by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

The plagues of last week have passed, so today we’ll be looking at the next “risky” change that we’d like to bring to the 4.3 ‘Cetus’ Open Beta, relating to Pop Ethics and Ethics Drift.

Instead of splitting Pop Groups up based on Ethics, we’re changing them so a Pop Group can have multiple ethics and factions simultaneously, with [c]pop_ethic_percentage[/c] values to describe how they’re split up. This simplifies ethic randomization logic, allows pop group ethic conversion to happen more reliably and more frequently, and dramatically reduces the number of pop groups in the late game.

The Management tab of our planet shows which factions each pop group have joined, and which ethics and factions are represented within them.

Holding the Alt key will show a more detailed breakdown of how these attractions are derived:

In addition to reducing the number of Pop Groups overall, pops should drift between ethics and factions better than before. As it touches a wide number of systems, we consider it a risky change and would love to see the Open Beta find any issues with it.

This will unfortunately be a save-breaking change. We expect to push it to the Open Beta next week - currently targeting Tuesday. As a reminder, we have a Cetus Open Beta rollback branch available with the previous version, so you’ll have a little bit more time available to finish any games made on the current pre-ethics change builds.

I’m a modder, what do I need to know?

Scopes, triggers, and effects have been adapted to match pop groups with multiple ethics, and we’ve added a couple of new triggers for you to use.

[c]pop_has_ethic[/c] and [c]pop_group_has_ethic[/c] have been removed.

[c]has_ethic[/c] will continue to work with pop groups, but will return true if even a single pop within the pop group is of that ethic.

[c]has_ethos = <target>[/c] Checks if a country or a pop group ethos contains all ethics of the other target ethos.

[c]pop_ethic_percentage = { value > <0.5/variable> ethic = <key> }[/c] Checks the percentage of pops following the ethic inside this pop group

On the bright side, it should also prevent things like this from happening.

Thanks to Scirch for this abomination of a screenshot.

This week’s Open Beta update includes the following changes

Improvement 

• Renamed Mercantile and Unyielding traditions to Commerce and Fortification to match the naming structure of all other traditions.

Balance

• More Mutagenic Spa balance:

  • Mutagenic Spas now only grant Substance Abuser to the governor of a planet with the baths on.

  • Spa Attendants for Worker Coop buff the Union Stewards.

  • Non-corporate Spa Attendants now produce 500 Amenities (was 100). Corporate Spa Attendants now provide 2 trade.

  • Mutagenic Spa Councilors now increase the number of spa attendant jobs, this effect is amplified if they are a substance abuser.

  • Mutagenic Spas can now be placed in research or unity district specializations

  • Increased the bonuses from Food Processing, Mineral Purification, and Energy Grid buildings.

• Experimental Sentencing changes:

  • Experimentation Chambers now provide a static number of experiment engineer jobs, and a scaling number of test subject jobs (depending on building tier). The number of test subject jobs is increased by 50% on Penal Colonies.

  • Rebalanced the amount of research experiment engineers produce per crime on the planet. The bug in which the modifiers considered the uncapped crime on the colony has also been fixed.

  • Consumer goods upkeep of experiment engineers now also increases with crime.

  • Orderlies no longer reduce housing requirements on the planet.

  • Orderlies now increase the job efficiency of experiment engineers and test subjects not their output.

• Halved the effects on workers and slaves of the Ruthless Developer trait.

• Unifier trait effects no longer scale with leader level.

• Reduced happiness from Social Welfare.

• Reduced unity from civilians under Social Welfare.

• Biomorphosis changes:

  • Switched Optimized Neurology (Purity flex 1) and Heightened Attributes (Purity flex 2).

  • Switched Biochemical Composure/Regenerative Cloning (Cloning flex 2) and Artifical Population (Cloning flex 3).

  • Removed Organic Job Efficiency bonuses from Somatic Subversiveness (Mutation flex 2) and Artificial Population.

  • Optimized Neurology now gives -1 Leader Maximum Negative Traits instead of +1 Effective Leader Level

  • Somatic Subversiveness now grants an additional +1 Effective Leader Level.

  • Artificial Population now provides -10% Empire Size from Vat Grown pops

  • -10% Empire Size from Pops from Heightened Attributes moved to Imperfection Remediation.

• Starbase building Offworld Trading Company now grants +4 trade per Trade Hub module (was +2 Trade).

