Stellaris 3.99.6 'Phoenix' Open Beta Release Notes

[Jekson20level]

So, I played versions 3.99.1, 3.99.3 and 3.99.5. And I got the following impression:

1) In the concept of zones, I agree that buildings should not add fixed jobs, but should only strengthen or change the priority of zones.
2) In the starting worlds, we, the players, are faced with the fact that we do not have enough jobs for each resource. Therefore, many blame the zones for this, which do not allow the construction of familiar buildings. And these people are demanding that fixed jobs and the ability to put buildings in any zone be returned. As a result, you, the development team, are adding mixed zones.
3) Reducing the number of zones and the ability to put buildings in any zone kills the concept of zones, bringing the zones closer to the old system.
4) But we need more zones on one planet (government + 6). Then the player will have the opportunity to add all the activities on one planet. At the same time, it will be enough for players to use highly specialized zones (alloys, consumer goods, unity, research, trade value, amenities/military), there will be no need for mixed ones. When players colonize many planets and begin to specialize them, they will be able to put 6 identical zones.
5) In addition to paragraph 4, it is possible to allow buildings to be built in related zones that will convert a small part, for example, bureaucrats to scientists. However, it will probably be superfluous.
6) A planetary shield should be able to be built both in a military zone and in a government zone, and possibly in some more. It can also be with other special buildings.

I like the zones, but I feel like there aren't enough of them.

 

[Questionable]

I liked the "Early Space Age" zone for theming. Made a connection with promitive empires that i liked. But if for gameplay reasons it doesnt make sense then that's better i guess.

I liked it too but its probably more appropriate for something like the "eager explorers" and similar origins & civics cause standard empires are a bit beyond "early", having functionally taken over their home solar system, industrialized space and discovered hyperlanes.

Otherwise it was kinda just an inconvenient bother to work around lol, needing to empty it out to replace it

 

[Questionable]

However, removing one zone will dramatically reduce the customization itself.
Maybe a bit of a crazy thought but what if planets could have more than 1 Urban district with its own set of zones.

The next Urban distric twould probably be hidden behind technologies.

The additional district could be under more player control. They provide less housing but increase the ability to plan zones on the planet.

View attachment 1274979

The reasoning for switching one of the zones into a permanent urban zone was that (at least in my experience) you pretty much always had to make one zone an urban zone to cover the bases of planetary needs.
It would still be cool to have a 3rd customizable zone but outside of the most extremely beneficial circumstances zones were always one urban, one industrial, one specialized.

Again that was my experience and mostly early to mid game, even when I got to the points where I needed less planetary independence to make up for deficits I'd still have that one urban zone just with a couple specialized buildings.

 

[HowlingKestrel]

The combination of buildings that give jobs and reduction in jobs meant that I enjoyed 99.6 a lot less than 99.4. It now just feels like a reskin of the old system, with all the same issues.

Having zones create jobs and buildings affect jobs felt good to me as an underlying system, although it still needed a fair bit of tuning especially with amenities. I almost think the better fix to the amenity problem would be to have civilians produce amenities and maybe rename them service workers, especially because I feel that better fits the sort of role they seem to fill.

I would prefer to go back to 3 zones, but maybe having 4 building slots each for city zones for a little extra flexibility. My main concern here is that there’s no flex at all for builds that start off with only a single planet for a long time like life seeded etc. Having a third city zone in addition to the archive and industry zones gives at least some choice to the player.

 

[Jay Sherman]

Move the civilians out of the unemployment category--because they clearly aren't unemployed--so that I don't have this itchy feeling I need to eliminate all civilian pops. Seriously please.

This, please!

 

[Kerricthebig]

Not a fan of the devastation infocard being dead center on the planetary header.

As some others have said, I miss the buildings modifying the jobs in the zone rather than adding flat job counts. I found it gave me more agency in by builds. I don't dislike the secondary zone grouping of the primary district, but I haven't really had a game go far enough in to use up all the build slots

 

[Gorehuchi]

I really like how the new planet view design looks. I do NOT like the build queue opening by default. It was fine just opening when you build something imo.

The population numbers actually working is great! But can we get some logic or filtering to that list? Even with one species it is kind of hard to parse.

Job output seems to be only displaying ellipses and not the actual numbers when collapsed. Seeing how many jobs there are when collapsed would also be helpful.

It really is coming together though!

