Stellaris 3.99.3 'Phoenix' Open Beta Release Notes

[Anry de Kornelle]

there was an interesting idea a long time ago, maybe it is bad or pointless. why don't we have civilian ships? which would be used to travel from planet to planet in order to migrate and trade?

life has turned out in such a way that now I don't understand how it is possible to create an army out of thin air, because it turns out that all sorts of specialists and workers are spent on creating an army, which the state is more likely to lose forever. and the greater the loss of troops in the war, the more the economy and social life suffers due to the absence of these people, because you will have to lose another batch of specialists that the economy really needs, so that they die again during the assault on another star base

also the population expenditure on troops will reduce the load on productivity, because after a good war there will be no fatigue but the irreversible absence of a large chunk of the population that loads the computer, and so after every war

 

[Troyen]

I said "Have 1000 Alloys" is a fine empire task, but I've changed my mind a little bit. It's okay, but it could be better.

The issue is you want to be using your alloys early game on expansion or fleet buildup to grow your empire. You should actually not be banking alloys for an Empire Focus and these tasks really should be guiding players rather than giving them a choice between doing something meaningful (build an outpost) or earning 30 shiny Empire Focus points. While things later in the game cost 1000+ Alloys to build so you'd likely complete this task eventually, this is a Tier 1 starting task.

I think it would be better to change to "Produce 1000 Total Alloys"* (or maybe 2000) and exclude alloys gained from the market, trade, or events. Yes, this task will auto-complete if you do almost nothing, but if you want to complete it faster for your shiny Empire Focus points, you are now incentivized to increase your Alloy Income rather than hoard alloys. That changes this task and similar tasks from something that might actually be detrimental in a game to something you really want new players doing as they stare at the top bar with a dozen resources and try to figure out which ones are important to focus on.

* The phrasing here is tricky, I don't mean 1000 monthly income, I mean since the task became available you have earned 1000 alloys from jobs, planetary features, or mining stations, regardless of whether you then spent them.

 

[Calvax]

4. The game on Normal speed appears to run slower than on live. On my 5800 3XD it's about 12 seconds to go a month at normal speed, whereas normal zips by on 3.14. I'll try and get comparison numbers but I have to wait until I'm done with the beta to revert

I agree with a lot of your points in this post but just to comment on this one: the devs have stated the beta is not optimised. It’s being kept in an unoptimised state for quicker fixes. So we shouldn’t expect to see any performance improvements until closer to the release.

Though anecdotally I’ve found the game tends to run faster due to most AI empires collapsing (AI updates for 4.0 also aren’t in).

 

[NorseGod]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but planetary invaion is completely borked, does not work at all. Armies are effectively useless ATM.

 

[Juboboman]

I said "Have 1000 Alloys" is a fine empire task, but I've changed my mind a little bit. It's okay, but it could be better.

The issue is you want to be using your alloys early game on expansion or fleet buildup to grow your empire. You should actually not be banking alloys for an Empire Focus and these tasks really should be guiding players rather than giving them a choice between doing something meaningful (build an outpost) or earning 30 shiny Empire Focus points. While things later in the game cost 1000+ Alloys to build so you'd likely complete this task eventually, this is a Tier 1 starting task.

I think it would be better to change to "Produce 1000 Total Alloys"* (or maybe 2000) and exclude alloys gained from the market, trade, or events. Yes, this task will auto-complete if you do almost nothing, but if you want to complete it faster for your shiny Empire Focus points, you are now incentivized to increase your Alloy Income rather than hoard alloys. That changes this task and similar tasks from something that might actually be detrimental in a game to something you really want new players doing as they stare at the top bar with a dozen resources and try to figure out which ones are important to focus on.

* The phrasing here is tricky, I don't mean 1000 monthly income, I mean since the task became available you have earned 1000 alloys from jobs, planetary features, or mining stations, regardless of whether you then spent them.

Which is precisely why I thought from the start the focus system was a terrible mismatch for a game like Stellaris. Not only does it streamline every game into the same openings and tech paths as opposed to rng leading to innovation and emergent stories, but it inevitable goes a step further and leads to players warping their original plans around what the developers have decided is their desired and therefore rewarded path.

