Stellaris 4.4.4 "Pegasus" Open Beta (3bc0) now available!

Hello Stellaris Community!

We have just released the Stellaris 4.4.4 "Pegasus" patch to Open Beta. This patch addresses some of the balance and QoL feedback we've received since Nomads' release, as well as a host of bug fixes, and stability improvements. We plan on releasing 4.4.4 sometime next week, but in the interest of getting fixes to you as fast as possible, we're putting it up as an Open Beta today.

Feedback-wise, we're most interested in feedback on multiplayer stability. We've been getting anecdotal reports that multiplayer stability is much improved, however we've also been getting some mixed signals on that front (eg. isolated reports of OOSes still persisting). For those of you interested in offering feedback on this latest version, please play in multiplayer and make bug reports for any OOSes you experience. If you're wondering what is required for a help OOS Bug Report, we have a How to report multiplayer desyncs guide.

Please note: This is an opt-in Open Beta. In order to opt-in: (On Steam) Right Click Stellaris, go to Properties, click the Betas tab, and choose "stellaris_test" from the list of branches.

Without further ado, onto the patch notes (these are unchanged from the patch notes posted to the forums earlier today in the Dev Diary):

Feature

• The Baol Life Seeding decision can now be enacted on artificial worlds and structures, and grants a unique deposit carrying over some of the bonus of a Gaia world

Improvement

• AI will now consider abandoning a contract after 20 years have passed since they have accepted it.

• Idle Arkships and Logistic ships will notify the player about having completed the waystation/wayline stockpile collection.

• Added Logistics Hub indicator in the galaxy map.

• Arkship and Logistic harvest and strip mine orders issued on a whole solar system now target higher-value planets first instead of simply the nearest.

• Automated science ships that temporarily run out of reachable tasks now stay automated and resume when new work appears, instead of cancelling automation.

• Arkship random names in empire creation now use namelists for ships, not planets.

• Fleets will continue repairing and upgrading while following the moving arkship within the system.

• Fleets will continue following the arkship after having completed its upgrades.

• Improved the randomization of nomadic empires in galaxy generation, so they no longer take up the bulk of the advanced AI empire slots.

• Following ships will start charging its FTL drive without waiting for the target to complete its hyperlane jump.

• Becoming nomadic now embarks assault armies on the planet instead of destroying them.

Balance

• Further reduced the effects that higher difficulties have on Forever Cruise progress.

• Deep Sleep civics can no longer be combined with the Synthetic Fertility origin to avoid breaking their starting situation and the identity repository.

• Rebalanced Arkship habitability from species traits.

• Arkship colonies gain +40% habitability from their planet class.

• Arkship Living Space Module grants habitability and costs Exotic Gases.

• Reduced the size bonus damage from the Vanguard and Knight Paladin subclasses.

• Adjusted the starting conditions of Forever Cruise and upkeep of Passengers to not start you in massive deficits.

• Made the Forever Cruise center situation stage longer

• Added a Passenger Satisfaction penalty for abandoning Forever Cruise contracts

• The Doomsday modifier you get for successfully embarking now grants +60% habitability

• Increased offspring ship limits.

• Nomad strategic-resource harvesting reworked. Researching a resource's mining technology now grants a +50% harvesting yield for that resource (Volatile Motes, Exotic Gases, Rare Crystals, Living Metal), replacing the previous penalty for lacking the technology. This means that the bonus from the technology now applies to resources inherent to the planet class instead of only those from deposits.

• Tribute Vault and Pirate Hideout waystation modules now add their resources to the waystation's stockpile.

Bugfix

• Literally unplayable typo fixed in "Agree to Disagree" perk tooltip.

• Fixed opinion modifiers from Defender of the Galaxy applying when they shouldn't.

• Paladin ships can no longer cloak, as their UI does not support it.

• Fixed some Star Seekers checks only checking for the regular version of the civic.

• Nomad-exclusive technologies are now hidden if you decide to settle, and re-revealed if you then decide to embark and become nomadic again.

• fixed error logged when loading a save that contains popup informing about finish a tech research

• The gas giant created by the Primal Calling origin now starts surveyed.

• Corrected that mineral_insight_nomad did not provide job efficiency for astro-harvesting jobs.

• The Waystation Research Module now establishes communications with pre-FTL civilizations in its system.

• Planet class modifiers now apply to Arkship (ship-carried) colonies.

• Fixed a crash that could occur while the AI was evaluating which contract to take on.