 

[Soren Altigo]

A question about the survey: before loading up 3.99.6, I looked over the survey linked in the first post to know what to watch for, and then played 100 years on the new build...am I missing something? The survey page on trade and logistics refers to trade routes, collection, protection, and logistics hubs, but trade routes, trade collection, and protecting those don't exist any more, and I have no idea what a logistics hub is supposed to be. Is this something new in 3.99.6? I played into full repeatables in a 3.99.5 game and didn't see anything called a "logistics hub" there either, but I'll admit I'm not that far into 3.99.6 yet.

Is this the correct survey? Am I misunderstanding something?

 

[HighPriest]

A question about the survey: before loading up 3.99.6, I looked over the survey linked in the first post to know what to watch for, and then played 100 years on the new build...am I missing something? The survey page on trade and logistics refers to trade routes, collection, protection, and logistics hubs, but trade routes, trade collection, and protecting those don't exist any more, and I have no idea what a logistics hub is supposed to be. Is this something new in 3.99.6? I played into full repeatables in a 3.99.5 game and didn't see anything called a "logistics hub" there either, but I'll admit I'm not that far into 3.99.6 yet.

Is this the correct survey? Am I misunderstanding something?

Yeah, I wondered the same thing when I was filling out the survey. I don't recognize all of these topics (particularly 'logistics hubs'), and the ones I do recognize from 3.14 all seem either mostly or completely absent from 3.99.6, with trade instead being its own new currency that just automatically accumulates like any other.

I haven't had time to play the other beta versions much, but maybe these were intended elements for 3.99.6 that ended up getting pulled in earlier betas and they never updated the survey? At least, I seem to recall some people talking about pirates being a problem in one of the older beta threads.

 

[ShaTiK]

I have a question about housing - is it supposed to be a redundant game mechanic now?
Current zone system doesn't allow you to balance housing, you get housing from district levels with no regard for your actual need for housing. And since some buildings provide jobs, districts provide more housing compared to what they provide in jobs to compensate.
The end result is that I had around 2k free housing on regular planets, going into +15k for ecus.

So I gotta ask - why even have this system at all? To have space for all civilians to lazy around in the endgame when you already won and can't be bothered with creating another ecumonopolis so these civvies have productive jobs?

 

[One Of Ten]

View attachment 1275080

Custom Zones then create custom districts, instead of modifying the very mixed city-districts. Then we can make buildings be mostly Job Output * 1.x, or Upkeep * (1-x) again. Right now buildings that just add +X jobs are a temporary measure until Pops build, and then they get replaced. I don't find constantly building and replacing buildings more fun than the old system where I just built more buildings.

I'm just replying to this to get it more attention, I think this is a very good idea (As some people already have pointed out).

Added bonus: If this would be implemented in a way that makes us able to specialize one (research / archive) zone (and not the entire planet) in a specific research field this would give way more flexibility to research worlds and we would not have to specialize a whole planet exclusively, this would especially improve the system for empires with lower number of planets (in my opinion, at least).

 

[GnoSIS]

So, I played versions 3.99.1, 3.99.3 and 3.99.5. And I got the following impression:

1) In the concept of zones, I agree that buildings should not add fixed jobs, but should only strengthen or change the priority of zones.
2) In the starting worlds, we, the players, are faced with the fact that we do not have enough jobs for each resource. Therefore, many blame the zones for this, which do not allow the construction of familiar buildings. And these people are demanding that fixed jobs and the ability to put buildings in any zone be returned. As a result, you, the development team, are adding mixed zones.
3) Reducing the number of zones and the ability to put buildings in any zone kills the concept of zones, bringing the zones closer to the old system.
4) But we need more zones on one planet (government + 6). Then the player will have the opportunity to add all the activities on one planet. At the same time, it will be enough for players to use highly specialized zones (alloys, consumer goods, unity, research, trade value, amenities/military), there will be no need for mixed ones. When players colonize many planets and begin to specialize them, they will be able to put 6 identical zones.
5) In addition to paragraph 4, it is possible to allow buildings to be built in related zones that will convert a small part, for example, bureaucrats to scientists. However, it will probably be superfluous.
6) A planetary shield should be able to be built both in a military zone and in a government zone, and possibly in some more. It can also be with other special buildings.

I like the zones, but I feel like there aren't enough of them.

Well if you change the word zones into districts, you're good, because in essence and beyond the city scaling mechanic they are the same.

Yeah, I wondered the same thing when I was filling out the survey. I don't recognize all of these topics (particularly 'logistics hubs'), and the ones I do recognize from 3.14 all seem either mostly or completely absent from 3.99.6, with trade instead being its own new currency that just automatically accumulates like any other.

