Hello Console Edition Community!
As some of you may know, when we were first porting Stellaris onto Consoles, we had to completely redesign the user interface for Stellaris: Console Edition. Porting Console Edition isn’t an automatic process, there’s an extremely talented team at Tantalus that handle porting the new versions of Stellaris PC into Console Edition.
If you want to learn some more about the process, here is the team from Tantalus talking about the process of porting Stellaris from PC to Console (from PDXCON2021):
Console Edition UI, like all things in game development, is an iterative process. We haven’t just dropped the UI on you folks, and then walked away, we are constantly looking for ways to improve the Console Edition interface, the addition of the radial menu is a great example of this.
The next update for Console Edition contains some more of these improvements, as well as some other quality of life changes that were ported over from the PC version.
Automated Research
Similar to a Science Ship’s automated surveying, Automated Research is unlocked by the Positronic AI tech. Once this is unlocked, you will be able to press X (on Xbox) to have the AI pick your research for you.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (91).png")
Choose Your Crisis
Another new quality of life improvement that came over from PC, was the ability to choose your end-game crisis. Never seen the Contingency before? Now you can guarantee it!
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (104).png")
New Events
NO SPOILERS! There have been 10 envoy-based random events added in the latest update. As well as the “Manifesti Destiny” event chain, which is a factions-based event chain that has a chance to fire for non-gestalt empires. Be careful what you choose if Manifesti Destiny fires for you, the ending may be very spicy under the right conditions.
Bypasses Map Mode
The next update will add three new map modes to Stellaris: Console Edition. We’ll only be talking about Bypasses map mode today. Bypasses Map mode shows bypasses on the Galaxy Map, even when completely zoomed out. Allowing you to easily find Gateways, wormholes, and L-Gates that would have otherwise required minutes of frantic squinting and searching.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (93).png")
Additionally, wormhole links will also be shown on the galaxy map.
Outliner Improvements
The outliner is one of those things that the Tantalus devs are always looking for ways to improve and make more accessible with a controller. The next update for Console Edition will have First Contact, Archaeology, and [redacted] featured in the Outliner.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (60).png")
Additionally, Planets can now be reordered in the outliner, in outliner settings at the bottom.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (100).png")
It is also possible to replace the planet icons with Planetary Designation icons from the same menu, allowing you to know at a glance what your planets are (or at least should be) doing.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (102).png")
Fleet Interface Improvements
Multiple fleet selection has been improved. Where previously the list would scroll off the screen, now all the fleets are listed at the top of the Fleet menu window, and you can select which fleet to look at.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (96).png")
As well, there is now a shortcut to get to the Fleet manager from the Manage Fleet window. Hover over “Reinforce” and it will tell you the shortcut to open the Fleet Manager.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (95).png")
Cycle Button
Moving between planets/fleets/starbases has never been easier. The often under-appreciated cycle button in the next update will now work in more places. Using the View button on Xbox, or the touchpad on PS4, you will be able to cycle through your fleets, planets, and starbases at the touch of a button.
Radial Menu
The Radial menu has also been expanded. In addition to the things the Radial Menu currently does, it will now also show First Contact sites and Observation posts.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (98).png")
Fast Scroll
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve also added the option to “Fast Scroll” in many menus using the Trigger buttons. Tapping fast scroll will take menu options two at a time, and holding down the trigger buttons will allow you to zoom up and down most menus easily, especially helpful if you know where you’re going.
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (103).png")
That’s it for this week, next week we’ll be telling you how to deal with exploring the galaxy when your galaxy map looks like this:
.png "Stellaris Console Edition (90).png")
As some of you may know, when we were first porting Stellaris onto Consoles, we had to completely redesign the user interface for Stellaris: Console Edition. Porting Console Edition isn’t an automatic process, there’s an extremely talented team at Tantalus that handle porting the new versions of Stellaris PC into Console Edition.
If you want to learn some more about the process, here is the team from Tantalus talking about the process of porting Stellaris from PC to Console (from PDXCON2021):
Console Edition UI, like all things in game development, is an iterative process. We haven’t just dropped the UI on you folks, and then walked away, we are constantly looking for ways to improve the Console Edition interface, the addition of the radial menu is a great example of this.
The next update for Console Edition contains some more of these improvements, as well as some other quality of life changes that were ported over from the PC version.
Automated Research
Similar to a Science Ship’s automated surveying, Automated Research is unlocked by the Positronic AI tech. Once this is unlocked, you will be able to press X (on Xbox) to have the AI pick your research for you.
Choose Your Crisis
Another new quality of life improvement that came over from PC, was the ability to choose your end-game crisis. Never seen the Contingency before? Now you can guarantee it!
New Events
NO SPOILERS! There have been 10 envoy-based random events added in the latest update. As well as the “Manifesti Destiny” event chain, which is a factions-based event chain that has a chance to fire for non-gestalt empires. Be careful what you choose if Manifesti Destiny fires for you, the ending may be very spicy under the right conditions.
Bypasses Map Mode
The next update will add three new map modes to Stellaris: Console Edition. We’ll only be talking about Bypasses map mode today. Bypasses Map mode shows bypasses on the Galaxy Map, even when completely zoomed out. Allowing you to easily find Gateways, wormholes, and L-Gates that would have otherwise required minutes of frantic squinting and searching.
Additionally, wormhole links will also be shown on the galaxy map.
Outliner Improvements
The outliner is one of those things that the Tantalus devs are always looking for ways to improve and make more accessible with a controller. The next update for Console Edition will have First Contact, Archaeology, and [redacted] featured in the Outliner.
Additionally, Planets can now be reordered in the outliner, in outliner settings at the bottom.
It is also possible to replace the planet icons with Planetary Designation icons from the same menu, allowing you to know at a glance what your planets are (or at least should be) doing.
Fleet Interface Improvements
Multiple fleet selection has been improved. Where previously the list would scroll off the screen, now all the fleets are listed at the top of the Fleet menu window, and you can select which fleet to look at.
As well, there is now a shortcut to get to the Fleet manager from the Manage Fleet window. Hover over “Reinforce” and it will tell you the shortcut to open the Fleet Manager.
Cycle Button
Moving between planets/fleets/starbases has never been easier. The often under-appreciated cycle button in the next update will now work in more places. Using the View button on Xbox, or the touchpad on PS4, you will be able to cycle through your fleets, planets, and starbases at the touch of a button.
Radial Menu
The Radial menu has also been expanded. In addition to the things the Radial Menu currently does, it will now also show First Contact sites and Observation posts.
Fast Scroll
As some of you may have noticed, we’ve also added the option to “Fast Scroll” in many menus using the Trigger buttons. Tapping fast scroll will take menu options two at a time, and holding down the trigger buttons will allow you to zoom up and down most menus easily, especially helpful if you know where you’re going.
That’s it for this week, next week we’ll be telling you how to deal with exploring the galaxy when your galaxy map looks like this:
