Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today is the second week of post-Synthetic Dawn 'filler' dev diaries, as mentioned in dev diary 87.

This dev diary is really just an update on the 1.8.1 beta that we put out last week to fix the major issues reported in 1.8. We have gotten a lot of good feedback from it both externally and internally, and we are now in the process of putting together a 1.8.2 update that contains all the fixes from the beta, as well as fixes for some issues introduced in 1.8.1 and some additional issues that were previously missed. 1.8.2 is currently in internal testing, and we hope to roll it out as soon as it clears QA. Once 1.8.2 is out, if no further critical issues are discovered, we will be wrapping up the 1.8 post-release support and fully move on to future development priorities.

Here is a list of the fixes and changes in 1.8.2 compared to 1.8. Note that bugs that were introduced in 1.8.1 but fixes in 1.8.2 is not included in this list!

Spoiler: Click to view 1.8.2 patch notes

###################
# Balance
###################
- Increased the distance at which empires are forced apart in random setups
- Changed the shape of ring galaxies to have a thicker ring, fixes many generation bugs (such as Fallen Empires not appearing) associated with them
- Contingency ships now use energy lances instead of Arc Emitters
- Reduced the rate of Contingency reinforcment fleets somewhat
- It is now possible to spawn 5 fallen empires in a Huge galaxy if you have Synthetic Dawn
- Buffed Processing Hub and Hive Node buildings to produce Unity
- Buffed Machine Worlds to 25% robot production output
- 200 years must pass in-game before a Crisis can occur, up from 150
- Cost of "Blocking the Ghost Signal" project now calculated based on number of owned Pops.
- Successfully assimilating a Pop as a Driven Assimilator now generates one month's worth of Unity and Society Research
- Driven Assimilators can now allow Cyborgs to procreate (they do not need food to grow)
- Buffed Devouring Swarm, Purifiers and Exterminators
- Assimilators can now research most Genetics techs
- Driven Assimilators can now derive Assault and Defense Armies from Cyborg Pops
- Pops are now assimilated much faster, on a per-planet basis rather than per-species basis
- Doubled the chance of getting the ""Hotfix"" Warning Signs event
- Reduced fleet power calc for very powerful ships, as exponential effects would cause it to get much larger than the ship's actual combat ability
- Fixed Flak being strictly better than regular Point-Defense rather than a tracking vs damage trade-off
- Planets now only start repairing at full speed 60 days after bombardment ends
- Added some armor penetration to Scourge weapons
- Reduced the effect of Admiral skill level on ship fire rate from 5% to 3% & changed general modifier to not overflow interface
- Reduced consumer goods cost of Chemical Bliss, Utopian Abundance and Social Welfare
- Increased the likelihood of High and Medium probability reward options in Shroud events
- Increased likelihood of several unique Shroud events granting special boons to fire
- Warning Signs (and Machine Uprisings) can no longer occur before 50 in-game years have passed
- Empires that have outlawed robotic workers before any Warning Signs events occur will no longer experience Warning Signs or Machine Uprisings

###################
# AI
###################
- Fixed some issues with sector AI not properly prioritizing tile resources when told to
- Fixed a bug where the AI would overprioritize food when food stockpile was not full
- Sectors now build robots by default
- Fixed unbidden AI sometimes freezing up when other ED factions spawned
- Fixed AI stopping colonization in some cases if it gained a high-habitability species without colonization rights
- AIs will no longer terraform while under crisis attack
- Fixed AI repeatedly asking player to join in a war they had already declined to join
- Fixed a bug where AI fleets would sometimes stop following their allies if fighting a defensive war against a powerful foe
- Fixed an issue where Guardians of the Galaxy would not fight the crisis because of the presence of another Awakened Empire
- Fixed an issue where the AI would not defend planets it had occupied from enemies from being taken back
- Fixed AI overprioritizing power plants even when it did not need energy due to only wanting to build energy-producing buildings on unpopulated tiles
- Fixed a case where AI would get stuck on enemy mining stations, unable to move their fleet away
- Fixed machine AI personalities having an excessive penalty to diplomacy, even with other machines
- Fixed a bug where the Scourge would build military stations in systems it didn't need to defend, instead of systems it does in fact need to defend
- Fixed AI Machine Empires ceasing to build armies under some circumstances

