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

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# Balance
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- 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]

I'm still trying to figure out what people think "sensible" organization of the outliner is supposed to look like. All I see are people saying "distance from capital is wrong!"

As I said in a previous comment a sane order would be keeping the old order of colonization but instead of by planet change it to by system. That way planets colonized in a system are still grouped, with the first colonized at top and new systems still appear at the bottom.

 

[CrowScape]

the plural of anecdote isn't data.

This isn't a statistic, so whether it's data or not is irrelevant.

I am not required to put forth a different solution

Yes, you are. I have demonstrated how the Outliner prior to 1.8.0 had a practical use, and I have stated that post 1.8.0, it has no practical use. In order to disprove this, you must show a practical use post 1.8.0. You haven't. Your argument fails.

my categories are about motivation, you are motivated by it not conforming to your playstyle.

You have been corrected on this point multiple times now.

you're arguments were:

In response to a point brought up by Bluegrass Geek. Not by you. You are ignoring all arguments prompted by you.

This is a fair point, but is out dated, it's suboptimal to have new worlds in your core system anymore.

Again, you ignore the point about being able to quickly track what planets are still building, which sectors do not allow you to do.

This isn't a semantics debate, so i'll refer to the former as purposefully organized, and the later has incidentally organized.

And? Whether it is purposeful or incidental is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how useful it is.

And, since programs and computers are all manmade objects, everything is purposeful. Default organizations are purposeful. "How should we access the array?" "Display the most recent." At some point someone had to tell the game how to display that list. It didn't just magically decide on its own. Whether they left that decision to whoever designed the base code or someone further down the development pipeline does not change that.

 

[Hype]

people are complaining about it because it's broken, thus the new system is negatively influenced by the change.

to be clear, the previous outliner wasn't organized at all, it just grabbed your core sectors going down an unorganized queue. They're trying to actually organize how planets are displayed

Some people are complaining about it being broken. However, myself and others are complaining about the change itself. It's not needed in the first place and it's only relevant goal (grouping planets in the same system) can be achieved without sorting by distance to capital.

 

[Riftwalker]

This isn't a statistic, so whether it's data or not is irrelevant.

Yes, you are. I have demonstrated how the Outliner prior to 1.8.0 had a practical use, and I have stated that post 1.8.0, it has no practical use. In order to disprove this, you must show a practical use post 1.8.0. You haven't. Your argument fails.

You have been corrected on this point multiple times now.

In response to a point brought up by Bluegrass Geek. Not by you. You are ignoring all arguments prompted by you.

Again, you ignore the point about being able to quickly track what planets are still building, which sectors do not allow you to do.

And? Whether it is purposeful or incidental is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how useful it is.

And, since programs and computers are all manmade objects, everything is purposeful. Default organizations are purposeful. "How should we access the array?" "Display the most recent." At some point someone had to tell the game how to display that list. It didn't just magically decide on its own. Whether they left that decision to whoever designed the base code or someone further down the development pipeline does not change that.

1. that's my point, an anecdote is irrelvant when trying to prove a point, because it is not a statistic

2. incorrect. my argument is your argument does not follow. All i have to do is prove your argument false.

3. i've shown what you have actually said, correcting me on quotes that are not false is not... helpful.

4. irrelvant, this is more clinical ad hominem, the speaker is irrelevant when arguments are challenged. (i really wish people didn't just assume ad hominem are insults, because really they're much farther reaching, but aren't as severe as people make them out to be)

5. also irrelvant, my original point was you had options and chose to not take them over instead seemingly preferring that the devs simply undo their work, specifically for you. you can quickly track them via sector management, this option has not been removed from you, you must simply use the sector section of the overview.

6. they're merely names, this isn't a semantical debate, this isn't an orthological debate. I'm saying there is a clear distinction between ordering a list and a list being created without ordering and appearing to be ordered.

the point is, they're now with intention trying to organize the overview, this means framework is being created to allow for additional orderings of the overview, i bet they can quickly make it more adjustable in the future thanks to these changes. I think overall this direction will be a positive one.