I haven't had time to play the other beta versions much, but maybe these were intended elements for 3.99.6 that ended up getting pulled in earlier betas and they never updated the survey? At least, I seem to recall some people talking about pirates being a problem in one of the older beta threads.

You guys are filling surveys??

 

[Shadeseraph]

Ok, this mostly feels like the right balance of building slots, zones and economy, roughly.
- 2 zones means you don't overhaul your economy because you typically get them relatively early. Previously adding a 3rd zone meant you suddenly had a bunch of specialist level jobs open
- the 2 mixed zones mean you roughly have the equivalent to 4 degrees of customization for your jobs.
- The points others are raising about 3 zones generating more jobs than 2 is pointless - ideally a city district should generate roughly a fixed amount of jobs per district - say, about 200 like the rural districts. With 3 zones, that'd meant that every zone should add 60-70 per district, with 2 zones it should be about 100
- I love the flavour of the Archive zone, and would love some unique buildings for it . It's also nice that, although the archive zone is worse than the research zone or the unity zone individually because it doesn't support "advanced" buildings, like the research complexes, but in exchange it generates a few jobs more (90 research vs 100 for archive, small, but in my mind it's enough to justify it even if it's not great ).
- Migration is nice and seems to work nicely. It feels also much more natural that fuller planets will generate more pops and those would migrate to the other planets, while low pop planets will generate small amounts of pops but will get more migration. It makes tracking pop growth hard but it feels better. Maybe you can share the modifiers that are affecting the planet, and potentially an aggregate of increases minus decreases for the last month?
- I initially felt like 6 slots were too many, because now it's trivial to unlock building slots, but there has been a huge increase of buildings, so I don't feel like that. You'll rebuild buildings frequently as the game goes by and you get better buildings. Also, the 6 buildings thing helps with amenities and crime management, and for the cosmogenesis buildings (which as of now can be built in urban zones and in the city slots).
- I like the spammable buildings that add jobs. It allows you to fine tune your production, and to handle stuff like amenities/crime which you won't want to dedicate a whole zone for. Later on likely you'll drop some of those buildings for more efficient "planet wide" buff buildings.

Some observations:
- The planetary deficit costing trade is conceptually cool, but it essentially makes trade from an optional resource to a mandatory one. This is not necesarily bad, just be aware of it. I though it was viable to have standalone planets, but tbh the promoting of workers means that it's extremely hard to maintain positive surpluses, at least for egalitarian empires, unless you micro your planets to death. It's not that mixed planets don't work, it's just that it's way too much work, especially for production chains (I.E CG + minerals) because adding CG jobs not only increases mineral consumptions, but also reduces mineral production by shifting the workforce. That means you need a big surpluss of citizens to cover that, which typically you don't want (they have relatively low productivity). With specialized planets you can handle these individually - and that's more important than the optimization part. That said, trade value is reasonably easy to manage as merchants are specialists, but it does mean you require a Trade world now.

Some stuff that confuses me:
- The energy and food zones generate extra jobs per district, but the mineral zone does not? Also, this means an energy district with the proper zone generates 300 jobs while the city or mineral districts generate only 200. Why?

Some stuff that probably needs passes:
- Biolabs, Engineering labs and physics labs can still be stacked together as long as you build them before any completes, and if you do you get all your scientist count for each discipline (so 3 districts x 1 zone + the building = 470 engineers, 470 biologists and 470 physics researchers). It's the most powerful job producer in the game.
- Habitats still have 3 zones while also getting 6 building slots (and the UI is messed up). Also, non-city districts offer a significant lower amount of jobs than their planetary equivalents (100 jobs each, boosted to 150 with the VP or the origin) which is not consistent with their pre 3.99 layout. Science zones are particularly bad as they offer the equivalent to a single zone specialization. This makes them really good for CG/Alloys/Unity but bad for everything else. Incidentally, city districts in habitats support Archive zones, which I don't think it's the point. I haven't checked but I suspect this is the case with Ecus as well.
- Lots of stuff related to pop count right now doesn't work too well. Empire size from pops is minimal, the amount of pops joining a faction is always very small, and the synthetic fertility origin does not properly count identities
- The system can't make its mind on how to allocate workers when there's an excess of jobs and it flickers like crazy, especially for worker level jobs (I assume this is caused by the system trying to meet deficits). I understand that it's calculating job allocation every tick. Not sure if that's good, performance wise - production is calculated monthly so it should be ok to have this less frequently.
- Ground combat just doesn't work, but we are aware of it.

