[2022] Stellaris Dev Diary #241 - Unity Open Beta and the Dev Clash

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

written by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

We’re two weeks into the Stellaris Dev Clash, which is being played on the Stellaris 3.3 “Libra” Unity Open Beta branch.

Since we initially put it up, there have been over 216,000 games played in the Open Beta, and we’ve gathered fantastic amounts of feedback from the community - some of which was taken into account during the first update to the Open Beta, and more adjustments will be coming before the actual 3.3 release.

The first update included the following changes:

3.3 UPDATED Unity Open Beta Changelog
[expand type=details]
###################
# Feature
###################

• Unity Ambitions and Campaigns now function like Toggled Edicts and last until canceled with upkeep rather than costs.
  
• Planetary ascension now also reduces the effects of empire sprawl from that planet

###################
# Balance
###################

• Empire Sprawl has no effects (except for edict costs) under 100 rather than 50.
  
• Removed Machine Intelligence increased size penalties, replaced with -15% size from pops and +50% size from colonies.
  
• Megastructures no longer have a unity upkeep.
  
• Increased Unity production of Bio-Trophies from 1 to 3.
  
• Reduced the costs of higher tier edicts and campaigns.
  
• Leaders have a base cost of 100 unity and cost 50 additional unity for every owned leader, this value starts increasing once you own more than 6 leaders.
  
• Reverted Citizen Service, it now provides unity just like it used to.
  
• Distinguished Admiralty now gain +2 starting level to their Admirals and Generals.
  
• Zombies are now less likely to seek jobs that produce resources.
  
• Servile pops should no longer retain the trait if they become zombies.
  
• Spiritualists are no longer allowed to take Byzantine Bureaucracy since they don't have Bureaucrats.
  
• Trade value is now affected by AI difficulty bonus. This will make non hive mind empires more competitive on higher difficulty settings compared to hive mind AI empires.

###################
# AI
###################

• AI can now create more specialized planets by switching place of buildings on two different planets with each other
  
• AI is now much more likely to pick cheaper research options when all else equals
  
• AI will now favor the trade policy which generates consumer goods over the default wealth creation policy
  
• Fixed a bug where the AI would sometimes try to replace one lost science ship with an excessively high number thereof.
  
• Fixed an issue where repeatable tech were getting an extra chance to be researched as if they were rare techs
  
• Fixed several issues where AI would get stuck and not build any modules or upgrade any starbases when there were open module slots which were unable to be filled according to the AI's starbase template
  
• Improved AI construction ship behaviour, construction ships will now prioritize tasks that are close to them and avoid going to another system that already has a construction ship in it. Heavily increased priority of building starbases in systems with planets.
  
• Reduces AI willingness to take a lot of planets with very low habitability

###################
# UI
###################

• Added a textbox for Cost in Edicts UI. Also rearranged neighboring elements to align better.
  
• Added column for upkeep (entry as well as sort button) in Leader recruitment UI.
  
• Hid Empire Sprawl impact from top of Edicts UI. Put Edict Fund in its place to keep neat alignment.
  
• Improved legibility of approximate job output indicators on districts and buildings, and made those on buildings also show country modifiers
  
• Optimized elements for leader upkeep and age to fit localization better and avoid UI overlaps.
  
• Technologies which let you clear blockers now give a tooltip which says how many such blockers are on your colonies

###################
# Bugfix
###################

• Ascension Tiers on planets are set to 0 whenever a planet changes owner
  
• Bio-Trophies now cost Unity to resettle instead of Influence.
  
• Fixed modifiers for Police State civic
  
• "Synths Scuttle Starbase" now refers to the starbase orbiting a star, rather than a planet.
  
• Fixes to grammar and punctuation.
  
• Added a missing line break in the Take Point button's tooltip
  
• Added missing description for "Precognitive Interface" and "Psi Jump Drive" components in the Technology menu
  
• Added missing description for "The Sentinels" planetary feature.
  
• Added missing galaxy settings tooltips to the galaxy creation screen, both in Multiplayer and in single player.
  
• Added missing header in the description of "Omega Theory" technology
  
• Added missing header in tooltip description of "Defense Platform" and "Habitat".
  
• Added missing information about required DLC for the corporate authority
  
• Rogue Servitors now have access to the correct Unity producing buildings.
  