###################
# Interface
###################
- Made Artisan Troupe button tooltips consistently display what resources the player is lacking, rather than just a "We cannot afford this" message

###################
# Modding
###################
- Traits are now restricted by moddable species archetypes rather than species classes, so new species classes need only be assigned the correct archetype instead of having to be added to every trait. Archetypes can be set to inherit the traits of other archetypes for easy creation of new archetypes with unique traits
- Added support for species archetypes to inherit their trait points from another archetype

###################
# Bugfixes
###################
- Breaking a guarantee no longer creates a bilateral truce
- Disabled Selected Lineages techs for Assimilators
- Organic sanctuaries are now properly assigned to primitives when conquered
- Fixed some Fanatic Purifier dialogue referring to the wrong empire
- Planets in outliner are now properly sorted by distance to capital in all circumstances
- It is no longer possible to declare on the tributary of an empire that you have a truce, non-aggression or other war-blocking status with
- Fixed stacking -%unrest modifiers that added up to more than 100% reduction resulting in a negative modifier that applied massive unrest
- Hive Minds can no longer use the decadent trait
- Fixed Synthetic Ascension disabling the ability to set species rights and potentially locking in invalid species rights
- Neuro-Electric Amplifier building is now available in habitats
- Uplink Node building can now be upgraded in habitats
- Spare Parts Depot and Gene Clinic can now be upgraded on Habitats
- Fixed an OOS when some player(s) have Plantoids DLC while others don't
- Fixed Determined Exterminators and Devouring Swarms not getting the swapped Purity tradition tree name and description
- Fixed Determined Exterminators not getting the Autonomous AI tradition swap
- Fixed Synthetically Ascended empires being unable to assimilate cyborgs
- Ghost Signal no longer affects Synthetically Ascended empires
- Fixed Fallen Empires not making demands due to believing they had been defeated in a war
- Fixed the calculation for winner in democratic election not working correctly in some cases
- Fleets on passive stance can now be ordered to make manual attacks on mining & research stations
- Fixed Spare Parts Depot line of buildings not being researchable for Machine Empires
- Fixed Social Engineering Edict (it was strictly worse than the basic one non Authoritarians get)
- Fixed vassals not being able to colonize within their own borders
- Symbol of Purity is now properly restricted to one per planet
- Restored old keyboard shortcut for increasing speed
- Fixed rebel countries sometimes getting one Ethic too many
- Enigmatic Observer Fallen Empires now hate Fanatic Purifiers, Devouring Swarms, and Determined Exterminators slightly less, removing instant war declarations
- Fixed tributary war demand not working
- Fixed a bug where releasing vassals as a Hive Mind or Machine Authority would result in broken ethics/authority setups
- Fixed non-swapped modifier names being used for name-swapped traditions
- Added a cap on planet combat repair, as crisis planets were otherwise nearly impossible to destroy with light stance
- Fixed military power of robotic/synth armies being overvalued to the point where the AI would not invade planets defended by them
- Fixed Psionic Ascension not changing founder species, creating a variety of bugs
- Fixed cyborgs getting double leader age boost from species and leader trait
- Fixed the End of the Cycle not properly preying on colonized worlds
- Fixed some issues with fleet reinforcements for crises
- Fixed sector colonization setting not working properly
- Fixed Synthetic Ruler Trait not having an effect
- Fixed the Machine Uprising not taking control of Military Stations properly
- Fixed some Warning Signs events potentially reoccurring after a Machine Uprising
- Machine Empires can no longer research Positronic AI
- Fixed liberating planets as a Machine Intelligence giving rise to Despicable Neutrals
- Fixed issue where Machine Empire capitals did not produce additional Unity from Distributed Computer tradition.
- Fixed Prethoryn Scourge ceasing to spawn reinforcements once they had 100 armies built
- Fixed an exploit where you could have one more than one Dyson Sphere/Science Nexus at a time by releasing the system to a vassal while under construction
- Fixed issues with not being able to repair Megastructures
- Fixed Decent living standards being available to Assimilating pops
- Psionic expertise can no longer be given as a trait to Machine scientists
- Fixed erroneously getting the 'Hopeless War' notification when attacked by an Awakened Fallen Empire
- Removed duplicate percentage sign in Adaptive Ecology Tradition description
- Fixed minor color issue in Contingency diplomatic text
- Fixed a bug where the Contingency would get stuck trying to withdraw its fleets to the final machine world
- 'Country destroyed' notification disabled for when nationalist rebels defect to their former empire
- Species that are set to be assimilated will no longer be targeted by Land Appropriation
- Removed Atmospheric Filtering for non-Serv, non-Assim MIs since it is useless for them
- Fix food surplus not being calculated correctly with sectors (sector pops were twice as hungry as they should be)
- Fixed MI namelist to avoid use of the word ""Habitat"" to distinguish between AP Habitats"
- Fixed a missing ID that was resulting in an unlocalized string during colonization (BUILDING_CONSTRUCTION_COLONIZATION)
- Created a leader event called from on_actions that removes the Sapient/Custom AI Assistant traits from any leaders that have them when a player changes their policy to Outlaw AI.
- Fixed leaders with Arrested Development gaining negative experience rather than simply not leveling up
- Fixed CTD when attempting to randomize secondary species name without selecting a portrait first
- CTD fix when using a mod with duplicate species class
- CTD fix when using a country that doesn't have a tech module
- Fixed an overflow error causing purged pops to produce massive amounts of resources
- Defeating the Machine Uprising no longer results in biological pops saved from it having recently conquered malus
- Fixed refugees being able to flee to planets that are occupied, under bombardment or under colonization
- Fixed bio-trophies not being given an organic sanctuary on migration
- Fix CTD related to modded planet classes