• Total Wars between Nomads now properly move arkships between owners

• Preventing a waystation UI from crashing in some modded ui cases.

• Fixed the Planet Modifier for doomsday empires embarking not being applied to their arkship.

• Fixed the Safe Haven modifier for embarking as a doomsday empire not having an icon.

• Allowed Beastports for non-Beastmaster empires if you have tech_alien_cloning..

• Fleets will no longer get stuck not being able to jump if the target their are following is currently moving.

• In "Decipher Strange Signal", the nomadic empire needs to be in the system owner's empire to make contact

• Fixed Nomadic empires not being able to enable L-Gates in some cases.

• Arkships no longer benefit twice from waystation network (wayline) modifiers.

• The Utility Deck specialization now correctly supports industrial buildings.

• Fixed Specific Cetana events being broken for Nomads

• Fixed delayed starbase spawn upon settling as Nomads

• Fixed Cetana's Databank Project not showing up under Ongoing Crises

• Fixed the Clone Army dig site spawn event localisation pointing towards an incorrect planet

• Fixed an edge case where it was possible to dismiss the Eternal Chorus scientist before the end of the event chain

• Fixed an instance of the Assist Colony special project not spawning properly upon accepting the contract

• Fixed the Sable Pilot trait icon being empty

• Fixed crash that could happen when federation members were destroyed while a proposal was still being voted

• "Cetana: Weak Links" entry stays inside the borders of the Situation Log window.

• Fixed 2 resort world specializations deleting themselves after being build

• Changing the situation approach will now update the effect list faster - some edge cases used to delay the changes in the effects for a few in game days.

• Abandoning an internal contract no longer sends an issuer toast

• The on_cancel effect only fires once for internal contracts

• Massively increased the likelihood that the Drums of War chains starts for Heirs of the Khan empires near the mid game year.

• Ignore border restrictions for nomadic countries in uplift-species special projects

• Fixed Recall paladin ability to work for nomad players

• Fixed Stellar Ignition Contract being impossible to complete

• Take the initiative projects will now abort if they are no longer needed.

• Fixed Wanderlust event chain re-appearing in the situation log

• The Doomsday event to unlock Embarking once again unlocks embarking.

• Lowered the Forever Cruise situation speed change based on difficulty

• Enabled the Sacred Path event chain to remain in the Situation Log after completing all Sacred Sites, so players can still find them on the galaxy map.

• Color change in "System Warmth Detected" event window

• Fixed internal contract spawn chances for Forever Cruise

• Fixed the Timeline event for megastructures only firing for Behemoth empires

• Fixed GetPlanetMoon returning a capitalized version of Planet as well as not returning moon when it should

• The Doomsday Arkship modifier now speeds up decisions, not buildings

• Fixed some Patron callings and deeds that were inappropriate for Nomadic Empires showing up.

• Fixed the tooltips for some Patron accords not showing the correct tooltips for gestalt empires.

• Fixed the tooltips for when an Arkship couldn't perform an action being confusing in some cases.

• Blocked Shroud-Forged from Embarking.

• You can no longer distribute Zro or Astral Threads during the Psionic Ascension situation if you run out of Zro or Astral Threads.

• Astral Scars spawned during the Psionic Ascension situation are now revealed to Nomadic Empires.

• Fixed an unlocalized tooltip for cloaking detection.

• Fixed some backup clone effects checking for the incorrect tradition.

• Arkship Preparation for the Doomsday origin now correctly reduces the time to embark.

• Polish and Russian loc fix

• Added a fallback if the Cyberization situation gets stuck with less than 100 pops to cyberize

• A firing Stellar Cannon no longer blocks interaction with planets and construction in other star systems.

• Arkships can now research the special project in Crystal Manufactory

• The Breach the Shroud situation now recognizes all types of Psi Corps buildings

• Unit Solace now correctly has the Synthetic trait

• Players without the Nomads DLC can again create Nomadic empires in multiplayer when the host owns the DLC.

• Fixed Arkship afterburners not upgrading to tier 2 when Advanced Afterburners is researched.

• Automated fleets no longer drop out of automation after evading hostiles.

• Fixed Stingers and the Devastator Mount not obeying the listed firing arcs for their weapons in some cases.

• Fixed civic-granted starting buildings not being added on Sacred Path Nomad Arkships (Experimentation Chambers, Sanctuary of Repose, Astrometeorology Observatory, Sacrificial Temple)

• Fixed Experimentation Chambers not being added on Hive/Machine Nomad Arkship starts

• Fixed deep-scan Resource Cache toast displaying incorrectly

• Fixed Forever Cruise empires incorrectly receiving Luxury Residences on game start

• Event generated Nomad empires will no longer get an asteroid

• Fixed Arkship move button incorrectly disabled

• The Abandon Contract button now warns about the consequences in its tooltip.