• Starbase building Hyperlane Registrar now grants +2 Trade per Trade Hub module (was a non-scaling +2 Trade) and adds the Subspace Amplifier aura to the Starbase (-40% Hyperlane and Jump Drive cooldown/change time).

• Adopting partial virtuality by undergoing Synthetic ascension as an organic, lithoid or infernal species no longer grants -90% housing.

• The Computation Core Focus policies now grant +2.5% job efficiency per 100 roboticists or identity designers instead of +0.5% per 100 civilians.

• Adjusted scaling of event spawned pirate fleets to be more reasonable for 4.3 numbers.

Bugfix

• Planet Automation should work again. A design pass is in progress to improve the scripts.

• Fixed founder species has happiness check being reversed applying wrong amenities buffs on planetary populations

• Fixed the flavor text of a number of council position displaying the default name instead of the renamed title if the player had renamed them.

• Fixed Subterranean origin not giving extra housing on mining districts.

• Fixed nobles from cyber imperials not giving stability.

• Wenkwort planet modifiers are now correctly removed if the planet stops being a gaia world.

• Fixed a number of technologies having incorrect amounts for the housing modifiers they provide.

• Updated the Gestalt version of Chosen of the Eater to match the changes made to the non-gestalt version.

• Fixed mutation and cloning ascension not being able to remove advanced traits.

• Fixed modifiers from the Prospectorium Optimizer trait.

• Fixes an issue with ship size map icons.

• Corrected erroneous tooltip for the Domination tradition finisher.

• Corporate Vampires and Entropy Drinkers can now be swapped seamlessly when transitioning between corporate and oligarchic .governments

• Fixed several issues with secondary district names for Spiritualist empires and Ring World districts.

• Added abort triggers for the Prethoryn, Unbidden and Contingency event chain so they get properly cleaned up after their related crisis is defeated.

• Endbringers can no longer be declared a crisis if they are already the current crisis, which was restarting their war.

• Fixed incorrect founder species have happiness calculation resulting in inverted behavior that caused for example hive minds getting happiness bonuses.

• Fixed sector governor missing propagation of non triggered trait modifiers to all planets in the sector and not only the capital.

• Adjusted various conditions in modifier tooltip generation to not show unintentional data, ex “planet:”

• Fixed ship/fleet special modifiers being applied properly to the simulation and not only show up in tooltip ex docked ship upkeep reduction.

• Reduced stack usage in combat targeting code that could cause a CTD/undefined behaviour when larger numbers of ships are involved in combat.

Performance

• Reduced number of memory allocations

• Optimized string allocations

• More string optimizations

• Reduced repeated localization lookups when calculating planet modifiers

• Moved modifier name calculations to tooltip generation where this was done in the game simulation.

• Micro optimized localization system even more, reducing amount of allocations, recursions and length calculations.

We plan on continuing to fix bugs and making balance adjustments for the next few weeks, but the Cetus Open Beta has gone well enough that I’m leaning towards bringing it to the live branch sooner rather than later. If the Factions and Ethics change goes well, then I plan to release 4.3 Cetus in mid-March. (If the changes cause major issues, we’ll pull them from the build and they’ll wait until 4.4. I don’t want to drop a save-breaking change during the post-release support window.)

I’m extremely pleased with the amount and the quality of feedback we’ve received from the Cetus Open Beta, but the Custodian Team’s jobs are nowhere near done yet. I’m currently thinking that I’d like to reopen the Beta branch later on in the spring for 4.4 with continued balancing work - and the Slavery changes we’ve been planning once they’re in a workable state.

The weekly Cetus streams start again today, where you can watch me get distracted by questions and utterly fail whatever objectives I’ve been trying to do with my empire.

See you there!

The next Stellaris Dev Diary will be on March 12th. Maybe it’ll be Preliminary Patch Notes!

Hello Stellaris Community!

We have another open beta update for you this week. This update features a whole host of bug fixes, performance improvements and balance changes.

You can leave your feedback on the latest version of the open beta here: https://pdxint.at/4rN5fU1

Please see the patch notes below:

Feature

• When multiple End Game Crises are active in galaxy settings, End Game Crises are now allowed to spawn 25 years after another crisis has spawned instead of being blocked while there is an active crisis.

Balance

• Mercenary and Shroudwalker Enclaves now require 100 Naval Capacity in the fleet.

• The Crisis Beacon espionage operation now looks for larger fleets than before.

• Reduced Capital Productivity techs to +5% efficiency per tier from +10% per tier.