That's all for today! As with last week, I leave you with another screenshot of the internal Stellaris development build, presented without context or explanation.

 

[Hype]

There were issues with outliner sorting in 1.8/1.8.1, it's fixed in 1.8.2.

Hardly, you're still trying to sort by distance to capital instead of how it was before. It may be working as intended but that isn't the same as being fixed. Broken by design.

 

[cestes]

Still no fix for the duplicate color/emblem/portrait issue?

One of my most recent games there were two AI empires that spawned near me with the same empire color I chose and one empire with the emblem I chose. Breaks immersion and there are enough colors/emblems/portraits so that this shouldn't be happening.

 

[Hype]

because it sets of some folks' OCD when the newly terraformed Mars is listed at the bottom of the list instead of second to Earth. or that 3 planets in the same system are scattered all over the list because they got settled at different times as habitability/terraforming techs got unlocked, instead of next to each other.

and really, I think listing by distance makes a bit more sense than sorting by order of colonization/conquest, at least late game once all worlds are built up and you don't need to be clicking upgrade buttons anymore.

This is not the fix for that problem. A proper fix would have been to sort by order of *system* colonization. Mars would show up right below earth as they are the same system and it was colonized first (assuming you started in sol) but new systems will still show up at the bottom of the outliner properly. Planet distance to capital is useless and this was a stupid change. Especially since it isn't even accurate if you're playing a hyperspace empire.

 

[Dinglydell]

Increased the distance at which empires are forced apart in random setups

Why is random setup forcing empires apart? Surely that should be called evenly distributed/spread

 

[Riftwalker]

sure you can, just stop saying that's a "titan" in the picture.

 

[DarwinPon_y]

Wiz, can you clarify something for me. This was supposedly fixed in 1.8.1, but because those techs require Genome Mapping, which non-assimilators do not get, they are still unresearchable. Did Genome Mapping get removed as a prerequisite in 1.8.2? If not, then this hasn't actually been fixed except for assimilators.

What about Sentient Combat Computers not being researchable for MEs in 1.8.1? That tech requires Positronic AI. I know that in 1.8.1 MEs could no longer research it. Have you reverted that change? I didn't see it listed in the 1.8.2 patch notes.





This is how I've always envisioned the Fortress station. I don't want to build 30 stations in every system. I just want to build Deep Space Nine and call it good until my defense fleet can arrive to mop up.





This was a much needed change no matter how you look at it. Arc weapons are all well and good, except when you have +300% weapon damage, which the Contingency has. It has the potential to one-shot a battleship and with 100% accuracy and shield/armor penetration it made it worse than a titan laser. At least titan lasers can miss. The problem is that this brought back corvette spam as the most viable option and NO ONE wants that to happen ever again.