Protestations about new player helpfulness aside, it was obviously made to smooth out the in house MP sessions the dev team is so fond of. It's just a shame the other 99% of SP players have to suffer as a result of it.

 

[Cry_Havok]

Which is precisely why I thought from the start the focus system was a terrible mismatch for a game like Stellaris. Not only does it streamline every game into the same openings and tech paths as opposed to rng leading to innovation and emergent stories, but it inevitable goes a step further and leads to players warping their original plans around what the developers have decided is their desired and therefore rewarded path.

Protestations about new player helpfulness aside, it was obviously made to smooth out the in house MP sessions the dev team is so fond of. It's just a shame the other 99% of SP players have to suffer as a result of it.

You can just not do the tasks. But if you play a lot of Stellaris you will have had games go absolutely scuffy because key techs just REFUSE to draw. Having access to some of the key resources/techs rather than not getting them until mid game is a good thing.

 

[Newbee53]

there was an interesting idea a long time ago, maybe it is bad or pointless. why don't we have civilian ships? which would be used to travel from planet to planet in order to migrate and trade?

because the game would need to render them and calculate pathing, and no one wants that much extra work for something purely cosmetic.

life has turned out in such a way that now I don't understand how it is possible to create an army out of thin air, because it turns out that all sorts of specialists and workers are spent on creating an army, which the state is more likely to lose forever. and the greater the loss of troops in the war, the more the economy and social life suffers due to the absence of these people, because you will have to lose another batch of specialists that the economy really needs, so that they die again during the assault on another star base

Ground combat has been stated too not be getting a rework on multiple occasions. Thus armies are proofed into existence because they are needed, not because of any other reason.

On the lore side, you could just say that 'modern' technology has rendered the number of troops in an army small enough that it doesn't add up to a single pop in costs.

While things later in the game cost 1000+ Alloys to build so you'd likely complete this task eventually, this is a Tier 1 starting task.

which is a better fix. at tier 1, a task for 250+ alloys would work nicely, as I tend to build my corvettes around that point--easier to keep enough alloys for outposts--1000 alloys work for a tier 2. After all, you can get a situation to build the museum thing right at the start. Plus, it's not that big of a hurdle with a little planning.

Not sure if it was mentioned, but planetary invaion is completely borked, does not work at all. Armies are effectively useless ATM.

Yes, the very first release of the beta was said to not have ground invasions. something they've don made it so defensive armies don't work.

Which is precisely why I thought from the start the focus system was a terrible mismatch for a game like Stellaris. Not only does it streamline every game into the same openings and tech paths as opposed to rng leading to innovation and emergent stories, but it inevitable goes a step further and leads to players warping their original plans around what the developers have decided is their desired and therefore rewarded path.

Protestations about new player helpfulness aside, it was obviously made to smooth out the in house MP sessions the dev team is so fond of. It's just a shame the other 99% of SP players have to suffer as a result of it.

As a single player only player, I fail to see how the implementation of the focus system in anyway cause a problem for me. When I've have made suggestions surrounding it, its enterally for new players. I don't have any issue with the research rewards or anything like that at the moment ether. Especially as enterally with the system is enterally voluntary, and I always have some saved research options form something anyways.

As a result, I fail to see what problem the focus system introduces that is an actual gameplay problem and can't be fixed through proper balance. In this case, I think the alloy problem is to just move it a few decades from game start. 30-40 years in is further down than necessary, but probably a good placement.

 

[Troyen]

Why do I get new leader trait notifications after I pick the trait? These should be for auto-trait pick leaders, not manually picked leaders. (I know I can turn it off, but this is the default.)

Sequence is: leader level up notification -> select new trait for leader -> new leader trait notification + new trait toast (together).

The last bit is redundant.

 

[CaptainJaguarShark]

Has anyone seen these empty pops? Only one species is in my empire (fungoid, extremely adaptive, unruly, continental). I'm guessing more likely related to the weirder origin I'm trying (Fruitful Partnership).

