible triggers are respected. The perks listed in the exceptions list are not copied. copy_ascension_perks_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { perk1 perk2 } }
  • Added "remove_tradition" effect. Remove the target tradition from the scoped Country. remove_tradition = tradition_key
  • Added effect "remove_tradition_tree" Remove the target tradition tree from the scoped Country. remove_tradition_tree = tradition_category_key
  • Added spawn_design to static galaxy system data, which forces a specific design to spawn in the system.
  • Added gamesetup_settings script for configuring the settings list in game setup.
  • There is now an event_message_type in events that lets you override the default message type EVENT_MESSAGE_TYPE. This can e.g. provide separate message settings.
  • Scripted loc can now be used in concept tooltips and the top bar tooltips.
  • New on_action on_favor_gained that gets triggered when a country receives a favor.
  • Added the used_defense_platform_capacity_percent trigger, letting you check how much of a starbases defensive platform capacity is used.
  • Message notification background is now separated from the message type icon.
  • New on_action on_research_option_added that gets triggered every time a new permanent research option is acquired.
  • The actual script file and line are now printed when there are errors logged in scripted triggers and scripted effects, in addition to the previously available information.
  • kill_pop has been replaced with kill_pop_group. For ease of use kill_single_pop and kill_all_pop scripted effects have been made.
  • Replaced resettle_pop with resettle_pop_group.
  • Added "playme" console command as shorthand for human_ai and ai_ignore_was_human.

Okay, How Do I Opt Into the Beta?​

If you’re ready for a confusing, possibly frustrating, and unfinished experience, and you’re on Steam, you can opt into the Open Beta.

  1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
  2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.0 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

What’s Next?​

We expect that the next Open Beta update, 3.99.1, will have Civilians in a more complete state, and more of the UI and AI should be in place. Buildings, Zones, and Jobs should also have more progress too.

Our next Dev Diary will be on Thursday, March 20th, but I hope to have an update to the Open Beta before the weekend.




Dropping this patch this early seemed questionable. Amenties and alloys are impossible to come by. The lack of information on districts and buildings on what they do. I lost the game because my pops declined to 0 for no apparent reason. First a colony followed by the capital. I get the eagerness to show it off and I was eager for the beta to drop but I'm not sure how much data I can provide based on what little works. The game does seem to run at least as well with high pop counts as current build.
 
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I could not get enforcers to combat crime even after I built a precinct. Made enforcers jobs with the slider, but none showed up.
Had a energy district with an energy grid, but no technician TYPE jobs available on planet.
How do I build factories? I have not seen the option yet.
I can assert that I do not know how to properly run a planet in this new environment. I do not see a capability-cause-effect laid out that seems to work.
The poorly-displayed Current Population summary on the Management tab is a not-very-useful condensation of the Population Tab. Maybe replace it with a non-popup construction queue? I don't like that it is hard to access the construction queue.

I have gone far enough in this version of the beta -- awaiting a fix round.
 
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The game does seem to run at least as well with high pop counts as current build.
Agree.
I assume the red line thing is a situation, which is the system they migrated rebellions to a couple of years ago (along with other special timed-event chains).
A situation, that’s the name. This is the first time I recall seeing a progress bar like that.
I don't think it's bad for you to be testing the beta. We frequently see posts from players coming back after several years and new players will also encounter many of the same questions. Based on the comments here and elsewhere, I think the beta version is a bit too rough to effectively come up with feedback for the topics in the survey since the timeline/focus system inherently require playing a while into a save and that's tough to do with the open beta bugs and economy.
Thanks. This experience actually got me to try an hour with the latest live (betas=“none” is 3.11? Edit it’s 3.14, my mistake) build and it’s a more intuitive interface to play, the right clicks work just fine and the pop up pause to assign a scientist is helpful since anomalies would otherwise just disappear into the invisible back half of the meta game, like it did in the beta. I think it’s only the fact that I remembered how amenities and dig sites were once used to help move the game along that I realized they were even happening in the game, and when I tried to check up on them, they were working real weird.

I will say “11 amenities” and 1 available pop doesn’t feel right compared to the 3.99 beta pop scale. I have a feeling once they put the pieces of the game back together with the new higher pop scaling, it will feel more like “normal”.

Finally, it (unscientifically) feels like the game ticks forward about the same for both builds.
 
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