Stellaris 3.99.4 'Phoenix' Open Beta Release Notes

[Oimes]

Why would it? Its literally being worked on in conjunction with the new update.

BioGenesis is set to be released in just over a month and 4.0 is scheduled to be released along with it.

While I see the new systems in a positive light, I am afraid that we do not have enough time to make improvements. The new UI needs a major overhaul and the changes to economy aren't fully cooked yet.


I sincerely hope that Paradox decides to delay the DLC and 4.0 to fix the bugs and shortcomings, otherwise we may be looking at another disaster like City Skylines 2 release.

That would be like cancelling the update...

Multiplying PoP x 100 is not inseparabl epart of the new economy.
PoP x 10 should work just as well and be much more readable in UI.

 

[Newbee53]

I think this is more of a minor semantic issue than a gameplay issue. I don't really see the research labs as just a small building somewhere with a lab. I think it's more akin to a large university. Consider how sprawling universities can be today and how much infrastructure and housing are required for students and staff, and scale that up to a sci-fi/fantasy context. "Buildings" cost as much or more than districts, after all.

Yes, its largely a semantic issue. But its one that knowledge of the 'problem' does nothing for. It still makes planets feel smaller, and does produce the vibes the entire game is going for. At least not to me. I think its much like how people are always complaining about how civilian means not military. That one doesn't bother me to much. this one does.

To each their own but I don't see how it is more enjoyable or immersive to click the "upgrade city district" button a bunch of times compared with upgrading a lab, for example. Either way you are "spamming" something to get what you want, one is just more convoluted.

Yeah, but a multi-planet empire really should be spamming cities. A multi-planet empire tracking every building constructed on their planets is just weird.

* district capacity is the limit on how much you can build on a planet, that's it
* "buildings" and building upgrades are the actual infrastructure, providing jobs/modifers and housing, using district cap
* zones provide building slots and are tech and admin locked as they are now.

The issue I have here, is that it pretty much eliminates the feeling of building up a planet. I mean, you have at most six zones, less than 2 dozen unique buildings. At least with the way it currently is--and assuming Upgrade is changed to build or develop or something--you can think of yourself as building dozens of cities. some zoned for research, other industry, still others just whatever fits or some combination. It feels so much more like a planet.

Multiplying PoP x 100 is not inseparabl epart of the new economy.
PoP x 10 should work just as well and be much more readable in UI.

I've said this many times, but will continue to repeat it.

x10 pops would require a lot of dead months to leave the rate of planet growth unchanged. or it would require decimal places. I don't want to see 0.5 pops as a number anywhere on the UI because it looks terrible, so I'd be complaining about that. Dead months are mostly gone now--ignoring the smallest populations of course--which only makes the feeling of growing an entire planet that much better. as balance has been made, we've been getting +60 jobs and the like, which would end up strange in your set up. Which suggests the large number is more versatile for balance reasons.

And finally, most of the problems people are complaining about can be fixed with some shuffling in the UI. Like combining all types of unemployment on the surface screen and get the breakdown into the tool tips. those are relatively minor changes that will probably happen once the build is feature locked. which will be when all their programmers are dedicated to balance and bug fixing anyways.

 

[exi123]

Folks, this is a beta. The UI is undercooked, a lot of stuff does not even work. I am sure a lot of stuff is also hold back atm because it is linked to the new DLC.

 

[MrGuyPerson]

Yes, its largely a semantic issue. But its one that knowledge of the 'problem' does nothing for. It still makes planets feel smaller, and does produce the vibes the entire game is going for. At least not to me. I think its much like how people are always complaining about how civilian means not military. That one doesn't bother me to much. this one does.

Yeah, but a multi-planet empire really should be spamming cities. A multi-planet empire tracking every building constructed on their planets is just weird.

It's only weird if you think of buildings as just a single building in a particular city. You could just rename buildings "districts" and it would work just fine. I think the building/district dichotomy is just something that came into play when the tile system was removed. Before that, "buildings" were effectively districts.

The issue I have here, is that it pretty much eliminates the feeling of building up a planet. I mean, you have at most six zones, less than 2 dozen unique buildings. At least with the way it currently is--and assuming Upgrade is changed to build or develop or something--you can think of yourself as building dozens of cities. some zoned for research, other industry, still others just whatever fits or some combination. It feels so much more like a planet.

Again, I think if you see buildings as something closer to districts and not just individual buildings, then the perception is quite different. And I'd rather have something more streamlined and intuitive than the overly complex mess we have now, even if that means giving up a little immersion. Just rename the components if it makes that much of a difference. Planet size governing how much you can build; buildings (call them districts instead!) creating home, jobs, amenities, etc.; and zones providing the cleared space for buildings is just much more straight forward than what we have now.

As it stands, the system is overly complicated, and the UI doesn't make it any easier. And if you have all the DLC and want to interact with most components in it on any given run, having an even more fiddly, complicated planet system is the last thing the game needs.

 

[Juboboman]

Folks, this is a beta. The UI is undercooked, a lot of stuff does not even work. I am sure a lot of stuff is also hold back atm because it is linked to the new DLC.