This. Please fix this.

There is actually a good way to deal with Arc Emitters. Let's analyze the traits of our three X-slot weapons and you will see.

Mega and Giga cannons does the most average damage approx. 27 , meaning if the enemy ships are running around naked (no shield no armor no evasion) they would die pretty quickly under these cannons. However, they only have a weak shield damage buff and a weak armor penetration buff, plus the least accuracy. So to deal with this weapon you just have to wear cloths, and wear a lot of them. Either use lots and lots and lots of shields and shield capacitors, or if you are using pure battleships you can use level 4 armor without shields, so that even with the armor penetration you still have enough to avoid 90% of the damage, or you can use overwhelming numbers of corvettes with 90% evasion (if you can get it). Why am I analyzing this one? You'll see.

Energy Lances have the second most average damage approx. 24, has 90% armor penetration but weak shield damage. They are useful against fallen empires and ether drakes because they both have crazy armor, and with lances you can do MORE damage than cannons.

The Arc Emitter has the least average damage, and not just least by a little bit, it has only approx. 13, barely more than half the damage of energy lances. Plus, it has very high fluctuations in its damage, from 3~200+. This means that the Arc Emitter has two essential properties:

1. It is only advantageous to use them against enemies whose shield and armor are thick (or against enemies without X-slot weapons). The property of this weapon also means that no other secondary L-slots can help it. If you are using Lances and the enemy has a lot of shields, you can use energy torpedoes or disruptors to help. If you are using cannons then you can use kinetic artillery to help. But nothing can increase the damage of the Arc Emitter to the target at all.

2. It is only safe (and therefore applicable) to use arc emitters in the dozens. If you have only 1 ship with an arc emitter, you basically have to be really lucky. The arc can either destroy 1 corvette in a single shot (almost), or it can scratch the enemy's butt. So if the damage of the Arc is to be ensured, you need a large amount of them to stabilize around the average damage of 13. Because of this, for a player using Arc Emitters, in order to maximize efficiency, he would use a "conscript" battleship, with absolutely no armor, shields, or weapons (except maybe some bombers and PDs). If the player (or AI) uses arc but fills up their ships with all L-slot strong weapons, then guess what, it's gonna do less damage because they would have less ships, unless if this player doesn't have a large enough naval capacity, in which case he shouldn't be using arc.

So with these basic properties in mind, how do we deal with arc fleets? Simple. Since we are naked in the face of arcs, then just strip naked. Lower the cost of our ships so that we can match them with numbers. Since they will be running naked, then we should use the weapons that do the most naked damage at long range: Mega cannons and Kinetic artilleries. This also provides an advantage because the Mega cannons range is 120 while the arc's range is 110, therefore we can fire the first shot. Kinetic artillery range is 100, so very soon, we will be releasing a barrage of fire on the naked enemy fleet at long range, before any of their secondary weapons (if they have any) can reach us.

But what about Contingency fleets you might ask, They have no limits to production speed and they can fit their ships with all the good stuff. It's the same thing. Contingency uses only plasma cannons and gamma lasers as secondary weapons, and their range is 80 and 60 respectively, so just be sure to destroy their ships before you get that close, don't worry, you have enough damage. If you are still not sure, then add a few shields to your "conscript" battleships, it will only increase their cost to a little over 1000 minerals, so just ensure your income and naval capacity and you'll be fine.

 

[CharonX2003]

Is the "Church of Light" quest/eventchain fixed too?

 

[DarwinPon_y]

Hopeless war notification? could someone please explain.

When you are weak and you enter a war against a FE, there will be a notification saying the war is hopeless and it explains what a fallen empire is and tells to to surrender.

 

[Sapa Inca]

@Wiz
Testing the fixed End of Cycle with console commands, I noticed that The End dont regenerate shields and dont regenerate hull points despite what is written on the wiki, this is intended?
The End have just 85 of range too (the wiki says that the range is supposed to be 170).
The End is very weak too, a xenophobic Fallen Empire (not awakened) was capable of destroy the end alone with few loses.
Would it be worth of a balance check pass? The End definitely don't is a threat to the galaxy, currently.

