Stellaris 3.99.4 'Phoenix' Open Beta Release Notes

[HFY]

Just as a note - we did actually have Urban Zones in the design from the start, they're not a "half measure" reaction to desire for more generic building slots.

I mentioned them in the original dev diary.

I like the idea of general vs. specific in the same slots.

For example, the bottom districts could be combined into a single "Local Production" district set which produces Minerals & Energy. Add a building and it produces Food, too. But it's limited to 3 building slots, so when you want more efficient Minerals / Energy / Food then you want to swap it out for a specialized district type.

That would leave you with two extra District slots to specialize a colony.

For a Rural colony the specialization would be Mining / Generator / Agriculture -- just as we have now -- so there's nothing lost. You wouldn't lose access to those three district types. They just wouldn't be forced into every colony.

 

[FPSCanarussia]

What are the problems with this idea? Am I missing something completely?

I don't understand what issue you are trying to solve.

 

[Skeletr0nKing]

Could we get the active numbers of pops working each job inside the icon? That way you could see how many pops are working each thing without having to open the tab, and then you only do open the tab if you want to open up close jobs, everything else you can get just from the small icon.

Additionally, could we get the subtotals under the job and above unemployed figures? That way we could quickly tell how many total working pops we have vs unemployed at a glance.

 

[NorseGod]

I don't understand what issue you are trying to solve.

Buildings being stuck inside Zones creates a whole bunch of fiddliness in the mid-end game. I've tried playing with 5x Habitable Worlds to see how this system runs when you have a big empire, and it rapidly becomes a big mess.

As I said, it's starting to become a similar issue as the old "Pops on Tiles" micromanagment issue from Stellaris 1.0.

 

[Newbee53]

So. I think pop demotion is working right now. Which is great. Now the problem is mostly a UI problem that is driving me nuts. I am aware--however--that the UI time probably hasn't gotten to this point yet.

Can we please, please get the unemployment icon remeoved when our number of unemployed is bellow some useful number? 50, 100, 500. something.

On a more interesting note, why do we start with 100 unemployed workers if they are going to demote before we care to build more worker jobs?

 

[Oimes]

I'm starting to seriously think that Urban District should be split into three:
- Residential zone offering virtually no/little benefits but accounting for 90% housing.
- Industrial responsible for processed raw materials.
- White-collar District - with laboratories, genetic clinics etc.

At the moment, there is too much crammed under one banner.

Even though I see great potential in the new system, a month to refine it and take into account the community's comments is definitely not enough.
I'm not even sure if it will be possible to just fix bugs in that time without implementing any community-suggested fixes or changes.

 

[user192823]

Urban districts increasing jobs from all zones equally does indeed feel bad. My suggestion: building urban districts grants sort of points, call them "development points", "infrastructure allocation" or whatever, that you then throw around the zones you selected to increase the jobs they provide. It already in practice works like that: you build a new urban district and cut down on unwanted jobs, but a point allocation would be more coherent. A zone's building slots could also be tied to an investment of these points. It would kinda remind of galciv2, where you threw around a planet's production between research, military production or industry.

 

[Deshiba]

Employment feels much better now. No more weird unemployed people not taking free jobs.

Catalytic processing not working sadly

Getting unity and science feels really really rough

 

[tappi]

So quick note for anyone trying out ecumenopoli; when the encasing is done, it'll delete every zone and building on that planet. Not unrecoverable but be aware.

Hope this gets fixed at some point.

 

[Nithralder]

Feedback on Planetary UI – Suggestion for Improved District Layout

Current Issues with the Planetary UI and why I Dislike it

1. Each district card is compressed to fit within the box, making visual elements appear cramped or truncated.

2. The visual hierarchy becomes confusing, as some districts are placed in non-intuitive positions (e.g., Mining in the center, Agriculture on the far right).

3. It creates a visually uneven balance

Suggested Improvement:​

Rearranging the Districts into a vertical stack on the left-hand side of the planetary screen would offer several benefits:

• Provides each district panel with ample space to clearly display icons, tooltips, progress bars, and upgrades.
• Enhances readability and UX by following a natural top-to-bottom workflow
• Frees up horizontal space for additional planetary information, buildings, production stats, or future UI expansions.
  