Some people are complaining about it being broken. However, myself and others are complaining about the change itself. It's not needed in the first place and it's only relevant goal (grouping planets in the same system) can be achieved without sorting by distance to capital.

In general you want to make rules and not exceptions in programming so that the code is easier to edit. other achievement methods would be exceptions, exceptions they'd have to hunt down if they changed the overview again. just saying.

 

[CrowScape]

1. that's my point, an anecdote is irrelvant when trying to prove a point, because it is not a statistic

No. That's not how arguments work. Sorry.

It's clear pursuing this with you is not useful. Have a good day.

 

[Riftwalker]

No. That's not how arguments work. Sorry.

It's clear pursuing this with you is not useful. Have a good day.

It is, you're the one being fallacious. your personal position makes you using your own experiences ad hominems, these are called anecdotes. just because someone found something difficult, does not in fact make the operation of something difficult to an unreasonable degree.

one must try to argue from a non-personal point of view.

Good Day however, it was enjoyable.

 

[Riftwalker]

seperate

I feel like mentioning if anyone continues this thread of thought.

I am only fighting arguments that it must be changed back, if your argument is that the previous is better, I personally don't care as this argument has no practical outcome. If you're arguing for a new system, I 'probably' have no issue with it.

my personal view is that there is no specific ordering that is better than any other ordering, so long as the list is in fact ordered.

and to those who have an issue with the change, should start putting planets in sectors when they're developing to separate them out as much as desired and then move them into more standard sectors later. this system lets you deal with bulk acquisitions better.

 

[D Inqu]

The teased screenshots imply a rework of the most underused feature in the game: star forts. The current ones are almost never worth building, so any changes are welcome.

 

[Riftwalker]

The teased screenshots imply a rework of the most underused feature in the game: star forts. The current ones are almost never worth building, so any changes are welcome.

yes, i can't wait til we get our hands on those hot deets.

feel like i gotta pay extra close attention to anytime they stream stellaris for a while. so many routes they can take.

 

[Hype]

It is, you're the one being fallacious. your personal position makes you using your own experiences ad hominems, these are called anecdotes. just because someone found something difficult, does not in fact make the operation of something difficult to an unreasonable degree.

one must try to argue from a non-personal point of view.

Good Day however, it was enjoyable.

What are you even talking about? How is anything I said fallacious?

seperate

I feel like mentioning if anyone continues this thread of thought.

I am only fighting arguments that it must be changed back, if your argument is that the previous is better, I personally don't care as this argument has no practical outcome. If you're arguing for a new system, I 'probably' have no issue with it.

my personal view is that there is no specific ordering that is better than any other ordering, so long as the list is in fact ordered.

and to those who have an issue with the change, should start putting planets in sectors when they're developing to separate them out as much as desired and then move them into more standard sectors later. this system lets you deal with bulk acquisitions better.

Are you seriously trying to say that ordering planets by order of colonization to you is an unordered list? I can understand if you personally don't like that ordering method but arguing that it is not an ordering method at all is insane.

 

[PedroLuiz]

yes, i can't wait til we get our hands on those hot deets.

feel like i gotta pay extra close attention to anytime they stream stellaris for a while. so many routes they can take.

you can just follow the group, there'll many posts about this

 

[Riftwalker]

What are you even talking about? How is anything I said fallacious?

i believe i quoted you in error. my apologies.

Are you seriously trying to say that ordering planets by order of colonization to you is an unordered list? I can understand if you personally don't like that ordering method but arguing that it is not an ordering method at all is insane.

if i put pancakes on a plate, are they 'organized'? if i just put planets in a list, are they 'organized'? other than being on a plate and in a list obviously.

 

[Hype]

i believe i quoted you in error. my apologies.



if i put pancakes on a plate, are they 'organized'? if i just put planets in a list, are they 'organized'? other than being on a plate and in a list obviously.