• Clarified the tooltip for automatic development for when you had it turned on or not
  
• Deluging primitives now removes the observation outpost
  
• Fixed "Tebri" and "Tebiron" (prescripted empire planet and system names) being untranslated in Chinese
  
• Fixed Criminal Heritage Galactic Emperors
  
• Fixed Curators retelling the wrong info when asking again about the Scavenger's origins
  
• Fixed Memorialists seeing that some techs unlocked buildings they could not build
  
• Fixed Planetary Unification tech description overflowing the box
  
• Fixed Sociocultural History tech showing it unlocked the Bounty Sacrifice twice
  
• Fixed a Galcom resolution tooltip saying that the empire was already supporting the resolution when in fact it was meant to say it was already opposing it
  
• Fixed a bug where you could end up with multiple Zroni homeworld systems
  
• Fixed a bunch of issues in various federation law acceptance tooltips (several had missing or hard to interpret and ugly information)
  
• Fixed a missing species name in event The Dragon has Landed
  
• Fixed an issue where scientists would only get expertise traits based on the fields they were not actively working on
  
• Fixed an unlocalised tooltip in non-English versions of the game when hovering over a megastructure's effects
  
• Fixed incorrect description of traits "Inspired Researcher" and "Inspired Surveyor"
  
• Fixed leader sorting by cost in the leader view sorting by energy instead of unity
  
• Fixed some spacing issues in the localisation of the fire event effect in foreign languages
  
• Fixed species modification planetary trait list sometimes overflowing
  
• Fixed the tooltip of Integrated Preservation tradition
  
• Fixed the tooltip of Open Border policies sometimes helpfully telling you that your country was default (in a way that isn't translated to other languages)
  
• Fixed various living standards incorrectly providing unity instead of a happiness penalty for unemployed pops.
  
• Fixed wrong color of font used in the Alien Box event in Brazilian Portuguese
  
• Fixing missing line break for the alert about Necrophyte Shortages in Chinese
  
• Life-Seeded Permanent Employment Megacorps will no longer all be zombies.
  
• Posthumous Employment Centers can now be seen even if you can't build them yet.
  
• Revolts in systems with enclave stations will no longer be granted ownership of the enclave station (it will remain in the hands of the enclave)
  
• Sacrifices now have a unity cost.
  
• The Caravaneers will no longer turn Gestalt Rulers psionic.
  
• The Materialist faction is now happy that you discovered the secrets of the precursors even if those precursors are the Baol or the Zroni.
  
• The project for reanimating Hrozgar now uses the correct art.
  
• Void Dwellers no longer start with a broken Posthumous Employment Center.
  
• Zombies can no longer colonize planets.

###################
# Modding
###################

• Added error logging for when a window uses a scroll bar but does not have a background
  
• Enabled the use of the "distance" trigger in script maths (e.g. export_trigger_value_to_variable)
  
• Fixed a tooltip crash from firing a nonexistent event
  
• Renamed election cost modifier country_election_influence_cost_mult to country_election_cost_mult to not reference influence, as it now costs unity.
  
• You can now use script values in ships' empire_limit

[/expand]

Some additional changes and fixes that we've made based on the Open Beta and will be in the release to live include:

3.3.1 EVEN MORE UPDATED Unity Open Beta Changelog
[expand type=details]
###################
# Balance
###################

• Edicts can now have a cooldown before they can be manually disabled, but are now cancelled if an empire can not sustain the upkeep.
  
• AI Megacorps should spawn half as often as before now.
  
• Leaders now only stay in the active pool for 1 year, hire them quickly before they leave!
  
• Telepaths now give +5% planetary output and get bonuses from planet administrator modifiers
  
• Empire Size effects on edicts, campaigns, and ambitions now directly affect the base costs of these, so bonuses like Spiritualist ethic's cost reductions now reduce costs and upkeep by the full percentages.
  
• Increased Spiritualist discounts on edict cost and upkeep to -10%/-20% from -5%/-10%. Cutthroat Politics now grants -20% edict upkeep.
  
• Reduced campaign costs and ambitions costs significantly, re-added Edict Cost Reduction to spiritualists for Unity Ambitions and Sacrifices
  
• Removed the penalty to trade value from low habitability due to it not working properly with pops that were of a species other than the empire founding species

###################
# AI
###################

• AI will no longer instantly buy ever single slave pop on the slave market.
  
• AI empires are now more likely to pick the mind over matter ascension perk when available
  
• AI empires are now much more likely to finish their ascension path
  
• AI will no longer destroy superfluous buildings and districts during a temporary occupation of a planet.
  
• Added AI budgeting for habitats
  
• Fixed Lithoid Tree of Life food building and destruction loop
  
• Fixed an issue where the AI would not budget to use ship boost edicts
  
• Life Seeded AIs now always want the World Shaper ascension perk
  
• Updated AI tradition selection to align better with the current state of the game
  
• adjusted AI tradition and AP selection + bugfix nanite repair system

###################
# UI
###################

• Clicking the fleet size icon in the top bar now opens the fleet manager

###################
# Stability
###################

• Fixed a crash that would occur if a timed modifier element in the expansion planner was hovered after the modifier expired

###################
# Bugfix
###################

• Fixed Shared Burdens not providing unity for unemployed pops
  
• Reduced Unity gained from the Trade League trade policy.
  