  
  Example
  
  (UI Should be Like this instead of trying to squeeze everything in which causes confusion)
  
  
  
  
  All Districts Listed in a Vertical Alignment
  
  
  
  
  

• Additional Feature Suggestion: Fullscreen Mode Option For Planetary UI​

  
  Currently, the Planetary UI is compact, which works well for maintaining visual awareness of the galaxy view. I believe this is worth keeping—but alongside it, I'd like to suggest the introduction of a Fullscreen Mode for the Planetary UI, toggleable by the player. Here’s how it could enhance functionality:
  • Fullscreen Mode would expand the UI to occupy most or all of the screen, allowing for:
    • Enhanced Databank Integration – Display more detailed building information, breakdowns, and tooltips.
    • Strategic Suggestions – Context-sensitive advice for new players, such as optimal builds based on selected economic, military, or scientific strategies.
    • Player-Created Guides – Similar to Dota 2’s Hero Build system, players could create and share planetary build plans (e.g., Forge World, Agri-World setups) with others.
• 
  This would greatly benefit:
  • New players, by offering in-game guidance and community-created templates.
  • Experienced players, by streamlining deep planetary specialization without needing external tools or memory.
• 
  Fullscreen Mode for the Planetary UI could be optional, with players able to switch between Compact Mode (default) and Fullscreen Mode depending on preference or situation.
  
  
  AI Generated Mockup Of Full Screen Planetary UI Mode
  
  Example 1
  
  
  
  
  Example 2
  
  

 

[Newbee53]

Urban districts increasing jobs from all zones equally does indeed feel bad. My suggestion: building urban districts grants sort of points, call them "development points", "infrastructure allocation" or whatever, that you then throw around the zones you selected to increase the jobs they provide. It already in practice works like that: you build a new urban district and cut down on unwanted jobs, but a point allocation would be more coherent. A zone's building slots could also be tied to an investment of these points. It would kinda remind of galciv2, where you threw around a planet's production between research, military production or industry.

I don't know about point allocation. mainly because it seems prone to a frustrating need to develop a lot. Like, I need to upgrade my CG right now, but in a year or two I want the other districts to catch up. Whats the best solution that isn't, tear down the cities and build them again. That would be annoying.

The next thing is, what happens if you replace a zone? do all the point reset? are you forced to deal with the point put into that slot? are you required to just 'deal' with he old points? Not a deal breaker, but definitely a lot of design work needs to be done.

Employment feels much better now. No more weird unemployed people not taking free jobs.

Catalytic processing not working sadly
View attachment 1271587

Getting unity and science feels really really rough

I guess catalytic processing is not complete. I thought I heard it worked with the alloy zone, not the mixed one though. Maybe check?

I've found the best choice is to go unity first, as you do get science from space. Let your first research labs be on a colony. getting both is rough, getting just one isn't that bad most of the time.

 

[tsr-aph]

I've seen a few comments in here, but I'll add my voice to the choir saying that the urban zones don't feel great. Especially because right now, you can upgrade that zone, and all of the extra jobs you gained suddenly suck manpower out of your worker-tier jobs, which can wreck your entire economy. It's also really hard to balance amenities, unity, research, alloys, and consumer goods. It feels like every planet needs to have the amenities zone on it, especially when you get to higher population numbers, but then you need to build the consumer goods-producing zone to ensure that you have enough as your planet scales, and you only have one option of zone left.

So far, I have never found it viable to build a trade zone, you can't afford a research zone until you have 10+ planets IMO, similar for unity. This might be working as intended, but it feels very un-fun to basically have a meta-build that applies to every planey.

 

[Newbee53]

I've seen a few comments in here, but I'll add my voice to the choir saying that the urban zones don't feel great. Especially because right now, you can upgrade that zone, and all of the extra jobs you gained suddenly suck manpower out of your worker-tier jobs, which can wreck your entire economy. It's also really hard to balance amenities, unity, research, alloys, and consumer goods. It feels like every planet needs to have the amenities zone on it, especially when you get to higher population numbers, but then you need to build the consumer goods-producing zone to ensure that you have enough as your planet scales, and you only have one option of zone left.

So far, I have never found it viable to build a trade zone, you can't afford a research zone until you have 10+ planets IMO, similar for unity. This might be working as intended, but it feels very un-fun to basically have a meta-build that applies to every planey.