 

[DarwinPon_y]

Exactly - when I colonize a new world and I already control a lot, I don't want to be forced to search for it in my planet list. And it's even worse when I annex a vassal - that's 10 new planets being sorted randomly in the outliner. The result is that I cannot use the outliner to decide which one I'll keep in my core sector.
Since sorting by distance doesn't have any practical use (theoretically it could tell you which worlds have more ethic divergence, but this is really not a prioritary information), I fail to see why this change was made.

You can decide by looking at the species, duh

 

[FiddleSticks96]

There is actually a good way to deal with Arc Emitters. Let's analyze the traits of our three X-slot weapons and you will see.

Mega and Giga cannons does the most average damage approx. 27 , meaning if the enemy ships are running around naked (no shield no armor no evasion) they would die pretty quickly under these cannons. However, they only have a weak shield damage buff and a weak armor penetration buff, plus the least accuracy. So to deal with this weapon you just have to wear cloths, and wear a lot of them. Either use lots and lots and lots of shields and shield capacitors, or if you are using pure battleships you can use level 4 armor without shields, so that even with the armor penetration you still have enough to avoid 90% of the damage, or you can use overwhelming numbers of corvettes with 90% evasion (if you can get it). Why am I analyzing this one? You'll see.

Energy Lances have the second most average damage approx. 24, has 90% armor penetration but weak shield damage. They are useful against fallen empires and ether drakes because they both have crazy armor, and with lances you can do MORE damage than cannons.

The Arc Emitter has the least average damage, and not just least by a little bit, it has only approx. 13, barely more than half the damage of energy lances. Plus, it has very high fluctuations in its damage, from 3~200+. This means that the Arc Emitter has two essential properties:

1. It is only advantageous to use them against enemies whose shield and armor are thick (or against enemies without X-slot weapons). The property of this weapon also means that no other secondary L-slots can help it. If you are using Lances and the enemy has a lot of shields, you can use energy torpedoes or disruptors to help. If you are using cannons then you can use kinetic artillery to help. But nothing can increase the damage of the Arc Emitter to the target at all.

2. It is only safe (and therefore applicable) to use arc emitters in the dozens. If you have only 1 ship with an arc emitter, you basically have to be really lucky. The arc can either destroy 1 corvette in a single shot (almost), or it can scratch the enemy's butt. So if the damage of the Arc is to be ensured, you need a large amount of them to stabilize around the average damage of 13. Because of this, for a player using Arc Emitters, in order to maximize efficiency, he would use a "conscript" battleship, with absolutely no armor, shields, or weapons (except maybe some bombers and PDs). If the player (or AI) uses arc but fills up their ships with all L-slot strong weapons, then guess what, it's gonna do less damage because they would have less ships, unless if this player doesn't have a large enough naval capacity, in which case he shouldn't be using arc.

So with these basic properties in mind, how do we deal with arc fleets? Simple. Since we are naked in the face of arcs, then just strip naked. Lower the cost of our ships so that we can match them with numbers. Since they will be running naked, then we should use the weapons that do the most naked damage at long range: Mega cannons and Kinetic artilleries. This also provides an advantage because the Mega cannons range is 120 while the arc's range is 110, therefore we can fire the first shot. Kinetic artillery range is 100, so very soon, we will be releasing a barrage of fire on the naked enemy fleet at long range, before any of their secondary weapons (if they have any) can reach us.

But what about Contingency fleets you might ask, They have no limits to production speed and they can fit their ships with all the good stuff. It's the same thing. Contingency uses only plasma cannons and gamma lasers as secondary weapons, and their range is 80 and 60 respectively, so just be sure to destroy their ships before you get that close, don't worry, you have enough damage. If you are still not sure, then add a few shields to your "conscript" battleships, it will only increase their cost to a little over 1000 minerals, so just ensure your income and naval capacity and you'll be fine.

Those are some good insights, but you have just argued that corvette spam was the way to beat the Contigency before 1.8.2. I know cheaper, long range, shield penetrating ships in obscene numbers was the most viable strategy. This is why I spammed torpedo boats. Just keep printed those corvettes with disruptors and neutron torpedos with absolutely no shields or armor (they die in one hit anyway, why eat the extra cost?). Every loss on your side becomes far less devastating while at the same time those torpedo swarms are chewing through the enemy fleet. This was the same excat problem as naked corvette spam. Maybe I'm overreacting because that problem is still a recent memory, but i feel that before the shift to lances we were having a reverse progress situation. When the best strategy to beat a specific crisis is to suicide your fleet and build a new one made entirely of corvettes, there is a problem with design. Maybe this won't actually change much. We can argue theory all day long, but until we actually get to test it in game, it's all just semantics.

