Hello everyone!
We’re less than a week away from the release of BioGenesis and the free Stellaris 4.0 “Phoenix” update, and we’d like to take some time to talk about the things coming in the free 4.0 patch coming to Stellaris on May 5th. We’ve also released a list of preliminary (English-only, sorry!) patch notes on the forums, you can read those here.
Game Director Eladrin set aside time to talk about the Free 4.0 Update for Stellaris Official on YouTube.
Pop Groups, Workforce, and Species Modification
Pops have long been one of the biggest causes of late-game performance issues in Stellaris. As such, we’ve grouped singular pops by species, strata, and ethic. This allows us to vastly reduce the number of calculations required as the number of pops increases in the late game.
Pop groups will produce Workforce, which is assigned to jobs on your planets. Pop groups can supply Workforce to multiple jobs, and species traits that previously would create extra resources, now generate bonus workforce when working these jobs.
With pop groups, we’ve also changed pop growth to be simultaneous across all species on a planet, which should result in a more realistic growth and demographics of pops in your empire. With the added focus on Pop Growth, Empires will generally start with large masses of Civilians on their planets, enough to comfortably colonize several worlds, where they will emigrate over time.
We’ve also done some work on Species Modification. Now, with the Gene Tailoring Technology or Integrated Anatomy tradition, you can specify a default template for a species, afterwards any subspecies with Sub-Species Integration set the Integrate Into Default Sub-Species species right will integrate into the default species template over time.
Trade, Logistics, and MegaCorps
The old Trade Routes system was another system that was hurting game performance, made worse by it being also one of the most hard-to-use and unintuitive game systems. We decided that it was time to remove Trade Routes altogether, and instead make Trade a regular resource that can be used and stockpiled.
Trade will now accumulate monthly over time, and represents logistical effort on behalf of your empire. Planetary deficits will now impart a trade expense, as freighters are commandeered by your empire to transport resources to worlds that aren’t otherwise self-sufficient. Military fleets as well will impart a trade cost, decreasing when they’re in orbit of friendly starbases, and increasing when in hostile territory. Trade can also be spent on the Market for the purchase of resources.
This was also an opportunity to make Trade available for Gestalt empires, who can now collect Trade from both jobs and deposits. While they don’t have much use for Traders and Clerks, their Maintenance and Logistics drones will produce most of their trade.
MegaCorps also had a facelift in 4.0. Most corporate Civics now give bonuses to specific Branch Office buildings, and gain Trader jobs on their Capital from the Branch Office building. Branch Office buildings are now limited to one per planet, but give more appropriate jobs to the host planet.
To offset the bonuses to Branch Office buildings, constructing these buildings now also costs Influence, and has an increased effect on Empire Size.
Criminal Syndicates have also had some improvements, for both their playability and for playing against them. Criminal Syndicates can now establish Commercial Pacts. Having a commercial pact with a Criminal Empire will replace all criminal buildings with their "lawful" counterpart. As long as the commercial pact remains, criminal branch offices will not be removed from the planet. All Criminal branch office buildings now produce 25 Crime and give criminal jobs in addition to regular jobs. We have also added a crime floor to non-criminal branch office buildings on empires they have a trade agreement with, which means there will always be a minimum amount of crime on the branch office planet. Criminal branch offices are also up to 25% more profitable on high crime planets.
New Planet UI & District Specializations
The change from Pops to Pop Groups also opened up an opportunity to revamp exactly how Districts, Buildings, and Jobs interact with each other. Districts provide a base number of jobs, District Specializations provide additional jobs per District, and buildings provide Jobs.
District Specializations are a new feature coming in Stellaris 4.0. City Districts will be able to choose two District Specializations, while the Generator, Mining, and Farming districts each can choose one. District Specializations provide extra jobs per district of that type constructed.
Unlocking Specializations will be locked behind key technologies, but choosing a specialization will also open up three additional Building slots.
Assigning and restricting Jobs works remarkably similar to how it did in previous versions of Stellaris, but now instead of assigning Pops to work the job directly, you’re assigning Workforce from several different Pop Groups to work the job.
New Mammalian Portraits & Precursor Selections
And now my deer friends, one mooo-re surprise for you! The Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update brings ten paws-itively stunning new Mammalian portraits to the base game!
We know some of you have Precursors that you like the most - and the least - and with Stellaris 4.0, you’ll now be able to turn off the Yuht after you get it for like the sixteenth time in a row.
We’ve also added a new Empire timeline that tracks major events in your empire. We know this is something that some of you have wanted for a while, and it’s great to be able to look back and remember events that happened in your empire.
There’s so much more to talk about coming in Stellaris 4.0, you can read the full patch notes here.
Stellaris 4.0 and the BioGenesis expansion will be available May 5th on Steam, or you can pick it up as part of Stellaris: Season 09 for a 20% discount!
Thanks to everyone for playing Stellaris!