Stellaris Dev Diary #419 - Happy Decennial!

by Eladrin

Stellaris launched on May 9th, 2016 - this Saturday will mark ten years.

The game that shipped a decade ago was a very different beast from what we’re playing today. The galaxy was smaller in a lot of different ways - while we did have three different modes of FTL, there were fewer options in general. Fewer choices in empire creation, fewer events to experience, and fewer ways to find yourself in unexpected situations.

We did have a foundation though, and the many stories you’ve all built on top of that foundation and shared with everyone is why we’re still here ten years later writing dev diaries.

Thank you for taking part in this most amazing journey with us.

Watch the video Dev Diary on YouTube!

As I’ve mentioned a few times previously, Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, and the Humanoids Species Pack are being rolled into the base game with the 4.3.6 release on Monday, May 11th. More details can be found in this post.

These three DLCs have been set as free, and we strongly encourage you to claim ​them for your accounts before Monday.​

The main reason to claim the free DLCs now is so you’re properly flagged as owning them if you choose to play on pre-4.3.6 rollback branches. It won’t matter for any 4.3.6 or later versions of Stellaris, as they’ll be integrated into the base game from that point forward, but since they’re free and one day you might get the itch to play on 2.8.1, we want to make sure you’ll be able to play with Utopia.

There will be a way to claim them in the future as well, but we’re still working out some of the details.

As part of the anniversary celebration, a portrait inspired by BioGenesis’ Behemoth is joining Chirpy as available when you log in with a Paradox Account:

Meet the Behemothkin.​

The Behemothkin is in the Reptilian phenotype.

Here’s what else is coming in 4.3.6:

Feature​

• The Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, Humanoids Species Pack, and most elements of the Galaxy Edition Upgrade have been rolled into the base game.

  • Utopia contains:

    • Megastructures, Habitats, Ascension Perks, Indoctrination, Advanced Slavery, Hive Mind empires, Fanatic Purifiers, and more.

  • Synthetic Dawn contains:

    • Machine Intelligence empires, Machine Rebellions, Machine Fallen Empire, 7 machine portraits, and more.

  • Humanoids contains:

    • 10 humanoid portraits, the Master Artificers, Pleasure Seekers, and Pompous Purists civics, the Clone Army origin, the humanoid shipset, and more.

• A Behemothkin portrait has been added to Reptilians if you are logged in with a Paradox Account.

• Added a Portrait Substitution option in Accessibility settings.

  • When Arachnophobia Mode is enabled, spider-like portraits are replaced with alternative artwork on your client only, with no effect on other players in multiplayer.

  • Arachnophilia Mode does the opposite, replacing non-spiders with spider-like portraits.

Bugfix​

• Leaders can no longer become too old to die.

• Corrected Vipra the Vapor’s greeting audio

Performance​

• Players with systems capable of exceptionally high framerates can now override the default 90 FPS render cycle cap by adding refreshCap=144 (or other values) to their settings.txt. The first time you launch Stellaris after this change, it will add refreshCap=90 if it's not present. The refresh rate will still floor at 30 and cap at your monitor's refresh rate. Note that increasing this value will leave less time for the simulation loop in favor of the rendering loop, and thus may negatively affect overall performance.

Stability​

• Fix to a CS_SPECIES_COUNT, CS_SPECIES_INDEX OOS when playing with nascent species

• Fix to a CS_COUNTRY_RESOURCES OOS

Modding​

• We've simplified how "very old age" is handled in code - the define is now a fixed point that makes you more likely to die if you are over 120% of your species' lifespan. As we've changed this from 100 to 1.2, you'll want to update any mods that changed this value.

• The Portrait Substitutions spinner in Accessibility will load all files in the game\\gfx\\portraits\\portraits\\substitutions folder when the game starts and add them to the spinner options. See the Arachnophobia and Arachnophilia options we have provided for the process to add your own Portrait Substitutions.

As a reminder, we have an extended Open Beta running on the stellaris_test_job_assignment branch with major improvements to planetary economy and AI behavior. We’re currently looking at shipping these changes with the 4.4 ‘Pegasus’ update (mostly so we don’t break mods twice in quick succession), but will be keeping the branch updated with the 4.3.6 changes. We’d be greatly appreciative for any feedback.

Now I’m going to turn it over to Iggy, who wanted to answer a couple of common questions we’ve been seeing people asking about Nomads.

Our spy network has been building since the announcement of Nomads last week, and we are ready to give an initial report. Many speculated that Nomadic status would be determined by an Authority, a Civic, or an Origin. But it turns out that it’s something new!

Sadly, our operatives couldn’t retrieve the full tooltip​

Nomads is a whole new gameplay option that an empire either is or is not. Then, after that, there are multiple compatible Civics and Origins, both from this new DLC as well as from our vast library of content.

One of these new origins is Voidfarers. If Prosperous Unification is the “pops” Origin, then this is the “ships” Origin.I did buff it while writing this dev diary and I hope Eladrin approves, else I have to update the picture again. (E: Approved.)

We now darken origins you aren’t eligible for, Technologia!​

In our initial prototypes for this DLC we did actually use a special shipset for Nomads, and then later a special civic. These were always temporary fixes to kickstart developing the DLC for we always had higher ambitions for Nomads. The intention was always to introduce a new toggle, a new setting for empires, because the greatest strength Stellaris has is the decade of great and evocative gameplay, which you get to combine and make new stories out of.

Since Iggy’s broken the ice, next week we’ll continue exploring the Nomads expansion by revealing some details on Scientific Arkships, Waylines, and the Sacred Path origin. The next few diaries are going to be very long.

See you then!

High-Rez Exports of the Behemothkin and Vipra.