Stellaris Dev Diary #374 - Announcing the 3.99.0 "Phoenix" Open Beta

by Eladrin

Surprise! An early Stellaris Dev Diary!

Last week I mentioned that on Friday we’d evaluate the current build, and I’d see if I could provide a timeline for the Open Beta. Things have been progressing well, so we’ve decided to put a very early version of some of the 4.0 changes to test a few aspects of the new systems.

The Stellaris 4.0 update changes a lot of things - you can find a lot of the details in the dev diaries of the last two months. This first build of the 3.99 Open Beta only contains a focused subset of the changes, and many are still in a work-in-progress prototype state. It is not polished, or even done yet.

The 3.11 Technology Open Beta very quickly found some performance issues with the Breakthrough Technologies that we were experimenting with, and as the pop systems have advanced far enough to be mostly functional, I want to get some broader gameplay done on that system in particular, even if the rest of the systems have not yet reached a fully playable state. A week of Open Beta gets more testing done than we can do internally over months, even if this isn’t at a level that I would historically have been comfortable releasing to the public. (Just so you know what you’re opting into!)

We also have a feedback survey available that focuses primarily on the Empire Timeline and Focus systems. (Later weeks will have new surveys on different topics.)

So What’s in the Build?

Last week’s dev diary provides a fairly accurate update about the current state of the build.

Precursor Selection, the Databank, and Species Modification are all functional.

The general game pacing adjustments, changes to galaxy generation, and notification changes are all in. The leader pacing changes are in, but we’re reviewing how leaders interact with the new economy before evaluating what changes to make to the traits themselves.

Empire Timeline and Focuses are in a functional, borderline releasable, state. We have added a number of Milestones that will appear on the Timeline, though there’s some polish we’re planning to do before release. Most of the basic Focus Tasks that we want are in, along with some of the Progression rewards for completing them.

The Trade and Logistic described in Dev Diary #369 are largely in, but some of the branch office changes and functionality are still on the to-do list.

Basic implementation of Pop Groups and the new Job system are in. This includes simultaneous Pop Growth and Auto-Migration, a partial colonization UI, and a partial update to the Planet UI itself. The major economic changes relating to Districts, Zones, and Buildings are only partially in, but I wanted to get the pop changes under some pressure as soon as possible.

We also renamed “Bonus Workforce” to “Job Efficiency”.

Any Known Issues or Things You Want to Tell Us?

The Ship Designer, Hard Reset origin, and Mammalian portraits are all in separate development branches, and will not be appearing during the Open Beta.

This build of the Open Beta build will not support Gestalts, unusual planets like Habitats or Ringworlds, or especially unusual civics, origins, or playstyles. Many Ascensions may be in a strange or dysfunctional state. Since many of the more interesting civics and origins aren’t supported yet, we strongly recommend playing the United Nations of Earth or the Commonwealth of Man, or custom empires similar in complexity. Expect things like Virtuality or Clone Army to be fairly broken right now.

You will likely start with an Amenities shortage at the start of the game. We haven’t decided whether this models an overpopulated homeworld nicely or if we consider it a bug. (It will be less dire once more of the buildings are available.)

Significant parts of the planet UI are still in development, including most “flavor” elements.

If you manually build a colony ship, it will not appear in the colonization UI. (They can still be used to colonize a planet by pressing the Colonize fleet order.)

Since the Zones UI is still in progress, you cannot get access to the menu to replace them right now. You’re stuck with your Earth Space Age Industry for this build.

The Early Space Age zone doesn’t currently have any other buildings you can put into it, so being stuck with it is kind of unfun.

We have not yet updated the Diplomacy traditions to reflect that Form Federation is now a technology.

Clerks haven’t been annihilated yet, and many non-”core” jobs have not been fully converted into the new system. Traditions and other things that modify Clerks have not yet been updated.

Civilians are currently an uncapped job rather than being associated with City District development. Living standards have not yet been updated to provide bonuses to Civilians rather than Unemployed Pops.

Planetary Logistic Upkeep currently pays you Trade if you have surpluses. While it takes money to make money, that’s not exactly what we were going for.

The UI element on the Management tab that is intended to show the size change of each pop group since last month is always “- 0”

Defensive Armies don’t spawn, so every planet will immediately surrender when bombarded. (Ground combat fixed?)