• Reduced the Faction Production bonus from Egalitarian ethics to +15% / +30%.

• Infernal Tankbounds now begin with three additional Generator districts. Other Tankbound empires will now convert one less Farm into a Generator.

• Removed the 30% automated workforce penalty that Tankbound started with. They no longer begin with insights on Assembly Patterns as it is no longer needed to negate this penalty. Assembly Patterns and Construction Templates now give Tankbound +10% Automation Efficiency.

• Aptitude Tradition Changes:

  • Aptitude Adoption effects are unchanged. (+1 Leader Trait option, Leadership Conditioning Agenda)

    • Leadership Conditioning agenda now grants 5% Leader XP when started, and 20% upon completion. (Was 10% / 10%.)

  • The Empire Needs You: Now -25% Leader Cost and +1 Recruitable Leaders per Class

  • Psychological Profiling: Now Leader Maximum Negative Traits -1 and +1 Leader Capacity for each class.

  • Healthcare Program: Now +10% Leader Lifespan and -25% Leader Upkeep.

  • Specialist Training: Now +10% Specialist (or Complex Drone) Job Efficiency.

  • Champions of the Empire: Now +1 Effective Leader Skill Level.

  • Aptitude Finisher is now +1 Leader Starting Traits. (Previously part of Champions of the Empire.)

• Slaves in the Slave Market now cost Trade rather than Energy.

• Cybernetic Creeds can now be Egalitarian.

• Cybernetic Creed Spiritualist Factions no longer care about robots.

• Rejecting Psionic Heresy allows Mindwardens access to the Shroud Inoculation living standard.

• The Appropriation tradition now also grants +25% Auto Resettlement Chance. (And has an appropriate flavor swap for Egalitarians)

• Distinguished Admiralty now grants +20% Command Limit instead of a flat amount.

• Reduced the (buffed in 4.3) Command Limit increase from Titans to match the actual size of Titans and so you end up with a nicer final number.

• Increased Naval Cap Repeatable tech to 20.

• Redesigned Mutagenic Spas to be less exploitable and to better match the theme of the civics.

  • Mutagenic Spas no longer scale with the number of districts and provide pop growth or assembly.

  • The civic now has all leaders (except for gestalt nodes) start with the Substance Abuser trait.

  • The building now provides -10% to both the Habitability Ceiling and Floor of the planet they are constructed on, provide 200 jobs and +3 effective leader level for the governor of the planet, if they are a substance abuser.

  • The jobs increase the job efficiency of ruler strata (or equivalent) and provide amenities.

  • Rogue Servitors gain a special variant of Mutagenic Spas for their Bio-Trophies instead of the normal Machine Lubrication Basins.

• Crisis Updates:

  • Adjusted End Game Crisis power relative to difficulty setting.

  • Tuned crisis strength scaling when allowing All end game crisis to spawn.

  • Reduced chances of Cetana spawning while another crisis is active.

  • The initial Unbidden fleet is now stronger to help them survive unfortunate spawn choices.

Bugfix

• Specialist Subject Relay Network effects now correctly only stack once for each type of subject like all other Specialist Perk benefits.

• Automated Job upkeep now appears correctly as "Automated Jobs" instead of showing up as "Other" or nothing at all in tooltips.

• Bio Shield techs now correctly inherit the Army Health modifiers from regular shield techs.

• Tankbound no longer get extra Production Overseers from volcanic generator or mining districts.

• Fixed lithoid and infernal Void Dwellers sometimes trying to create a mining station on their starting habitat.

• Fixed an issue with the Lesser Messenger ship name not being displayed when transferring it to another fleet.

• Fixed the tooltip of refinery worlds not properly displaying the gas refiner jobs.

• Fixed another issue in the Bloomed species trait tooltip.

• Fixed cases of Primal Calling starting the game with the wrong version of their unique building.

• Augmentor research output is now consistently split into society and engineering even before finishing the cybernetic ascension.

• Fixed calculation of mercenary enclaves

• Fixed required components selection in ship designer when using custom role

Stability & Performance

• Optimized resource lists in the Planet UI.

• Secured the execution around planet events to be evaluated in a place that is more OOS safe.

• Moved more trigger executions from Planet modifier calculation to daily pulse.

• Removed an unnecessary update of triggered modifiers on planets.

• Fixed crash in planet view economy tab when expanding jobs

The rest of the 4.3 changes can be found on the Paradox forums[forum.paradoxplaza.com].

Thank you for playing Stellaris!