• Scientists assigned to research can now gain new traits.
  
• Colony designations that increase unity from Administrator jobs now have weighting for spiritualist, hive and machine empires.
  
• Tidied up the tooltips for various civics
  
• Rogue Servitors can now upgrade their Simulation Centers
  
• Blocked ascension tier upgrade on unowned planets
  
• Chronicle Drones now care about photosynthesis
  
• Citizen Service Soldiers now produce their unity.
  
• Do not resume a save if the required dlcs are not available
  
• Edicts are now cancelled if an empire can not sustain the upkeep. Activating an edict now requires one months upkeep cost worth of stockpiled resources.
  
• Enhanced the memory of Memorialist Hive Minds (they can now correctly build the special Memorialist buildings)
  
• Fixed Defense Grid Supercomputer not immediately applying its effect upon construction
  
• Fixed a bug where system wide auras sometimes persisted after leaving a system
  
• Fixed an issue where a ghost Unbidden Portal would continue spawning ships
  
• Fixed clicking top bar influence icon opening the edicts view
  
• Fixed expired timed modifiers being visible in the expansion planner
  
• Fixed it being possible to get unlocalised "Greetings!" in other languages when you opened diplomatic interactions with other empires for the first time
  
• Fixed it being possible to upgrade the ascension tier of planets not owned by the player
  
• Fixed looping checkbox clicked audio in the Apply Species Template view
  
• Fixed missing localization for PLANET_ASCENSION_TIER_EFFECT_DESC in the tooltip for planetary designation
  
• Fixed order of Galaxy Size options in galaxy setup not being ordered based on the number of stars
  
• Fixed reinforcements not arriving to the target fleet and instead showing up at the station when an evasive path was needed in order to get to the target fleet
  
• Fixed reinforcements not using evasive path
  
• Fixed some building requirements
  
• Fixed some faction demands
  
• Fixed trade UI showing negative values for Collection Range and Protection Range under some circumstances
  
• Fixed unlocalised text "UNKOWN_ORDERS" in a certain tooltip in the fleet interface
  
• From Beta: Chronicle Drone and Death Chronicles now have the same production.
  
• From Beta: Chronicle Drones are now Administrators
  
• Great Khan will no longer turn hostile towards their own satrapies
  
• Masters Writing of War and Politics now also cost unity.
  
• Nanite repair system will no longer be picked by the ship auto design if you do not have nanite income
  
• Removed references to edicts and factions from influence tooltip
  
• Station modifier applying on building/module construction
  
• Taking "The Flesh is Weak" no longer makes your species lose its gender presets
  
• The description for the Imperial Navigation System no longer speaks of the Community of old
  
• The tooltips giving estimated job upkeep and production are now better at dealing with stuff like rogue servitors (where it would previously estimate based on an organic pop which could not work the job, sometimes giving the tooltip a food upkeep instead of a minerals one)
  
• Updated tutorial screens and tooltips according to the Unity system rework.
  
• Updated various job weights
  
• You cannot drag and drop ships in someone else's fleet anymore

###################
# Modding
###################

• Added resource_revenue_compare and resource_expenses_compare triggers
  
• Fixed station_modifier and triggered station modifiers on starbase modules or buildings, not immediately applying their effects upon construction
  
• You can now again specify that a leader made with clone_leader is an event leader (or immortal)

[/expand]

Thank you for all of the suggestions, opinions, bug reports, constructive criticism, and observations. While the feedback threads have closed, you can still play on the Open Beta branch. To opt-in to the Steam open beta branch, right-click Stellaris, click Properties, Beta tab, and choose “Stellaris_test” from the drop-down.



Nearly a hundred years have passed and war has broken out across the galaxy as ten teams desperately struggle to keep up with Normal Speed. (Have we mentioned that there have been performance improvements in 3.3?)

The Dev Clash teams were revealed here[forum.paradoxplaza.com], and you can view the first two sessions here:

Session 1 - The Act[www.twitch.tv]
Session 2 - The Heart[www.twitch.tv]

Join us for Session 3 (and beyond) every Monday at 1500 CET (UTC + 1) on http://twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!

We’ve gathered statements from the Empires:



Having heard that there were a bunch of cyborgs nearby, Heavy Metal, Inc. Party Fleets™ completed a complementary grand tour through the periphery of QA Core space to bring the noise to the local Jira-Goblins. We made a quick pilgrimage over to the black hole they had (because it's cool!), then on the way home ended up doing an impromptu encore tour (with a surprise stop at their homeworld!) when they asked for more.

