by Eladrin
Hello everyone, I’m back this week, though it’ll be a relatively short one.
Last week Alfray mentioned that I might be ready to share information about the 4.5 ‘Cygnus’ release date, but I’m holding onto that for a bit longer to get more branch stabilization and fixes in.
Today’s Open Beta update includes a few more fixes, but we’re slowing down as the team is focusing on stabilizing the release. Hopefully we’ve gotten a few that you’ve been waiting for.
Stellaris 4.5 ‘Cygnus’ Open Beta Update #9 Release Notes
Improvement
When the Shroud consumes a world, after Shroud-Forged tinker with it, the Zro deposit left behind scales with the population lost.
Balance
Biomorphosis now takes about half as long to complete, bringing it in line with the other ascension paths.
Bugfix
Chance to increase Resource Deposit Size on Survey now correctly applies no matter the source, and upon completion of a Survey, Deep Scan or Subspace Image.
Nomadic Evolutionary Predators now gain genetic material from the Pops held by their temporary purge vassals, so completing the Evolutionary Predators situation can offer the phenotype choices for species those vassals consumed.
Fixed waystation modules that were available in systems with no matching resource, and unavailable in systems that had one.
Fixed the tooltip for the Prosperous Unification Origin for non-Nomadic Thermophile and Machine species.
Fixed some doubling of Great Khan event targets that could cause the game to get confused when playing heirs of the khan
Fixed an error log spam from the Genetic Memory trait
Assimilation events should no longer try to move 0 sized pop groups around
We will no longer try to add psionic or other traits to envoys
Storm Buildings will no longer throw errors when built on AI Arkships
Fixed multiple buildings generating errors if they ended up on colonies with no owners
Pierce the Shroud now leaves a properly formed Shrouded World when the Shroud consumes the planet, instead of a world with an unknown class and its old planetary features intact.
The Pierce the Shroud decision's effect text now fits its window and states the chance of the world being consumed.
Reaching The Great Awakening as a Shroud-Forged empire no longer enslaves every pop that lacks the Shroud-Forged trait.
The Shroud-Forged origin no longer always starts with a red dwarf star.
The Cycle of Growth no longer grants monthly food and pop growth speed to empires that cannot use them. Empires that do not eat food receive energy instead.
Cyber-zombies created by Mechromancy now take jobs instead of being stuck as purged pops.
Fixed savefiles where nomads inherited a subject with an invalid type.
Empires with the Evolutionary Predators origin can no longer gain species traits from DLCs that are not enabled.
Nomad Contract button in arkship view is disabled when there are no contracts to view.
Biological ships are no longer affected by energy deficits.
Biological ships are now affected by food deficits.
Fixed the Sacrifice boon staying active after an empire abandoned the Death Cult civic.
A Nomadic empire with a subject on Limited Diplomacy now receives contracts again.
An empire with a subject on Limited Diplomacy now offers contracts to Nomadic empires again.
Aquatic species can now take the Wet Climate Mods trait from the Cybernetic ascension path.
The Under the Ice archaeological site no longer offers Nomad empires research they cannot use.
Nomad empires now receive research from several archaeological sites and Ruler Insight events that previously gave them nothing.
The invitation to join the Galactic Community no longer arrives repeatedly while its window is still open.
Abandoning a Forever Cruise contract now states how it affects Passenger Satisfaction, instead of only reporting that no reward was earned.
The Dathnak Gas exhibit description no longer has a gap where an empire name belongs.
S.I.D.N.I. now greets you with a catchphrase when hired, and leaders who previously arrived in silence now have a greeting too.
Corrected the spelling of "gases" throughout.
UI/UX
Fixed the supporters icon overlapping the size value in the Factions view.
Enforced Nemma Slavery Planet Modifier now shows correct icon
Ban Buttons on MP now have bespoke icons
The contract offer and contract completion windows now use the same reward heading.
Stability
Fix a tiebreak issue in pop group statistics, potentially causing desyncs
Modding
`modify_species = { add_random_species_trait = { ... } }` no longer selects traits from DLCs that are not enabled.
`modify_species = { add_random_species_trait = { always = yes } }` now selects from the full trait pool (minus already owned).
`trait_available_for_species` no longer returns traits from DLCs that are not enabled.
Anything Else Sneaking In?
There are a few changes that - at the time of writing this dev diary, I’m not sure will make it into today’s Open Beta update, but are currently in review.
See the actual release post to see whether they made it in, or whether they’ll be in the next one.
The AI changes might be related to why I’m holding the release date announcement at least a week.
Stabilization? How about we rewrite some core AI economy code instead?
Bugfix
Pops that are not free to choose where they live (like shackled robots, slaves, and the bio-trophies) no longer migrate externally under a Migration Pact or a federation's Free Migration law. They still move between your own colonies to fill open jobs.
Fixed a bug where automigrating pops would only check if the other colony was appropriate if they were the first pop group checking. Migration toward empires whose treatment of a species is worse than yours is reduced accordingly.
AI
AI empires can no longer end up with no economic plan at all. An empire that outgrows every plan now keeps the last one, instead of stopping construction entirely.
AI empires no longer pour everything into one resource while a different resource holds their economic plan back.
Bioship empires now have a food target at every stage of their economic plan, so they keep growing food production through the mid-game, similar to how regular empires have an ever-growing thirst for alloys.
AI empires now settle on a small surplus above each income target, instead of dipping in and out of deficit around it. They also act on a mineral or energy shortage while they still have a stockpile to recover with, and buy a resource on the market before it runs out rather than after.
AI empires no longer overbuild Strongholds and starve themselves of the alloys they need to fill their fleet capacity. Naval capacity is now weighed against everything else they could build, and against how much capacity a building actually provides.
AI empires now regularly revisit a colony's designation as it develops, so a world that has specialized towards research becomes a Research World instead of keeping the designation it was given early on.
Modding
At player request, the "optional" flag on an economic plan subplan blocks plan completion again, while leaving the scaling subplans of the same plan running. For a stretch goal that never blocks completion, use "optional = yes" together with "scaling = yes". This reverses the 4.4 guidance, so mods that followed it need updating.
Economic plan completion is now decided by income alone. "pops", "naval_cap" and "focus" still steer AI construction, but no longer hold a plan open. To gate a tier on something else, put the condition in the next plan's "potential" trigger.
New defines AI_INCOME_TARGET_BUFFER_FACTOR, AI_DEATH_SPIRAL_MONTHS_OF_COVER and AI_MARKET_BUY_MONTHS_OF_COVER. AI_NAVAL_CAP_SCORE_MULT drops from 15 to 3, and now scores the same way as amenities and housing, scaling with the naval capacity a building actually gives.
common/economic_plans/00_example.txt has been rewritten. (It documented "scaling_subplan", "optional_subplan" and "empire_size", none of which exist, and described the old meaning of "optional".)
The intent of the AI changes is to make sure that the AI always has something to aim for - two issues were found and fixed that could cause it to get stuck on certain plans. If it lost its income goals or found itself so rich it was continuously building, the AI could also end up in situations where it would not re-evaluate planetary designations on a reasonable timeframe - sometimes very counterproductively. (Previously, the AI would not re-evaluate designation if there was anything in their build queue of the planet, but a healthy economy is often building things. Frustratingly, this could mean that if they have an Urban World designated that they wanted to turn into a Tech World, they’d build a Research District Specialization, start building City Districts, and then queue up a turning the Research District Specialization into a Commercial one because Urban Worlds should be trade focused.)
We’ve changed the targets for scaling goals to be the requirements of the next tier, encouraging the AI to climb the economic ladder instead of overinvesting in whatever it got good at first. Population or Naval Capacity can now also no longer lock the AI to a lower economic tier plan - though it will still influence what it chooses to build.
The AI tended to oscillate around its income targets - it liked to prioritize things it was closest to reaching, and then the moment a resource hit its target, that resource would immediately lose all its build priority and consumers of it gained priority. We’ve also made it recognize economic emergencies three months before their stockpile depletes, giving them a better chance to react and build out in time (especially for things like minerals). It’ll now also buy resources from the market if it’s set to run out within six months.
Some of the other adjustments are behavioral tweaks - bioship empires now continue to increase their food targets like how regular ones increase their alloy targets, and a change so they’ll prioritize strategic resources before their income goes negative. Naval Capacity structures are now also scored based on the Naval Capacity they provide instead of equally as “this structure provides Naval Capacity”.
We expect these changes to provide some improvements to the AI’s ability to keep up with you, and we’ll continue to iterate over the remainder of the Open Beta and beyond.
What’s Next?
I’m pretty confident that next week’s dev diary will include a release date announcement.