 

[Newbee53]

Another entry in the saga of 'pops not working open jobs.' This time we have 6 unemployed specialists and open bureaucrat jobs. Also, the unemployed specialists go up and down like pop growth/demotion was taking place. I have harmony and the demotion time reduction traditions.

another planet has the same problem with entertainers, and my worker only colony is doing everything right while my empire capital has all jobs full and appears to be experiencing slight demotion.

 

[vulcan7200]

After a bit more playing with Habitats and some other new features now:

I'm not sure why the 3rd Zone for your starting Habitat requires the Advanced Habitat Tech. Being locked out of your 3rd Zone for such a long time is a big deal considering how important they are. I could see maybe utilizing it for the second and third habitat, though I would argue it's still a much later tech than the Colonization Techs required for normal planets.

I think Consumer Goods and Alloys are actually TOO plentiful now. Once I have an Industrial Zone up, I'm sitting at +30 something Consumer Goods (While on Social Welfare) and +28 Alloys, with only 4 City Districts built at year 20. While this was obviously possible before, the way Zones work means I didn't even try for this. I just happened to stumble into a massive surplus by building a Zone that I think most people would intuitively pick.

I like the Eternal Vigilance auto-building Defense Platforms for me, however it's logic needs to be addressed. It looks like it just randomly picks one, and builds only that Defense Platform even if you have other designs so one of my Bastions ended up with 20 Point Defense Platforms, while another Bastion had 20 Light Station Defense Platforms. I also wonder if this might be a bit too powerful early game. Since you go through Unyielding AND the Eternal Vigilance Ascension Perk to get the Policy, I ended up with a 12k Fleet Power Star Base on year 2221 that I never had to do any management to get to that point. The AI is not getting through a 12k Star Base 20 years into the game.

 

[Troyen]

Some more thoughts:

11. The colonizing planet window has some overlapping UI elements. I'm sure this is WIP, just letting you know if you weren't already.

12. The tooltip on the "Expand the Council" agenda is a bit over-aggressive at preventing spoilers.

13. The nested tooltip system should be including building details. A new player would want to know what an "Orbital Filing System" (or any other module/building unlocks) actually does.

Some of them are missing effects entirely. The main point of Hyperlane Breach Points is actually the upgraded Hyperdrive, but that's not listed at all:

Also, this is supposed to be a Tier 4 reward but apparently the UNE starts with it as a guaranteed research option already? It shows up on my Physics Tech options. What happens if we research this before unlocking the reward? Do we get stored science?

BTW, I'm still Expansion focus 13 years into the game and 4 out of 5 of my Empire Focus tasks are Combat-oriented. The Focus Task category weighting is off. (I do appreciate it retroactively giving me credit for something I did before the task popped up.) I'm at 40/50 Exploration progress but can't really continue unless I burn my unity rerolling tasks or dumping alloys on these combat tasks that I'm in no rush to complete (apparently no neighboring empires on default galaxy settings).

14. I think the Empire Size pop contribution is busted. Looks like it's dividing the total pops in my empire by 100 for the display, but the formula is also using a fraction of the expected value. On live, 61 pops would be +61 size pre-modifiers. Here I'm at 0.2.

15. It was not obvious at all that to modify my planet's existing zones I would need to click on "City District" instead of the zone I want to replace.

16. The City Zone slots ask me to add a new zone even when I can't afford it.

17. The Timeline looks like it has way more room to display stuff than it does. This screenshot was taken after I completed a first contact in 2205, but I have to click the arrow to see it. Zoom buttons don't seem to do anything?

Also, I think "held elections" should tell me who won the election.

18. Speaking of First Contact, there was a one-option pop-up event telling me about it, then clicking OK didn't open the First Contact screen. It just unpaused the game, and there's no notification on the top bar anymore. I had to click on the blue First Contact icon around the system to actually assign my envoy (which I only knew to do because I've played before).

19. Is there a way to move buildings between zones? You can build whatever you want seemingly in the Capital and Urban districts, so I put my first Research Lab in the capital district to keep my zone options available (I built a separate building instead of replacing the basic lab to see if the +20% applied to basic researchers, which it seems to). Then when I later decided to get a Research Zone, I couldn't put anything in it because the lab buildings are Planet Limit: 1. I'd have to demolish and rebuild my two lab structures.

20. I can't see how many pops are in each strata without expanding the strata. This is especially important for Civilians which currently don't show up cleanly elsewhere on the UI. Unfortunately, this section auto-collapses every time you navigate away from the tab.

There technically is a tooltip if you hover over the "available jobs" number on the summary screen, and I think the number of Civilians there is accurate, though it lists a bunch of other jobs I don't actually have (like "Hunter-Gatherer: 0", twice). I also found this tooltip by accident; I wasn't thinking to check there.

21. I don't know what to do with Energy anymore, since it's not used for trade. I haven't built any Generator Districts aside from the start and I'm already halfway to the storage cap. It seems like for organics, Energy has lost a lot of value. Yeah, it's there for ship and building upkeep, but it's way easier to find space energy than it is to spend it in the early game, which is a marked shift from before.

(Yes, you can trade it away, but I don't like mass trading for resources on live - a resource only good to sell on the market is a resource lacking a good gameplay purpose - and I don't like losing out on the 30% fee twice if I can avoid it.)

This may be different for machines, but gestalts are stated as not ready yet.

22. Colonization seemed to be quick, at least in the early game. I didn't overbuild my capital after reading this thread and it seems my two guaranteeds colonized in about the same time it'd take early-game on live. Since accurate pop growth numbers aren't visible, I can't actually tell how well pushing to the colonies is doing vs on-colony pop-growth. I am using "Colony Designation" for both colonies despite being able to pick others because I was hoping to disperse more people off the Capital, but my Capital still appears to be outgrowing migration.

23. I don't know if the Expansion Tradition's +100 pops actually applied. I don't think I got them, or if I did, not sure if they spawned on the capital or something. They certainly didn't appear on my colony.

24. It's early but getting a bunch of "your leader hit level 3" notifications without getting the trait pick kinda was disappointing. The bonus pick option we got at level 2 didn't seem to help much for my Ruler who barely had any council trait options (is this a Democracy thing?).

25. I remember seeing the notification for an election, but not one with the outcome of the election. Did this get changed to a toast or did I just miss it?

 

[boring_pilot]

3.993: Still having a lot of trouble growing planet economies -- too many things seems not to work. I build a research zone and put a research building in it, and then watch over time as my total research slowly declines! It is still hard for me to discern between 1) a misunderstanding of the new planet economy mechanics and 2) a bug (or unimplemented/partially implemented feature, and 3) a poorly designed game change.
By the way, I thought "Remnants" origins were supposed to start with an Archaeostudies building...? Not in beta, or broken?
Anyhow, it has been difficult to advance far enough in the game to try various things.
Timeline: Well, so-so, ok... Something that would be useful would be a log of all the dialogs in the past month/year, so one could read things that got missed or accidently dismissed.
Focus: Holding out carrots feels like a tutorial, and seems like a gratuitous interference of the game authors into a supposedly open-ended simulation. Leaning things via the focus for an empire could be a good idea, but tweaking probabilities would be better that made-up goals.

The big thing though is that the planet pages are a mess. I have to tab through multiple panes on a single planet to even get an overview. In the late game, with many dozens of planets, this will be a nightmare, and NO FUN!
Population groups vs. jobs, vs. districts, vs. zones, vs. buildings, vs. development steps, vs. jobs, vs. skill tiers, vs. job types.... I don't get it. It doesn't seem to work well, and the connections between player actions and the consequences are non-intuitive. It feels very Kludegy and awkward, and the incomplete UI for it doesn't help. I feel like I am looking at a debug dump of algorithm internals, rather than a control panel for managing a planetary economy.

[Stepping off soap box...] Thanks for presenting the beta, sorry so many things are wrong.

 

[Mole204]

Another big shrug of a analysis, because I started a new game. It might be going better gold-wise. I guess the planets are working alright? The economy stabilized when I got a factory row to build a conveniences factory on. Why arn't we allowed to build several of them in a row? What is the point of such a limitation?
Why intentionally make things difficult? That does not mean "more invested" or "more interested." It means "poorly built, in need of correction".
I hope the fact that I have not encountered big problems means that the problems are at least smaller now, not just farther away.