Pour one out for our little Groupies. They wanted to be free, but the pyrotechnics show near the Dashboard seem to have given the QA Core a taste of the party life, and people say they're planning on a bash so huge it'll blow up the galaxy.

Metal.



Qua|ity Assur@nc£ C0re §t@tus:

> Intr0duct|on of Me7al(tm) to Jirα-G0b|ins
> Prιmary Qu4|ity Assur@nc£ algorithms corRupt£d
> Reboot to firmware engaged
> Restoring from Backup
> Backup not found...
> Attempting repair of primary algorithms
> Repair Completed Failed Successfully
> ®u¦7is_ A§su®anc£ C0re boot sequence engaged
> Crisis Assurance Core θn|in3



We are pleased that you can join us for our latest earnings call. Profits are steadily climbing with the acquisition of new Platypi Doughnuts, and we are making progress on forming the Great Galactic Torus. As you no doubt remember, our projected profits for completing the Great Torus is enough to purchase the three closest galaxies, which would allow us to spread the beauty and bounty of our Doughnuts throughout the universe.



We remind all of our organic friends to remain in their safety cocoon at all times. (If you do not have a safety cocoon, you will be provided with one shortly.)

Thanks to Witch_Streamer for the image



We in the Horticulturist Commonality are very pleased with how things are starting to look in our own garden now, never before have we seen so much immense beauty outside of our home Protea. We are also overjoyed that we have found new fluttering friends that share our passion for gardening! Together with the Rhopalocerans of the Great Cocoon, our gardening projects will reach a much larger scale through the newly established Gardeners of the Galaxy. We hope that we will find the rest of the civilizations in the galaxy to be just as cooperative with letting us tend to their planets. After all, who would wish for anything but perfection and beauty?

However, it has been difficult getting through to our neighbors, the Church of Gainz, as they seem to refuse our envoys' attempts of diplomacy. We will look into other ways to tend to the planets that they have within their borders. We have also heard unpleasant things about the Human Game Developers and the Quality Assurance Core, that we will need to look closer into. Whether you are biological beings or machines, we seek to eventually open everyone's eyes to the beautiful potential of the galaxy.



Blessed are the gains, when one may reap the rewards of physical labour and enjoy the rewards afterwards! Though they (power-)walk a different path from us: we of the Strict Observance of Our Lady Trappistine are grateful to have found new friends in our neighbours, the Church of Gainz. So too do we wish the Doughnut Corporation well — may your quest for the divine torus be a peaceful and nourishing one.

It has been especially pleasing to see our produce so warmly received at the other end of the galaxy: eat, drink and be merry, Human Game Developers! As it is written upon our scripture-ledgers, so shall it be: all who dwell within this galaxy shall be enriched by Our Lady's offerings. We work, that the future of our galaxy may be safely assured through acts of divine merriment and gluttonous joy. [Bing, bing!]



Peaceful nations of the galaxy, you might have seen we've conquered a bunch of systems despite our declared peaceful politics. You see, we are pacifists by our nature, and this is why we started to PANIC when our federation decided to start a war and we made a lot of hurried actions.

Now, when there is a huge not-that-friendly looking federation has formed just next to us we are NOT PANICKING AT ALL and would like to apologize for any hostilities in the past. Also, our beautiful ocean worlds are very machine-friendly and will not cause any corrosion to their metal housings!

Let's make some high-quality friendships now and forever.



The most beautiful aspect of Humanity is what we can accomplish together. With the recent creation of the United Human Game Developers Federation we, The Humans, will together with the ASU and the QA Core strive to create the most perfected Product on the market for all Humans to enjoy. We welcome all Customers to witness as we enter the Galaxy into a new era of prosperity, peace and safety.

All customers that preorders our new product will receive an invitation to enjoy our beta program on our newly repaired Ringworld Segment “Also Also Earth”. Here all Humans can enjoy the perfected experience brought to you by us, The Human Game Developers.

By Humans, For Humans.



The Church of Gainz was suddenly and deliberately attacked by a neighboring nation with which we've been in peace with. Although tensions had been rising, the aggression of our neighbor truly shows the vileness and unhinged hostility that they are capable of. This will be remembered as a day of infamy, one to be recorded in the annals of the Swolephin people, and not soon forgotten.



The Rhopalocerans have discovered their true calling: gardening. As members of the Gardeners of the Galaxy alongside the delightful Horticulturist Commonality, we adhere to a simple motto: all planets will be rendered beautiful. Unfortunately, it seems like some planets will have to be pruned... alongside the mechanical infestation that inhabits them.

---

Will The Groupies be avenged? Are the QA Core going to succeed in "clearing the bug database"? Can the Human Game Developers be stopped? Can the vision of the Great Torus be fulfilled?

So, who are you rooting for? And why is it Heavy Metal, Inc.?

See you next week!