Some strings may not be present, and some icons are placeholder purple. Many.

The Unemployment entry in the planet UI is a little overenthusiastic. Yes, pops grow into their parents’ strata and get upset if they can’t get a job worthy of their upbringing right away, but it shouldn’t be a pressing matter until their numbers get over 100.

The AI isn’t great at picking zones yet. It nods sagely at the first thing it finds that it can afford and decides it’s an offer it can’t refuse.

The base “colony” designation has not yet been removed. Our intention is for the Colonist jobs provided by the Reassembled Ship Shelter to provide the benefits of the old colony designation. (And will thus expire when you upgrade your planetary capital rather than when you reach a certain number of Pops.)

We can’t guarantee multiplayer stability on this build, but we have identified an immediate economic Out of Sync issue that occurs when Windows and non-Windows users are playing together.

Here are the release notes for this build:

Stellaris 3.99.0 ‘Phoenix’ Open Beta Release Notes

Features

• Pops and Pop Groups
  • One of the biggest changes in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, and one of the primary focuses of this Open Beta, is the new Pop system. Rather than being individuals, Pops are now grouped based on Species, Strata, Ethics, and Faction, mostly for calculation purposes. As part of this change, Pop numbers have been increased by a factor of 100, allowing more granular manipulation of Pops by various systems.
  • All Pop Groups on a planet have simultaneous growth every month following the existing Logistic Growth formulas.
    • Underrepresented pops are no longer given population growth bonuses.
    • Fractional growth is not retained from month to month - if a Pop Group would have fractional growth, it has a chance to gain 1 pop that month based on that fraction.
    • All migration is now handled through the auto-migration system rather than push and pull that previously affected pop growth.
    • As more granular and simultaneous pop growth is now possible, the minimum growth for small colonies has been removed. Early colonization will be extremely reliant on migration from the empire capital.
    • Open Beta Note: Xenocompatibility no longer produces hybrid pops, but has not yet been updated to pool all planetary species into a single group for logistic growth purposes. When this is complete, we are likely to remove the Xenocompatibility galaxy setup toggle.

  • A Civilian stratum has been added to represent the masses that do not generally contribute to the empire’s military economy.
    • Open Beta Note: Civilians are intended to replace Clerks, which will be removed in a future Open Beta update.

  • Empires now begin with 2000 more pops, most of whom will be Civilians.
    
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #370.
  
  
• Planet UI, Zones, Workforce, and Jobs
  • The other major economic change in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update is a revamp to how jobs work.
  • Rather than Districts and Buildings being especially similar, we are shifting to a model where:
    • Planets produce and consume resources through Jobs.
    • Districts provide Jobs based on their development. (Mining District: Add 200 Housing and 200 Miner jobs per development level.)
    • Zones manipulate what Jobs are provided by Districts. (Foundry Zone: Replace 200 Civilian jobs and 200 Housing with 100 Metallurgists per development level.)
      • Open Beta Note: Currently the Zones are simpler, and will just provide the jobs. It is our intention for most Zones to convert rather than add.

    • Buildings are planet-unique and change what the Jobs produce. (Mote Harvesters: Technicians now also produce Volatile Motes.)
      
    • Pops produce Workforce that fills up Jobs.
    
    
  • Open Beta Note: The Planet UI is still very much a work in progress.
    
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #371.
  
  
• Empire Focuses and Timeline
  • The Situation Log now contains a tab for the Empire Timeline, which keeps track of important milestones of your playthrough.
  • The Timeline tab also contains a set of Empire Focus Tasks, which are intended to assist players with forming short and medium terms that align with their empire’s nature, while reducing the randomness of the tech tree.
    • Empires can choose between Conquest, Exploration, and Development as their primary Empire Focuses. You will still gain Tasks from other categories, but they will generally be weighted towards your choice. Some Tasks are basic “Core” Tasks, and will provide progress along all three tracks.
    • Completing Tasks provides progress towards Guaranteed Technology unlocks that are considered critical for that playstyle. You still need to research the technologies, they only provide the research option when you reach progress milestones. If you already have the technology unlocked or as a permanent research option, there is no alternate reward.
    • Because Task completion is retroactive and there are no alternate rewards, there should be no benefit in waiting to complete any that you have.
    • Should you end up with a Task that you find uncompletable or that you do not wish to complete, you can discard it and gain a new Task for a small cost in Unity.
    • It is our intention that empires that behave consistent with their Empire Focus should naturally complete the Tasks of that category.