 

[joe876]

Thank you for clarifying this!

Overall, the goals seem well-intentioned, but I struggle to see where we were unable to customize planet outputs via buildings before.

Why wouldn’t it be possible to provide more unique buildings or swap districts to create unique planets in the old system? This seems like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The system has become much less clear. Previously, all buildable types provided defined jobs or benefits; now it’s opaque how a new city district scales jobs based on zones (even if less harsh than before).

I think the idea of streamlining interactions between districts, zones, and buildings is neat—each level should add meaning, with none existing without the others. However, these changes seem convoluted and implemented just for the sake of change. If we expanded the previous system with more district slots and additional ways to modify districts (and perhaps connected buildings to districts), it would be more engaging. The slot limitations of the new urban zones and the heavy-handed scaling of jobs via district levels remove customization and granular economic planning, ultimately reducing the meaningful decisions players used to make with free building slots.

Sid Meier famously said, "A game is a series of interesting decisions." The new system seems to take away elements of that, atleast for me.

I think keeping an industrial district and having consumer goods and metallurgist jobs there would fix this mostly.

The building limitation does feel rather strange. Not sure why building slots need to be tied to zones anyway, if they only are supposed to add bonuses then it’s just a visual benefit tying them together. Having the 8 existing slots or some variation would’ve worked fine too.

Definitely interesting to see how far planetary features can impact zones though. Hypothetically you can now have eccuminopolli with under cities zones or something. Or ranger zones or imperial zones or federation zones. Could be interesting.

 

[KatKombat]

Why were Hydroponics Farms buildings changed to increase farmer output rather than add farmer jobs? I thought the point of the building was to give you a way to feed your pops even when you didn't get enough farming districts on your planets.

Should be Food Processing Plants that improve farmer efficiency.

 

[Gallyx]

Its extremely hard to keep some jobs filled, people are rather staying unemployed rather than going fishing it seems. (Yes I tried putting anglers on priority)

 

[The Founder]

"Empire-wide Amenities" are just Consumer Goods. That's sort of the function they provide in game. The whole point of amenities is that they're a non-transportable resource.

One of the tech's actually grants "Networked Amenities" which is just a -10% to amenities need.

Except CG aren't related to Amenities at all.

Living Standards don't affect amenities use (usually). Nor can you use them to boost Amenities in a place that lacks them.
Having a bit of a "Global Pool" would help not needing to produce all of them locally every time.

there was an interesting idea a long time ago, maybe it is bad or pointless. why don't we have civilian ships? which would be used to travel from planet to planet in order to migrate and trade?

We just got rid of Pathfinding load of having to calculate trade routes. You want to add the load back, dailed up to 11 and add ships to simulate?

Whatever tradeoff Distant Worlds picked to do that, Stellaris didn't pick the same ones.

Also, this is supposed to be a Tier 4 reward but apparently the UNE starts with it as a guaranteed research option already? It shows up on my Physics Tech options. What happens if we research this before unlocking the reward? Do we get stored science?

Those are research options, nothing more. If you already have them, you get nothing.

Its extremely hard to keep some jobs filled, people are rather staying unemployed rather than going fishing it seems. (Yes I tried putting anglers on priority)

Priority does't work, which is well know.
And that job bug was introduced with 3.99.3.

 

[CaptainJaguarShark]

I want the building slots in zones to be free to build whatever building I want but I also want an encouragement to build the buildings in their appropriate zone. Maybe a synergy bonus that gives something extra when building and zone align but that isn't big enough to make it feel like it's required to build it in that zone.

Also, please let us move buildings. Often there's something in the government zone that you'd like to move to a zone built after you've unlocked an extra zone, like a research lab to a research zone, or administrative/temple to a unity zone. You can demolish and rebuild but then you're losing what those jobs were doing for a while and likely having worse unemployment on that planet for a bit.

 

[Critical Ethics]

Except CG aren't related to Amenities at all.

They mean they serve the same thematic function.