If the beta was going to last 3 more months instead of 3 (or less) more weeks then your point may have provided some comfort.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

Playing as the Fanatic Egalitarian UNE, 20 years in my egalitarian faction has somehow despawned and been replaced by a spiritualist faction. The big problem is this gives all my egalitarian leaders 0 election weight even if they have a councilor subclass. This removes all of my councilors with a subclass from the running, forcing me to elect my lvl 3 minister of defense when I don't really want to hire another admiral.

It's looking like only Civilians can join factions atm. If you want factions to exist, be careful not to employ too many of your pops.

 

[The Founder]

It's looking like only Civilians can join factions atm. If you want factions to exist, be careful not to employ too many of your pops.

I had plenty of Elite, specialist and worker Faction Pops.

It seems like they can pick up only one Pop group per stratum, and only on a single planet.

 

[tappi]

I had plenty of Elite, specialist and worker Faction Pops.

It seems like they can pick up only one Pop group per stratum, and only on a single planet.

I think you quoted the wrong post accidentally

 

[Newbee53]

Again, I think if you see buildings as something closer to districts and not just individual buildings, then the perception is quite different.

I agreed. But I apparently can't see it that way. And part of that is the see, the building art doesn't give the impression of sprawling complexes. most of the time.

Just rename the components if it makes that much of a difference. Planet size governing how much you can build; buildings (call them districts instead!) creating home, jobs, amenities, etc.; and zones providing the cleared space for buildings is just much more straight forward than what we have now.

* district capacity is the limit on how much you can build on a planet, that's it
* "buildings" and building upgrades are the actual infrastructure, providing jobs/modifers and housing, using district cap
* zones provide building slots and are tech and admin locked as they are now.

Right, so the buildings become districts and are capped by the capacities we have now.

So how does Rural zones work? because i can build a mining district without any mineral zones. which allows me to have different civic, ascension, or planet specific mining zones. which might have different allowed building from the basic ones. So how does this work? We know this is part of how the developers want things to go in the future. So, how do rural zones/districts work?

From what I understand you're basically asking for three 'city zones' which share capacity but are built separately. just with different names. Given people have been talking about this from the first moment the devs showed the current system, I'm assuming this goes against their desired design for some reason.

that aside, I'm not certain this adds much. The ability to add independent jobs, but I've rarely if ever needed this. I might have wanted it sometimes, but only once or twice have I needed it. and I was able to handle 'the problem' with what we've had. SO, if it doesn't support the rural districts as the devs have indicated they want it to, its not going to be a good work.

 

[The Founder]

I think you quoted the wrong post accidentally

Yeah, somehow deleting a previous quote bugged out the forum. Odd.

I think I fixed it.

 

[MrGuyPerson]

Right, so the buildings become districts and are capped by the capacities we have now.

That's what I have been saying all along. The function of buildings and districts should be merged and represented in game by the things that currently fill up building slots. I don't care if they're called buildings or districts.

So how does Rural zones work? because i can build a mining district without any mineral zones. which allows me to have different civic, ascension, or planet specific mining zones. which might have different allowed building from the basic ones. So how does this work? We know this is part of how the developers want things to go in the future. So, how do rural zones/districts work?

I think the zone should be open from the start, with a basic upgradeable building already present. The rest can be tech-gated. I don't know why we need access to advanced resource buildings from day 1.

From what I understand you're basically asking for three 'city zones' which share capacity but are built separately. just with different names. Given people have been talking about this from the first moment the devs showed the current system, I'm assuming this goes against their desired design for some reason.

There's no need for them to have different names. Honestly, they could just give us the building slots three at a time as we get the appropriate techs and upgrade the capital building.

that aside, I'm not certain this adds much. The ability to add independent jobs, but I've rarely if ever needed this. I might have wanted it sometimes, but only once or twice have I needed it. and I was able to handle 'the problem' with what we've had. SO, if it doesn't support the rural districts as the devs have indicated they want it to, its not going to be a good work.

I've seen a lot of complaints here about how tedious planet management is. On your capital, for example, you may have some mix of allows, consumer goods, and research. If you have an industrial zone and a research zone, and only want researchers, there's no way of doing that without increasing your consumer goods and alloys production, which then eats into your minerals, so now you need more minerals, when all you wanted was researchers. Another pain point I have found is when adding a new city zone when I have a mix of rural districts and highly developed city districts. The new zone add jobs scaled to the number of city districts that are already there, so unless you have massive unemployment or a ton of civilians, the new zone gobbles up your worker strata. In the early game, your capital is responsible for so much that this can have a big impact on your economy. Of course one can try to plan around this, not overbuild x, y or z, etc.,, but this kind of game play just doesn't feel good to me, and there's no "real world" explanation for why it should work this way. The alternative is disabling all the jobs that you don't want, which is something I absolutely abhor in Stellaris, and not a good sign for a new system.

 

[Alech]

Do the Automaton Buildings do anything yet?

 

[MrGuyPerson]

Do the Automaton Buildings do anything yet?

Nope.