In this case, yes. The planets were ordered by order of colonization. If you put pancakes on a plate one on top of the other as you make them they are in fact organized by production. I don't understand how this is confusing.

 

[DeathSheep]

My understanding was that the change to "distance to capital" as the theoretical basis for ordering the planets in the Organizer was because the previous system didn't put planets in the same solar system next to each other, and could not be made to do so. That the planet list appears to be sorting by distance from galactic center in 1.8 and 1.8.1 is due to flawed implementation.

As for why they picked "distance to capital", well, it makes some sense if you assume that the habitable worlds closest to the homeworld are the first worlds to be colonized. Now, a lot of people don't do that, instead first colonizing the most distant habitable worlds they can afford to colonize, in order to maximize claimed territory, and then back-fill. So, sorting by distance to capital is perhaps less useful.

 

[Riftwalker]

In this case, yes. The planets were ordered by order of colonization. If you put pancakes on a plate one on top of the other as you make them they are in fact organized by production. I don't understand how this is confusing.

because I merely wanted to understand your definition of orginization. Under that definition I would say they are also organized.

This is why before I tried to say in relation to this, I wasn't arguing on semantics or orthological elements(please look up these words if they are new to you, so we can stop arguing about what organized means). I am saying before the list was merely created that way because it was required to by the state of it's being. while as now, it is being formatted with intention with a specific set of rules. This means, for me, they are adding architecture to organize the overview and thus is better than having just left it. even if it isn't to everyone's preference.

 

[Hype]

because I merely wanted to understand your definition of orginization. Under that definition I would say they are also organized.

This is why before I tried to say in relation to this, I wasn't arguing on semantics or orthological elements(please look up these words if they are new to you, so we can stop arguing about what organized means). I am saying before the list was merely created that way because it was required to by the state of it's being. while as now, it is being formatted with intention with a specific set of rules. This means, for me, they are adding architecture to organize the overview and thus is better than having just left it. even if it isn't to everyone's preference.

Yes, I understand those words and the fact that you're trying to use them to appear smart. It's irrelevant as the list as always been organized with intention. This isn't an organic construct but a man made data array. There is no state of being it always had an architecture. They aren't adding structure to something that had none before, they are changing an existing structure which has no bearing on whether the change is good or bad.

Once again, I don't know why this is hard to understand. I'm not going to respond to you further as I think you're being willfully ignorant.

 

[Esurnir]

Best of luck to QA. You’re my personal heroes right now. Keep up the fight!

 

[ISitOnGnomes]

Is this system even based on distance from capital? From my experience it is actually organized based on distance from the center of the galaxy, which is super confusing and not helpful most of the time.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

- Fixed an overflow error causing purged pops to produce massive amounts of resources

@Wiz, can I please get a clarification on this? Does this mean that the problem where pops being processed into food/energy producing ZERO resources has been fixed? This is the only thing in the patch notes that I could find about purged pops and resource output. This sounds like the opposite was happening but whenever I process pops, such as when playing a devouring swarm, the pops being eaten produce 0 food no matter what I do and actually use up my food for some reason. The same happens when I try to convert them into energy as a determined exterminator. The pops are being affected by unrest because they are being purged but that is the whole point, purge them into resources.

 

[Jorlem]

the old system currently still has no use, as you can now sector the planet, and have it build up and never have it use your core worlds at all.

With the old system, planets would remain in a consistent order, absent intentional player intervention by placing things in sectors. I used to set up my spaceports so that the first planet in the list, the capitol, was specialized for building corvettes, the second on the list for destroyers, and so on. The same was the case with remembering which planets had the army buildings. I could easily open up the interface for a planet and know what it was specced for without needing to double check, as the planet names are far more difficult to remember than a planet's place in the list. Now the order in the outliner is changed when a new planet is colonized, slowing me down by forcing me to hunt through the list for the planets specialized for certain things. It improves nothing beyond the old, simple, list appending method, and actively slows down my ability to do things with those planets by making me dig through the list to find a specific one.