[Dev Team] 4.0.22-Wilderness Open Beta 2025-07-08 Updated (checksum 26d5)

[Dlinktp]

Biotic dominion loses the bonuses from the advanced government form if you finish the demon box speed successfully. Re-adding the government through event fixes it. Slaves sometimes? Auto-migrate now, but they still don't show up an unemployed or even as civilians some of the time as well. I think it's related to chattel slavery.

 

[Miuramir]

We do have designs to investigate some ideas around Squadrons (groups of identical ships in a fleet would form together into larger units) and Armadas (fleets of fleets), but those will only be able to be looked at after we're able to stabilize more of the current systems.

A logical and interesting way to handle Admirals and Armadas is to have them work like planetary and sector governors: If a fleet has its own Admiral, it uses those bonuses; if not, it gets half the bonuses of the lead fleet's Admiral.

 

[hart30]

We should have automatic fleet behaviour, like AI handling borders patrolling, play whack a mole with AI empires and reclaiming outposts. Then players also will want more smaller fleets rather than one giant.

That would just be another massive lagmachine.

And the AI was incentiviced for a long time to spread out its fleets. Guess what happened - that made it easy for the player to beat even the most overwhelming AI by beating one AI fleet after another with their own fleet bundle.

Punishing the player from having too many fleets in a system would also be nonsense. All it would cause is further fleet spread of the ai - making it easy for a player that spreads their fleets in adhacent systems, and microing them all into a single system just for the battle. Lots of micro, lots of work - 0 achieved, except having made war unfun.

 

[MetalSaviour]

Another bug while playing the current beta: Selling a specimen from my grand archive causes a CTD. I've tried multiple times with different specimen. Trading a specimen to another empire also causes a CTD.

I have a new specimen that I want to activate but I can't make room for it. In addition to fixing this bug, can you please make it possible for us to more freely choose which specimen to put on display? Currently, we have to sell older specimen to make room for newer ones. Let us put specimen into storage (we might want to use them again later) and choose which specimen to replace them with.

I also just had that same problem.

 

[Thiend]

That would just be another massive lagmachine.

And the AI was incentiviced for a long time to spread out its fleets. Guess what happened - that made it easy for the player to beat even the most overwhelming AI by beating one AI fleet after another with their own fleet bundle.

Punishing the player from having too many fleets in a system would also be nonsense. All it would cause is further fleet spread of the ai - making it easy for a player that spreads their fleets in adhacent systems, and microing them all into a single system just for the battle. Lots of micro, lots of work - 0 achieved, except having made war unfun.

As I see it there are two options to making spreading out fleets an actually good idea. Three, if you count "don't."

1. Make stacking fleets worse. Debuffs, upkeep increases, hard system caps, etc. This will mostly entail making it micro-intensive to stack your fleets together, rather than impossible. You will either group your fleets together for the duration of combat or you will trickle fleets in to maintain optimal density. This is undesirable.

1.1. Area damage could be a very useful tool for combat design, but if it wasn't capped by total ships being hit it would be wildly overpowered so this isn't a useful solution to counter massing all fleets together.

2. Add incentives to spread out fleets. Valuable targets, guerilla warfare, flanking/ambush as more developed options, etc. This equally accomplishes getting fleets to a more spread out strategic deployment, but doesn't have the problem of loopholes making you just doomstack with more difficulty.

How feasible 2 is, I'm less confident of. But 1 is a very bad idea - doomstacking will still happen, it will just be effectively impossible for the AI to imitate and significantly more annoying to do, while still being optimal. Restrictions against doing the optimal thing are never good, you have to add other incentives that make it no longer definitely the optimal thing.

 

[AnCi420]

The AI is still maintaining a lot of small fleets even with the increased cap, didn't improve late game lag much for me (granted I have a succesful devouring swarm in my large galaxy that is happily munching its neighbours and that is constantly expanding and keeping up economy wise in 2345, nice to see that <3 [edit: the swarm managed to overwhelm a fallen empire, neat, that will be fun to squash ).

 

[yarpus]

Btw. I remember that there was a strong suspicion that it’s the Corporate Branch Offices that tank the performance. Was that ever confirmed?
Their calculations are quite complex. Trade Value bonuses that scale with Pops which now are more granular. Their outputs which scale wirh TV/BO Value.
Did anyone check that?