  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #368.
  
  
• Trade has been revamped into a standard resource.
  • Trade is now used as the Market currency.
  • The Trade Routes system has been removed.
  • Ships now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on whether they are docked (free), friendly space (reduced), neutral space (normal), or hostile space (expensive).
    • Larger ships tend to have higher upkeep.
    • The multipliers based on location are set in defines.
    • Juggernauts do not have logistical upkeep, and reduce the logistical upkeep costs for ships in their system by 75%.
    • Resources blocks can now include a "logistics" block, which is currently only used by ships.

  • Planets now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on their local resource deficits. This represents the additional costs of diverting freighters to transport materials between planets.
    • Local deficit costs vary based largely on the base market value of the resources in question.

  • Trade Policies can set how much of your Net trade after logistics upkeep is converted into other resources.
    
  • Added galaxy setup sliders for Fleet Upkeep Logistics Costs and Planetary Deficit Logistics Costs.
    
  • More details can be found in Stellaris Dev Diary #369.
  
  
• The main help button now displays the Databank window where you can explore brief articles on many in-game concepts, reducing the need to navigate to external information sources.
  

Improvement

• Adjective leader trait names reverted, for example Inquisitor to Inquisitive
• Colonization flow has been improved.
  • You can now pre-select a colony designation and turn on planet automation before colonizing a planet, which will apply when the planet has finished colonizing.
  • Colonization now completes when 100 colonists have grown or migrated to the new planet.

• Significant improvements have been made to the Species UI.
  • One template per species can be set as the default template for that species, and other subspecies can be set to integrate over time into that default template.
    • Open Beta Note: Current rate of pop integration is likely to change to be slower as well as monthly.

  • The trait selection UI when creating a new template has been improved.
    
  • The special project window pops up and can be started immediately after creating a new template if desired. It is no longer absolutely necessary as you can use integration to slowly convert your existing pops.
  
  
• The Habitable Worlds slider in game setup now has a 'Rare' setting. There will still be a handful of habitable worlds in the galaxy, mostly from special events and guaranteed habitable worlds. Normalized initializer spawn odds to use a handful of scripted variables.
  
• Added galaxy precursor selection to game setup.
  
• Leader Adjustments:
  • As part of our game pacing and interruption reduction pass, leaders now gain trait selection moments on even levels rather than every level.
  • Leader positions now have a significantly greater effect on what traits will appear when they level up and gain a new skill.
  • Increased the base number of leader traits to pick from on level up by 1. This is intended to reduce the chance of getting exclusively poor trait options without devaluing other sources of leader trait picks too much.
  • Added an "Auto Select Leader Traits by Default" option to game settings, which defaults to Off. On game start or if you switch to an empire, it will toggle the setting on the Leaders tab to your selection. In Coop empires, this override only applies when the primary player of the country joins it. Changing the setting mid-game will not have any effect unless you switch countries.

• Significant improvements have been made to Message and Notification settings, providing you much more control over how you receive them.
  • Updated the default message settings
    • Revised strategic resource messages and added toast notifications
    • Changed trader events into notifications with unique icons. Added sound effect.
    • Anomaly discoveries now appear in a toast rather than popping up in the center of the screen.
    • Patron Newsletter event was changed into a notification
    • The Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
    • Order Restored event is now a notification
    • Governing Ethic Shift event has been turned into a toast
    • Faction Formed Events now appear as toasts following the first event
    • Added additional event options to Corrupt Administration event and turned it into a notification
    • The Toxic Terraforming Candidate Discovered Event is now a notification
    • Changed Inter-Dimensional trade increases event into a notification

  
  
• Added concept tooltips to the left Navigation Bar
  
• Added the Celestial Orrery system
  
• Transport ships can now use cloaking
  
• The Ruler Stratum has been renamed the Elite Stratum, to better differentiate them from the actual Empire Ruler
  
• The system fleet icon tooltip now shows the total of the fleets' military power listed by that icon, at the top.
  