The sudden jump in jobs isn't as big of a deal, unless you don't have any civilians left on your planet. Which you really should have plenty on large urban worlds anyways. If for no other reason

An industrial zone is keeping me at +16 with Utopia Abondance running right now. No idea if it increases cg usage at the moment but whatever. I have one colony building up a research zone, and one focused on rural for now.

I did have to upgrade my starter buildings, and replace the basic factury with the CG building, and build a monumnet. But I have an open building slot, and can replace my industrial district with alloys or cg in the future, depending on what I need. and I've not yet unlocked a third district.

The start is just very different from what used to happen.

 

[Friedrich von Deutschland]

The new building system feels excessively limiting. I see what was intended here but it feels like I am limited to either building only some of the buildings I want within a given chain, or building all of them with redundant zones, either forcing me to leave building slots unfilled, or use urban zones just to access building slots even if I neither want nor need clerks. Admittedly I can't tell how much of this is the buildings being unfinished, some like Commercial Zones aren't planet unique even though it seems like they should be to give an example, likewise for physics/biology/engineering labs... existing, but I'm worried that all my planets are going to be overspecialized or less specialized than I'd like without creating interesting decisions. I'm also worried about the FOMO of not having at least one level in each rural district, since I can always spam resource silos if nothing else. Admittedly that will nip a bit off logistics costs if I do this, but it still feels counterintuitive if the goal is to encourage specialization, and will make planets without at least one max slot of each rural district feel suboptimal.

 

[KNakamura]

I think the limitations were intended, tbh.

 

[Zaacplot300]

So the good news is that pop unemployment definitely works now. Unfortunately I don’t think auto-migration has been fixed yet. The starting civilian pool of 2k hasn’t gone down at a noticeable rate after colonizing a couple worlds, which mean I should probably get a bug report written up

 

[tappi]

So the good news is that pop unemployment definitely works now. Unfortunately I don’t think auto-migration has been fixed yet. The starting civilian pool of 2k hasn’t gone down at a noticeable rate after colonizing a couple worlds, which mean I should probably get a bug report written up

Seconding this, auto migration for civilians seems to not be working. Can't say for unemployed pops, but civilians certainly aren't migrating.

 

[Dinkz]

Playing as UNE, this patch was a easier to start and play.

I really like the way you build certain research buildings to specialize your research. My hope is you can do this with other resources too. Different tech will give you Different buildings that will change outputs. You can kind of already do this with the automation buildings and the exotic resources like motes and gases.

You could have a building that changes the upkeep of your science jobs to be minerals or something. A recycling science center or anything you can think of. Many possibilities here.

I hope the final product makes it easier to see immigration/emigration values. Would love to know how the new pop system works with it, especially as an expansionist!
Amenities could use an overhaul. Someone mentioned having city districts provide a bit, which is a great idea. If you dedicate a zone to it, have a bigger bonus tied to it like pop growth, planet habitability, immigration etc.

I didn't build a city district this patch yet. Do they still provide jobs based on your zones? I didn't see the tool tip.

 

[Thiend]

Putting this here too, because I came up with what I think is by far the easiest solution to the problem I and others have with getting unwanted jobs and it requiring too much micro + demotion time.

Add a prioritize and deprioritize button, keep current prioritize as a "First Priority" option. Prioritize takes available workforce before anything else does, deprioritize takes it after everything else does. No maximum prioritized/deprioritized jobs. Still can use First Priority to forcibly pull from other jobs.

If I can prioritize the job I want filled first (for instance, CG) and deprioritize ones I don't want to pull off of other jobs (for instance, unity and research on a world with miners, when I added those jobs inadvertently for a third thing those districts come with), I won't need to revisit those planets when the district completes. I also won't need to close jobs, wait for anyone to demote, or remember to reopen those jobs later.

It takes this from a massive QoL loss to an actually pretty significant improvement over 3.14 behavior. It in turn resolves my big 4.0 complaint, which IS the QoL loss.

 

[Kerricthebig]

Just fixing the pop demotion and job jitter bug makes this patch immensely more playable. I'm finding it quite enjoyable figuring out the ins and outs of the new system.

Agreed with others, not seeing the auto-migration of the civilian base like I would expect. If they are relocating themselves, it is at a slower rate than the normal pop growth. Perhaps it is still operating at a rate of x chance for 1 pop per month to migrate instead of whatever the intended new calculation is supposed to be?