 

[AnCi420]

Btw. I remember that there was a strong suspicion that it’s the Corporate Branch Offices that tank the performance. Was that ever confirmed?
Their calculations are quite complex. Trade Value bonuses that scale with Pops which now are more granular. Their outputs which scale wirh TV/BO Value.
Did anyone check that?

Ah, that would explain my modest perf improvements, have a huge pesky criminal syndicate in my game. Guess it's world cracker time, hehehe.

 

[passeris]

Btw. I remember that there was a strong suspicion that it’s the Corporate Branch Offices that tank the performance. Was that ever confirmed?
Their calculations are quite complex. Trade Value bonuses that scale with Pops which now are more granular. Their outputs which scale wirh TV/BO Value.
Did anyone check that?

Couldn't you test this by just disabling Megacorp expansion?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

2. The Hedonist civic of Machine Empires causes exponential Pop growth: The Hedonist civic increases Pop growth speed based on existing Pops. While Organic growth becomes ineffective when exceeding Housing limits (which is normal), Machine Assembly is completely unaffected by Housing limits. Even on overcrowded planets, they can assemble Pops indefinitely. With the Hedonist civic, growth speed significantly increases after reaching a certain number of Pops, and more Pops grant even higher growth speed, ultimately enabling exponential Pop growth. Combined with the Materialist Monument / Synaptic Lathe / Citizen Education civic, Science output can even overflow into negative values.

This is not exponential growth unless you turn off Growth Required Scaling.

Your nominal growth is linear with the number of pops, and dp/dt=kp would indeed be exponential. But you don't get your nominal growth: growth required scaling multiplies everything by a term that's inversely proportional to p, so it goes back to just dp/dt=k, which is linear.

It is better than everyone else that gets dp/dt=k/p, which gives p=O(sqrt(t)) with default mechanics.

But machine/robot Hedonists aren't the only thing that does this: Budding and Polymelic follow exactly the same pattern.

There's also a trick that allows a Virtual-ascended empire to retain non-ascended regular pops. By combining Hedonists with the Super Lubrication civic, they achieve exponential population growth, then use Materialist and Egalitarian monuments to produce enormous amounts of research. If you check Chinese community guides, you'll see tons of these kinds of exploits producing ridiculous numbers.

Hyper Lubrication is the problem here, not the Hedonists.

Hedonists are just Budding and Polymelic that require you to waste your pops on bad jobs instead of real jobs in exchange for a higher base value.

Hyper Lubrication is what kicks growth into overdrive. The Hedonists just delay the slowdown substantially.

4. Virtual Ascension is overpowered: This version allows very fast acquisition of the 3rd Ascension Perk. Whether using the Genesis Ark civic, Curator civic pacts, or converting Trade Value to Unity, it's easy to amass huge Unity early for species ascension. Virtual Ascensionhed instantly fills all jobs. With few colonies, this provides unimaginable job efficiency. Its +80% Research Focused policy, plus the ability to complete the ascension very early, grants an unimaginable advantage. Additionally: during the Leviathan's Fury crisis stage of transferring Pops to the Leviathan, Virtual Pops instantly refill after being transferred, allowing planets to always operate at full population during transfers - this is absurdly broken.

Twas always thus, aside from the Behemoth thing.The timeline has just moved up by a bit.

Virtual is a power spike build, so the earlier you get it in any given patch, the more powerful it is.

 

[ArpoMo6]

I noticed one interesting feature. When playing in a borderless fullscreen, the performance is higher than in full-screen mode. Does anyone have the same... feature?

 

[spbyme]

This is not exponential growth unless you turn off Growth Required Scaling.

Your nominal growth is linear with the number of pops, and dp/dt=kp would indeed be exponential. But you don't get your nominal growth: growth required scaling multiplies everything by a term that's inversely proportional to p, so it goes back to just do/fp=k, which is linear.

It is better than everyone else that gets dp/dt=k/p, which gives p=O(sqrt(t)) with default mechanics.

But machine/robot Hedonists aren't the only thing that does this: Budding and Polymelic follow exactly the same pattern.


Hyper Lubrication is the problem here, not the Hedonists.

Hedonists are just Budding and Polymelic that require you to waste your pops on bad jobs instead of real jobs in exchange for a higher base value.