• Added unique event options and localization for new life discovered events
  
• Reduced spammy First Contact events
  
• First Colony event - Added unique event options and rewards for Ethics
  
• Adjusted mass extinction event chain localization and picture
  
• The Betrayal event has been revamped to include multiple options
  
• Renamed government tab to overview in outliner
  
• Reduced the frequency of the Rise of the Manifesti event chain
  
• Added missing reward to fanatic materialist for Comet Sighted event
  
• Improved readability for event Covenant Formed
  
• Changed Storm Spotted alert sound to something less intrusive
  
• The low habitability popup now clearly highlights the negative effects
  
• Added the two new Society technologies Federation Code and Existential Campaigns
  
• Ironman mode is no longer required to earn most Stellaris achievements. An unmodified game checksum remains a requirement, and the use of any debug commands blocks them.
  • The "Victorious" achievement has been changed to "Win the game through any victory condition in Ironman mode."
  • Open Beta Note: Pop related achievements have not yet been updated.

• Several changes to the starbase UI to improve game flow and overall interaction
  
• Reworked Starbase window to harmonize naming and tooltips
  
• You are 4x as attractive as you were before.
  

Balance

• FE and Cosmogenesis Escort ships now have the same evasion value of 50
• Changed Curator Insight cost to empire size
• The Eternal Vigilance Ascension Perk can now be acquired early if you complete the Unyielding Tradition Tree.
• Adjusted Anomaly spawn rates to improve the pacing of the early game.
• Added more variance to whether or not prescripted systems will or will not appear in a given game. (They won't all appear in every single game anymore.)

Bugfix

• Fixed the issue of fleets failing to retreat from lost combat if the last ship failed to disengage.
• Human Pre-FTL societies now obey the Pre-FTL Civilizations game settings slider.
• Fixed a script error that was causing far more habitable planets to spawn in the galaxy than expected. Feel free to increase the Habitable Worlds slider if you prefer the old behavior.
• Fixed inconsistent capitalisation causing issues with pre-ftl pop generation
• Cleaned up the end-game crisis triggers. The Unbidden will no longer be the only ones to show up early to the party.
• Fix triggers to properly give Fissile Cores, the unique mutation for crystalline entities
• Treasure Hunters AIs now correctly go through the dialog events
• Fix Black Needle country spawning starbases
• Fixed too many AI empires being generated in coop games.
• Fixed the tooltip for obtaining the Mirror of Knowledge from the Infinity Machine not mentioning the 200 influence it also gives you
• Amenities icon fixed for Drone Storage and Hive Warren
• checks if planet owner is primitive before applying sector or system bonuses
• Set the nanotech ascension path interdictors to use different ship models from the swarmers
• Spitter Gun mutations have armor penetration
• Missiles mutations have numerals corresponding to tier in icons
• Nanite Infused Barb mutation requires nanites to build
• Ancient Driller Beasts mutations uses 88 as its M size cost
• Neutron Throwers mutation damage buff
• Blocked anomalies from spawning on the neutron star for Slingshot to the Stars' quantum catapult
• Handled dyson sphere flags on dismantling swarm while upgrading
• Fixed a broken tooltip inside of the "Extended Shifts" edict.
• Clone Soldier Ascendants can now cyberize
• Completing Inhibit Self-Deterministic AIs removes it from the situation log
• Fix the possibility to build multiple Grand Archives at the same time
• Only display relevant modifiers for Space Fauna ships in tooltips
• Reanimated space fauna ships cannot upgrade no matter what
• Black Needle fleet now correctly spawns to defend their base from bombardment
• Destroy Gravity Snare when there's no valid target anymore
• Broken Shackles check added for relevant Galcom events
• Strip Mine Decision is no longer available on artificial planets
• Inspired Rhetoric will no longer display a placeholder icon
• Fixed situations start value being added multiple times.
• Special system initializers now respect the habitable worlds slider in game setup (to a degree).
• Planetary part of ringworlds no longer take on empire color
• First Contact was changed into a toast and once again shows the correct localization
• Added missing pre sapient loc string
• The dismantle button has regained its missing loc string
• Resolved scope error caused by toast target scope being set to root
• Advanced start empires can no longer have mining stations over resources they do not have tech for

AI

• Fixed Prethoryn Scourge incorrectly calculating target priority for non-edible pops.