 

[Jorlem]

- Cost of "Blocking the Ghost Signal" project now calculated based on number of owned Pops.

To make sure I understand, if I have 99 organic pops and one nonorganic pop, the cost of the project is the same as if I had 99 nonorganic pops and one organic pop?

- Planets in outliner are now properly sorted by distance to capital in all circumstances

There were issues with outliner sorting in 1.8/1.8.1, it's fixed in 1.8.2.

Can we please have a method of sorting that is useful for hyperlane FTL, instead of assuming that everyone is using warp/wormholes? Straight line distance from capitol =/= actual distance from capitol in all circumstances.


Also, can we please get the evasive fleet stance for military fleets back? All removing it accomplishes is increasing the need to micro military fleets that are broken off for repairs, and those that are used for early game preliminary exploration. Again, the issues with this change are magnified by the hyperspace FTL type, which limits the routes fleets can take and prioritizes the shortest route, with this change removing the only other automatic weight on quickly planning long distance routes. If the problem was that people were accidentally ordering fleets to retreat when cycling through the stances, wouldn't it make more sense to have the fleet stance selection interface act like a dropdown menu instead of a "click to cycle" interface?

 

[Admiral Adama]

I'm hoping that image is a shipyard or a starbase of some sort

 

[DarwinPon_y]

Those are some good insights, but you have just argued that corvette spam was the way to beat the Contigency before 1.8.2. I know cheaper, long range, shield penetrating ships in obscene numbers was the most viable strategy. This is why I spammed torpedo boats. Just keep printed those corvettes with disruptors and neutron torpedos with absolutely no shields or armor (they die in one hit anyway, why eat the extra cost?). Every loss on your side becomes far less devastating while at the same time those torpedo swarms are chewing through the enemy fleet. This was the same excat problem as naked corvette spam. Maybe I'm overreacting because that problem is still a recent memory, but i feel that before the shift to lances we were having a reverse progress situation. When the best strategy to beat a specific crisis is to suicide your fleet and build a new one made entirely of corvettes, there is a problem with design. Maybe this won't actually change much. We can argue theory all day long, but until we actually get to test it in game, it's all just semantics.

I didn't say that corvette spam is useful against the Contingency, I said battleship spam is good against the contingency and corvette span is good against battleship spam. And who ever said that spamming is wrong? That's how Russia won WWII why couldn't players be allowed to use the same strategy if that player could make it work?

 

[Hype]

Can we please have a method of sorting that is useful for hyperlane FTL, instead of assuming that everyone is using warp/wormholes? Direct distance from capitol /= actual distance from capitol in all circumstances.

Of course not, you get this completely useless new sorting method and you like it. If you want something that makes sense you have to hope it's possible to mod it.

Also, can we please get the evasive fleet stance for military fleets back? All removing it accomplishes is increasing the need to micro military fleets that are broken off for repairs, and those that are used for early game preliminary exploration.

Removing and adding features for no reason except making the game harder to play. What was this change even trying to accomplish?

 

[Ambulatory Cortex]

@Wiz Has the inability of swarms to take sedentary been fixed? I see you fixed decadent being available, but I don't see sedentary mentioned.

 

[Mavkiel]

Well those fixes sound neat, can't wait for 1.8.2.

 

[avsbes]

Please tell us that 1.8.2 comes out this week

 

[FiddleSticks96]

@Wiz Has the inability of swarms to take sedentary been fixed? I see you fixed decadent being available, but I don't see sedentary mentioned.

I think that was intentional. A stationary swarm isn't a threat to anyone.

Speaking of swarms, has the problem with processed pop resource output being affected by unrest, thus completely negating a Hive's/Exterminator's ability to turn whole planet populations into food/energy been fixed?

 

[Sapa Inca]

I am a bit sad that my plantoid hive mind (non-swarm) cant pick the sedentary trait. They are plants, they are rooted in place, the sedentary trait would be very good for roleplay.