Hyper Lubrication is what kicks growth into overdrive. The Hedonists just delay the slowdown substantially.

Twas always thus, aside from the Behemoth thing.The timeline has just moved up by a bit.

Virtual is a power spike build, so the earlier you get it in any given patch, the more powerful it is.

You are right, this issue involves the differences between the two communities. The Chinese community prefers to set the scaling required for growth to zero, not just for playing more enjoyably, but also because things like "having a large population on Earth making the birth rate on Mars lower" are utterly absurd. However, I won't discuss this further, as debates about cultural differences between the two communities are pointless and meaningless.

The only justification I can give for nerfing the "Hedonist" civic is: I've never seen a civic that becomes outright broken under specific settings. But I'll stop this contentious discussion here - the bigger issues are Virtual Ascension and MegaCorporation branch buildings, since these two provide game-breaking advantages and ridiculous scaling under any settings. Even with default starts, the Chinese community can generate infinite early-game resources via Virtual Ascension and MegaCorp branches, while finishing entire techs in one month.

 

[spbyme]

This is not exponential growth unless you turn off Growth Required Scaling.

Your nominal growth is linear with the number of pops, and dp/dt=kp would indeed be exponential. But you don't get your nominal growth: growth required scaling multiplies everything by a term that's inversely proportional to p, so it goes back to just dp/dt=k, which is linear.

It is better than everyone else that gets dp/dt=k/p, which gives p=O(sqrt(t)) with default mechanics.

But machine/robot Hedonists aren't the only thing that does this: Budding and Polymelic follow exactly the same pattern.


Hyper Lubrication is the problem here, not the Hedonists.

Hedonists are just Budding and Polymelic that require you to waste your pops on bad jobs instead of real jobs in exchange for a higher base value.

Hyper Lubrication is what kicks growth into overdrive. The Hedonists just delay the slowdown substantially.

Twas always thus, aside from the Behemoth thing.The timeline has just moved up by a bit.

Virtual is a power spike build, so the earlier you get it in any given patch, the more powerful it is.

Additionally, I must point out that under our premise of zero growth requirements, the massive population growth brought by Hedonists can generate unimaginable resources. Your understanding of population is limited to the notion that they must work in jobs to produce benefits. However, the Chinese community has already developed numerous methods to make these unemployed populations generate substantial resources, and these gameplay approaches have been fully explored. Examples include the Gene Ascension's Purity branch with MegaCorp advanced government forms, the Toxic Knights' retinues, the Materialist-Egalitarian monuments (which produce outrageous numbers when population is high), not to mention how MegaCorp branch buildings can create insane trade bonuses based on population numbers.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

You are right, this issue involves the differences between the two communities. The Chinese community prefers to set the scaling required for growth to zero, not just for playing more enjoyably, but also because things like "having a large population on Earth making the birth rate on Mars lower" are utterly absurd. However, I won't discuss this further, as debates about cultural differences between the two communities are pointless and meaningless.

The only justification I can give for nerfing the "Hedonist" civic is: I've never seen a civic that becomes outright broken under specific settings.

No, it's not meaningless.

If they always turn off GRS, then exponential growth has been in the game since Plantoids, and this complaint is about absolutely nothing.

Hedonists is just Polymelic (if you have 500 Roboticists making base assembly). 0.005*5*2=0.05, which is exactly what Polymelic gives.

Squires, with 0.2 assembly per 100 jobs, scaling with efficiency, and providing a full 5 researchers of output (by buffing Knights) instead of Hedonists' piddly yields, is much more concerning.

But I'll stop this contentious discussion here - the bigger issues are Virtual Ascension and MegaCorporation branch buildings, since these two provide game-breaking advantages and ridiculous scaling under any settings. Even with default starts, the Chinese community can generate infinite early-game resources via Virtual Ascension and MegaCorp branches, while finishing entire techs in one month.

Agreed. And Knights.

And also Synth megacorp, which gets output that scales quadratically with civilians and can also have Hedonists, so it gets even better scaling than your example (but can't jumpstart it with Hyper Lubrication Basins).