UI/UX

• Added an Assign Leader button to the leaders screen that lists available positions.
• Fixed it not being possible to build starbases in systems with non-central stars from the galaxy view (when a construction ship is selected).
• Added a message setting button in event popup windows.
• Hid details that aren't relevant for all species in the galaxy when the Galaxy tab is selected in the Species view.
• Updated the message settings screen to give more space for the message list.
• Changed auto-unpause on the message settings screen from a spinner to a checkbox.
• Adjusted centering of text and icons in toast windows. If a toast with custom description has no icon associated with the custom description, the description will now fill the entire lower section of the toast.

Localization

• Add tooltip to Cutholoid Hunter modifier
• Add tooltip to Voidworm Hunter modifier
• Turn reanimated cutholoids and voidworms ship size name consistent with other reanimated Space Fauna

Modding

• Open Beta Note: We’re still working on Zones and Buildings, and will likely change how we do some of this to be a bit friendlier. Don’t update your mods based on what you see in this build.
• Add `resettle_pop_group` effect that allows to resettle a specified portion of a pop group to a target planet
• Add first iteration of `create_pop_group` effect
• Add kill_pop_group effect that takes a pop group and an amount or percentage and instantly kills them
• Add `transfer_pop_amount` effect that transfers pops from a pop group to another
• Removed unused can_resettle_planet game rule and renamed can_resettle_planet_no_owner_check to can_resettle_planet.
• Removed can_colonize_with_pop game rule and moved its checks to can_colonize_with_species.
• Added the script effect "copy_traditions_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { tradition1 tradition 2 } }" that copies tradition from a target country into the scoped country
• Added "add_ascension_perk" and "remove_ascension_perk" effects, scope must be a country, adds or removed the specified perk syntax: add/remove_ascension_perk = perk_key
• Added "copy_ascension_perks_from" effect: Copies the Ascension Perks of the target country into the scoped country. They are added to the existing perks, and the potential/possible triggers are respected. The perks listed in the exceptions list are not copied. copy_ascension_perks_from = { target = FROM exceptions = { perk1 perk2 } }
• Added "remove_tradition" effect. Remove the target tradition from the scoped Country. remove_tradition = tradition_key
• Added effect "remove_tradition_tree" Remove the target tradition tree from the scoped Country. remove_tradition_tree = tradition_category_key
• Added spawn_design to static galaxy system data, which forces a specific design to spawn in the system.
• Added gamesetup_settings script for configuring the settings list in game setup.
• There is now an event_message_type in events that lets you override the default message type EVENT_MESSAGE_TYPE. This can e.g. provide separate message settings.
• Scripted loc can now be used in concept tooltips and the top bar tooltips.
• New on_action on_favor_gained that gets triggered when a country receives a favor.
• Added the used_defense_platform_capacity_percent trigger, letting you check how much of a starbases defensive platform capacity is used.
• Message notification background is now separated from the message type icon.
• New on_action on_research_option_added that gets triggered every time a new permanent research option is acquired.
• The actual script file and line are now printed when there are errors logged in scripted triggers and scripted effects, in addition to the previously available information.
• kill_pop has been replaced with kill_pop_group. For ease of use kill_single_pop and kill_all_pop scripted effects have been made.
• Replaced resettle_pop with resettle_pop_group.
• Added "playme" console command as shorthand for human_ai and ai_ignore_was_human.

Okay, How Do I Opt Into the Beta?

If you’re ready for a confusing, possibly frustrating, and unfinished experience, and you’re on Steam, you can opt into the Open Beta.

1. Turn off your mods. They will almost certainly cause you to crash.
2. Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> Betas -> select "stellaris_test - 3.99.0 Open Beta" branch in the Beta Participation dropdown.

What’s Next?

We expect that the next Open Beta update, 3.99.1, will have Civilians in a more complete state, and more of the UI and AI should be in place. Buildings, Zones, and Jobs should also have more progress too.

Our next Dev Diary will be on Thursday, March 20th, but I hope to have an update to the Open Beta before the weekend.

Here is the link to Stellaris Open Beta Survey 1: Empire Timeline and Empire Focus!