 

[The Founder]

Do the Automaton Buildings do anything yet?

Nothing that I can see.

 

[KNakamura]

Ok, I have been able to play this release a couple of hours. The more and more I play the beta, the more I hate 4.0. Just to point out some issues:

1. All new UIs are bad. Planetary one wastes lots of space on bigger elements, space that could be better used in other data that is instead pushed to other tabs.
2. Management tab is awful for instance, lots of convoluted information that so far just tires the eye and confuses (I wonder how troublesome it will be to newer players too).
3. The summary (surface) tab is bad too, imagine having to travel to another tab (management) just to know that the planet is an arctic one... Apparently it is not good to show it on the actual surface, not the blockers/features summary.
4. The blockers/features summary is on another tab, previously you just looked and knew if there where planetary features, then you could hover to know which ones. Now, you have to go to management tab to even know if there are any. I am ok (I think it is good that the planetary features and blocker section exists there, but it needs to be in the first tab too)
5. The building queue hidden by default is a NO GO. This together with features not being on the same tab means that no longer can I just tab over my planets and know the info I need at a glance, which I could do before.
6. Info is badly presented. I need to have a window where I can see the same information I could see before: Districts (or equivalent), feature/blocker counts, build queue and summary. The current summary line is not better nor worse, so at least it is normal. I did prefer the Box design from before than these line though. At least all the info was close by, now I need to read along an entire line to get the same info. Well, I guess that being a ruler on an 'hyper advanced' society became worse, praise technology!
7. The Modification Template windows is THE ABSOLUTE WORSE THING I HAVE SEEN IN AGES. Who thought that this:
View attachment 1271806
With the 'permanent' scrolling was good? The previous window gave the exact same information, without forcing me to scroll constantly, nor with the traits ordering themselves according to some (logical, but ultimately unwanted) rules. I prefer the elements of the UI in predictable places. For instance, previously all my Genetically Ascended traits where at the bottom. Now They will move around as they become unavailable. Let them BE IN THE DAMN SPOT, I do not want to play Scrollaris. (Kudos on the species window though, specially the expand variants part, it is the opposite of the modification windows: less scrolling. I honestly cant believe that in the same general area the designs are so contrary.)
8. The reset to default button should be readded (the one for species rights) needless to say it allowed a Generic action to be easily done, now it is more tedious to set all species rights to be the same, needing to go to each one.
9. The All Species tab should be renamed back to Galaxy Species, it feels more intuitive IMO, but this is subjective.

All in all. I hate the planetary UI with the soul of all my ancestors. My opinion of 4.0 sadly worsens each day. This has included a lot of things, it should have tried to do less and do it well instead of this mess we are seeing.

Hopefully, this is not finished and perhaps some of the issues that currently exists are just TODO stuff instead of design problems. But if they are working the way it is intended, then for the love of god do not release this on may. Planetary UI and Modification Templates are windows with an awful design and QoL.

And the leaders, pls, revert that entirely.

"I didn't like the UI changes because I have to spend some time relearning the UX flow." would have been quicker. Disliking scrolling is super funny.

Admittedly I do have worries, but I think I'll hold off on doom saying for another 2 weeks, myself.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

What if planet designations added extra zones?

Rural World could pick +1 zone in each rural district,
Agri-World / Mining World / Generator World could pick +2 zones for their respective district types, and
Urban World could pick +1 zone (or even +2 zones) in the city district?

 

[Calvax]

What if planet designations added extra zones?

Rural World could pick +1 zone in each rural district,
Agri-World / Mining World / Generator World could pick +2 zones for their respective district types, and
Urban World could pick +1 zone (or even +2 zones) in the city district?

I don't know what problem that is trying to solve exactly, but beyond that what would happen when you changed designation? Your zones and buildings would disappear creating a bunch of unemployment.

 

[Troyen]

Folks, this is a beta. The UI is undercooked, a lot of stuff does not even work. I am sure a lot of stuff is also hold back atm because it is linked to the new DLC.

They've run five open betas in the past and this one is in the worst shape out of all of them. They also said they're going to stop updating the beta in a week or so to prep for code freeze.

 

[SarahGabriella]

BioGenesis is set to be released in just over a month and 4.0 is scheduled to be released along with it.

While I see the new systems in a positive light, I am afraid that we do not have enough time to make improvements. The new UI needs a major overhaul and the changes to economy aren't fully cooked yet.


I sincerely hope that Paradox decides to delay the DLC and 4.0 to fix the bugs and shortcomings, otherwise we may be looking at another disaster like City Skylines 2 release.


Multiplying PoP x 100 is not inseparabl epart of the new economy.
PoP x 10 should work just as well and be much more readable in UI.

"We"? Are you working on the game? Because you make it sound like you have a stake in how well the update rolls out. It will get patches, mostly hotfixes, after release, thats business as usual, especially with larger overhauls.

 

[SarahGabriella]

They've run five open betas in the past and this one is in the worst shape out of all of them. They also said they're going to stop updating the beta in a week or so to prep for code freeze.

Do you really believe they dont have internal testers too? You dont get to see everything, only what the devs want you to see.