And, of course, Synth megacorp Knights, which combine it all into one ultra-broken combo.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Additionally, I must point out that under our premise of zero growth requirements, the massive population growth brought by Hedonists can generate unimaginable resources. Your understanding of population is limited to the notion that they must work in jobs to produce benefits. However, the Chinese community has already developed numerous methods to make these unemployed populations generate substantial resources, and these gameplay approaches have been fully explored. Examples include the Gene Ascension's Purity branch with MegaCorp advanced government forms, the Toxic Knights' retinues, the Materialist-Egalitarian monuments (which produce outrageous numbers when population is high), not to mention how MegaCorp branch buildings can create insane trade bonuses based on population numbers.

Hedonists are jobs. They're just jobs that are roughly as productive as a clerk.

Stop stating how my understanding is limited because you're under the mistaken impression that you have secret knowledge.

Every community is well aware of the ability to make excessive resources through Civilians.

If you think the options you are presenting are the best that can be done in the game (which is still quite broken around the edges), I can assure you that you have not "fully explored" them.

 

[spbyme]

Hedonists are jobs. They're just jobs that are roughly as productive as a clerk.

Stop stating how my understanding is limited because you're under the mistaken impression that you have secret knowledge.

Every community is well aware of the ability to make excessive resources through Civilians.

If you think the options you are presenting are the best that can be done in the game (which is still quite broken around the edges), I can assure you that you have not "fully explored" them.

Apologies, it might be due to unclear wording in ChatGPT's translation - I may have misunderstood your point. Your understanding of the game is actually quite profound. I mistakenly thought you had misconceptions, and I apologize for my previous response to you.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Apologies, it might be due to unclear wording in ChatGPT's translation - I may have misunderstood your point. Your understanding of the game is actually quite profound. I mistakenly thought you had misconceptions, and I apologize for my previous response to you.

I forgot you were translating.

Sorry, I was putting too much weight on specific word choice, in that case, and shouldn't have taken offense where likely none was intended.

 

[Sweeze]

Heh, I suspected that the # of fleets might have contributed a lot to lag. Do we have any numbers on just how much better things area now?

 

[Cedar Oak]

Thanks for the espionage bugfix!

I have tried using espionage to collect many species across the galaxy to use as livestock as a Evolutionary Predator hivemind but it proved to be ineffective; non-hiveminded pops are not allowed to develop in the empire (their population remains static) and hiveminded pops cannot be livestock, although using a part of itself as livestock would probably be in a hivemind's territory, provided that they are nerve stapled (thus effectively "numbed" from the hivemind). On the plus side it does give some new species in the empire for the situation.

 

[Dr Pippy]

What I do think is wrong with fleet combat in Stellaris is mono fleets having such superiority. I think this could be partially corrected by limiting the load outs of hull sizes a lot more, literally you get two choices of what it will be and nothing more, and fleet composition rules enforced by numbers.

Example of fleet composition rule. While each hull type has a point value it could also be assessed a fleet percentage value. The percentage value would update throughout the game as the number of hull types increases. Early on you would be allowed 100% of a fleets composition to be Corvettes/Frigates. By the time Battleships are available the limit is down to fifty percent with battleships and cruisers limited to a third. What happens when exceed the limit, the command cost is doubled beyond. So if your fleet has only Corvettes and you have sixty fleet size, the first 30 cost normal but the next 30 command points only slot in 15 corvettes because they cost double. Battleships, well they start out at eight points so that you could squeeze 4 into that sixty fleet size without penalty but any more cost 16 each which means you cannot do but 5 of them (32+16 leaving 12 points which is not enough for another)

If I felt strongly that monofleets were a problem, I would probably want to fix them by rewarding players for mixing ship types, rather than penalizing or forbidding the use of a single ship type.

One approach would be a stacking buff to the fleet produced by each type of ship, up to some limit (say, 64 command points worth of ships, so you'd cap it at 8 battleships, or 16 cruisers, etc.). The buffs might be something like this:

• Swarm Optimization: +0.15% evasion per corvette in the fleet (max of +9.6%)
• Advanced Reconnaissance: +0.3% tracking per destroyer (max of 9.6%)
• Combat Support Algorithms: +0.03% hull and armor repair per day (max of 0.48%)
• Destruction Protocols: +2.5% ship damage (multiplicative with other modifiers, max 20%) and +10% orbital bombardment damage (max 80%) per battleship.

I don't think these buffs or these numbers are necessarily the right one, but they're the kind of things that would give you a significant incentive to build some of each type of ship.