 

[Mike Louis]

After reading the update notes for the new beta patch, I still of the opinion that Industry, Trade, Research and Amenities need their own districts which then frees up the Urban Districts to focus on housing, government specific buildings and military / police buildings. The proposed Industrial District would have two zones consisting of a Foundry Zone (with 3 building slots) which produces alloys and a Factory Zone (with 3 building slots) which produces consumer goods. The proposed Trade District would have one zone (with 3 building slots) which houses commercial and resource silo buildings. The proposed Research District would have two zones consisting of a Research Zone (with 3 building slots) which house regular research buildings and an Archive / Archaeological Zone (with 3 building slots) which house archeostudies labs. The proposed Amenity District would have one zone (with 3 building slots) which houses amenity producing buildings. Finally the Mining District would have two zones consisting of a Mining Zone (with 3 building slots) and a Refinery Zone (with 3 building slots).

 

[Jekson20level]

Well if you change the word zones into districts, you're good, because in essence and beyond the city scaling mechanic they are the same.

Yes, it can be implemented both through districts and through zones.

 

[Ikael]

It does feel a little strange that a fully developed 20+ city district planet has the same capacity for special buildings as a tiny freshly colonised world, unlocking more building slots as you develop a zone may allow for more organic development of a planet?

The more I analyze the zone system, the more I think that the crux of many of its problems has to do with how building slots are unlocked and the non-choices that it presents due to the existence of "must have" buildings, coupled with few building choices in specialized districts.

I guess that this is what the whole "6 open building slots by default" of this version is trying to solve. Let's see if that's enough or if perhaps building slots should revert back to the old system of yore (while maintaining zones).

Still, it is a good thing that this beta exists. Let's hope that it gets more revisions and balance passes before going live so it doesn't arrive undercooked.

 

[KirinAndVlindertje]

okay gave the new patch a whirl and my most noted issue is that everything, but especially the research feels so slow. Scientist used to create 4 of each research per job, aka 12 in total, but the new jobs only create 4 of one research. combined with the reduced number of jobs it's just so slow it's not fun anymore. You're throwing resources but nothing seems to be improving. it does for the basic resources, so that feels responsive. but research, i built up an entire planet for research and it felt like it had less impact than normal research building in the 3.x build. So I stopped playing for now.

 

[Nithralder]

[Feedback/Proposal] Expandable Planetary Zones & Empire Sprawl Scaling for Tall-Wide Balance
Based on 3.99.6 ‘Phoenix’ Open Beta Changes


With the upcoming rework to the Building and District system in Stellaris 3.99.6, we're seeing the introduction of Zones—a promising new mechanic that allows for additional specialization of planetary districts. In the current beta, each planet has six default building slots and two urban Zones, marking a shift toward more nuanced planetary design.


However, there’s an opportunity here to take this system further—by leveraging Capital Building tiers and Empire Sprawl as balancing levers—to enhance both strategic depth and Tall vs Wide playstyle viability.

---

Proposal: Instead of 2 Zones, Allow 4 Zones per Planet — Balanced by Empire Sprawl and Capital Tier​

The current beta caps planets at 2 Zones, but I propose expanding this to allow 4 Zones per planet from the start of the game. This would offer players immediate flexibility and open up more meaningful specialization paths.


To maintain balance, especially in the early game, each Zone beyond the first would contribute significant Empire Sprawl. This penalty would scale down with Capital Building upgrades, rewarding investment in infrastructure and centralization.

Suggested Mechanic:​

• Zones per Planet:
  • Up to 4 available from game start
• Empire Sprawl Cost per Zone:
  • Tier 1 Capital: +25 per Zone → Max +100 if all 4 Zones are built
  • Tier 2 Capital: +15 per Zone → Max +60
  • Tier 3 Capital: +5 per Zone → Max +20
  • Tier 4 Capital: 0 Sprawl Penalty for Zones

This system introduces a compelling decision:

• Specialize early if you’re willing to bear the cost.
• Reduce that cost by progressing through Capital Building tiers.
• Open up Tall empire strategies with high-efficiency worlds, while Wide empires retain flexibility through volume.

(In Current Stellaris the main source of Empire Sprawl is via Pops. The New Zone Mechanics allow for District Based Empire Sprawl to be a thing and District Sprawl is currently not that important in the Current Stellaris Meta and is usually ignored)

---

Integration with Existing Systems: Capital Buildings as a Scaling Mechanic​

Capital Buildings already progress through a four-tier structure:

• Tier 1: Planetary Administration
• Tier 2: Planetary Capital
• Tier 3: System Capital Complex
• Tier 4: Imperial Capital Complex

These tiers currently unlock additional jobs and building slots, but they are underutilized as a broader development and scaling mechanic. By tying them to Zone efficiency and Empire Sprawl reduction, they could serve as a core progression system for managing planetary complexity.