• Fixed duplicate colony names in the diplomacy tooltip after a nomad empire settles.

• Fixed a Special Project icon that could appear underneath the star in certain situations.

• Fixed starbase module and building limits showing as 0 in link tooltips.

• Timed project alerts no longer show projects from option groups you did not select.

• Fixed a duplicate scope name in deposit-related event tooltips.

• Fixed accepted contracts showing "Available Until: 0" in the issuer's tooltip.

• Fixed the outliner planet tooltip incorrectly reading "Carried by".

• Improved unhelpful modifier tooltip labels on Arkships.

• The anomaly "The Imitator" can no longer appear twice.

• The Stellar Cannon no longer removes portals when it fires.

• Fixed situation approaches not working after a repeating situation completed a cycle.

• Fixed welding bots facing the wrong way while constructing a megastructure.

• Harvesting modifiers for Civilian Arkships are now working correctly.

• Fixed some resource mining technologies being blocked for Nomadic empires.

• Fixed issues in which settled empires that Embarked could retain starbases and borders. Clarified the tooltip for Waystation conversion in English.

• Expulsions wars will no longer move stations nomads are not allowed to build before reverting their ownership

• Fixed Governor modifiers not applying.

• Nomad Raids now properly transfer waystations on status quo's in both directions

• Maintenance Optimization Tradition now grants Amenities bonuses for Calculator Jobs and the Hive equivalent.

• Changed icon for "Resources Stolen" alert notification to make it more noticeable after successfully plundering a planet.

• Operational Reserves tooltip now mentions the 1-3 scaling of energy/minerals to operational reserves

• Fixed numerous modifiers (such as the Stability from Bureaucrats granted by Byzantine Bureaucracy) not granting their modifiers to Arkships. Note to modders: Any scripted modifier needs to be updated to work on colonies rather than planets.

AI

• AI will no longer accept unreachable contracts and will abandon contracts that become unreachable.

• Fixed AI empires not properly using Deep Sleep mechanics.

• Fixed nomadic AI empires not merging their armies into a single transport fleet.

• Fixed AI not selecting hostile, domineering, threatened or imperious attitudes if either country is nomadic.

• Fixed AI counting their existing armies twice when calculating how many armies to build.

UI/UX

• Eager Explorers, Privatized Exploration, Stargazers, and Exploration Protocols are now marked as a Challenging Civic on the empire creation screen.

• Ship automation buttons are now disabled, with an explanatory tooltip, for ships that cannot use Hyperlane travel.

• The diplomacy window dynamically resizes width as you move between options

• Selection box remains in the correct section after building a System or Spinal Mount

• Improved concept tooltips for starbase building and module unlocks.

• Fix waystation stockpile max capacity rounded to thousands

• Removed a duplicate Ascension Perks header in the perk picker.

• The starbase module list now keeps its scroll position when advancing through slots.

• Fixed the Situation Log selection jumping back to the first entry when scrolling.

• Fixed the position of the remove-contract button.

• Waystation UI now shows income to two decimal places.

• Waystations that are collecting excessive resources now have more room to display their icons in the system map.

Performance

• Improved performance of the empire creation UI.

Stability

• Fixed a crash on the start of the game loaded from an old save file.

• Fixed a SHELD_HEALTH OOS on hotjoin

• Country Modifiers OOS fixed due to badly parallelized navy coverage calculations

• to reduce the amount of OOS at resync, the host will now also reload the save during a resync

Audio

• Stellaris Complete Soundtrack updated with Nomads tracks and album artwork.

• Correct sound now plays when arkships are attacked.

Modding

• Added `category_limit_fail_text` to scripted actions.

• Added a `context_menu_ordering` (distance/weight) field for scripted actions to control target ordering when issued on a whole system.

• Added a per-ship-class shield multiplier modifier (e.g. `corvette_shield_mult`), matching the existing per-class health and armor multipliers.

• Added collected_colony_resources allowing starbase modules to steal or clone resources from colonies in the same system.

• Added AI_HOSTILE_FLEET_DISTANCE define.

Save compatibility is not guaranteed between versions and while we are not expecting issues from older save games and this new version, it is always a good practice to back up your save file before loading into a new version.