Additionally, this change would allow the game to finally make use of a currently underdeveloped concept: Empire Sprawl from Districts. At present, Districts do not meaningfully contribute to Sprawl, limiting their use as a balancing tool. Integrating Sprawl costs for Zones (and potentially Districts) opens the door for planetary vertical growth to come with real trade-offs, which can then be mitigated through proper investment in Capital infrastructure.


This would:

• Make Capital upgrades more impactful
• Encourage vertical development for Tall empires
• Introduce Empire Sprawl as a cost for planetary specialization
• Provide a natural and scalable progression that mirrors planetary development

---

A More Dynamic Tall vs Wide Balance​

By tying Zone capacity and efficiency to Capital Tiers and Sprawl mechanics, we can create a meaningful distinction between Tall and Wide playstyles:

• Tall Empires:
  • Few planets, high investment
  • Use all 4 Zones per world
  • Focus on Capital upgrades to minimize Sprawl
• Wide Empires:
  • Many planets with 1–2 Zones each
  • Spread specialization across the empire
  • Accept higher cumulative sprawl or mitigate through traditions/tech

This change would increase player agency, enhance build diversity, and reward long-term planning.

---

UI Feedback – Pop Growth Display Overload​

In the new Pop Growth panel introduced in the beta (see attached image), while it's great to see growth information made more transparent, the current presentation is excessively granular.


At present, it lists growth progress for every pop strata, even when they belong to the same species. This results in a bloated, cluttered list that’s difficult to read—sometimes displaying 20–30 entries for a single planet.

Suggested Improvements:​

• Introduce two display modes:
  • Simple View: Displays total species growth (aggregated).
  • Detailed View: Optional toggle showing exact strata/template breakdowns.

This would preserve depth for advanced players while improving clarity for everyone else.

(Seeing so many different things here is rather overwhelming to look at and read)

---

️ UI Feedback – Colonize Button Visibility​

In the reworked colony setup screen (see attached screenshot), the “Colonize” button is extremely difficult to see—it blends into the UI background and is almost unnoticeable without deliberately scanning for it.


This can cause confusion, especially for newer players or those returning to the game after a break.

Suggested Improvements:​

• Use a distinctive color (e.g., bright green or blue) for the colonize button.
• Add a hover highlight, border, or icon to clearly distinguish it as an actionable element.
• Optionally, relocate it closer to other key UI elements to reduce scanning distance.

This small change would significantly improve UX and reduce friction during the colonization process.



(Colonize Button almost Impossible to See)

---

Final Thoughts​

The introduction of Zones, UI improvements, and management updates in the Phoenix Beta are a strong foundation. However, expanding Zone usage to 4 per planet—balanced through Empire Sprawl scaling and Capital Tier progression—would add much-needed depth and allow for more meaningful Tall/Wide differentiation.


Alongside this, improving Pop Growth clarity and Colonize UI visibility would polish the user experience without sacrificing complexity.

 

[ShaTiK]

but I propose expanding this to allow 4 Zones per planet from the start of the game. This would offer players immediate flexibility and open up more meaningful specialization paths.

Or maybe we shouldn't shove everything into a singular district? Give player choice of what specific districts to build and have zones as district modifiers. Thus achieving flexibility, giving the ability to balance outputs for player and AI. Also not having to demolish old system in its entirety but rather implement few new districts and give them a set of zones to choose from.

 

[Ternega]

Or maybe we shouldn't shove everything into a singular district? Give player choice of what specific districts to build and have zones as district modifiers. Thus achieving flexibility, giving the ability to balance outputs for player and AI. Also not having to demolish old system in its entirety but rather implement few new districts and give them a set of zones to choose from.

I'm pretty sure the primary reason of Districts over Zones is desire to allow respecialization of your hyper developed planets w/o need to build it from zero, as well as desire to link industry/science/unity to planet development rather linking it to a particular type of development.

Personally I like it and think that switching them around will limit flexibility too much if you can't respec. Meanwhile keeping zones separate and respeccing each while workable is even more nonsensical. The option of having 4 smaller zones to play around is great until you have to manage 10-20+ planets and loath the person who introduced all this clicking .

I'm not married to the current setup, you can see my post on changes i'd like to see a few changes back, but a lot of options offered as alternative seem shortsighted to me, and with zones here to stay, at least untill 5.0, I'd like them to be functional and streamlined enough to better play late game with not just early options/convenience.