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Stellaris Dev Diary #238 - Ascensions, Betas, and More

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Hi all!

Last week we talked about the basics of the Unity Rework. This week we have multiple features and announcements to discuss.

Ready?

Planetary Ascension Tiers​


Tied to unlocking Ascension Perks, Planetary Ascension Tiers are a way of improving your core worlds by expending Unity. In normal empires they represent the active will of the people supporting your government and giving a little extra to do things the way they’ve always been done. In machine and hive empires, it’s more the well oiled machinery of the world gaining efficiency or drone instincts becoming better honed with endless practice.

In either case, an Ascended planet does whatever it focuses on better.

Once you’ve unlocked three Ascension Perks (you do not need to actually spend them for this feature), you can Ascend each of your planets to Ascension Tier 1. This increases all of the effects of the planet’s Designation by 25% - whether it be Technician Output from a Generator World or Trade Value on a Commercial Ring World.

1642604745912.png

Unity is strength.


Each additional Ascension Perk you unlock increases the maximum Ascension Tier by 1, with an extra 4 tiers unlocked once you unlock all of the Perk slots. This lets you Ascend planets up to ten times, for a maximum bonus of 250% of the base Planetary Designation effects.

1642604753849.png

A fully Ascended Tier 10 Fortress World. Vi Valam will break before its defenders.


Ascending a Planet costs Unity, and this cost is heavily affected by both Sprawl and the total number of Ascension Tiers you have across your entire Empire. Currently it costs the same amount of Unity to raise your first planet to Ascension Tier 2 as it would to raise two planets to Ascension Tier 1, so you’ll want to pick and choose which planets you want to improve, and decide whether you would rather raise all your planets to low Ascension Tiers or focus on reaching the heights of Ascension on your most productive core worlds.

We’ll be watching how you use Planetary Ascension Tiers and will be very interested in your feedback regarding the current costs and perceived benefits during the Open Beta.

Currently Planetary Ascension Tiers are only lost if a planet permanently changes owners (not merely from temporary occupation) or is abandoned.

Unity Rework, Continued​


We’ve continued refining some of the elements of the Unity Rework, and as mentioned last week, some civics and authorities have undergone some changes.

One change from last week is that we swapped out the Sprawl bonus from the Capital worlds for a production bonus. We’ve also found that starting with penalties isn’t very fun, so Sprawl under 50 is ignored.

Death Cults will now be able to build either regular Temples or Sacrificial Temples to suit their needs, and the Memorialist’s special building line now replaces the Autochthon Monument (and has gained the “extra Unity per Ascension Perk” of the Monument line). Hives will also have access to their own variant of the Autochthon Monument, the Sensorium.

1642604760915.png

Can you feel it?


The generic “Administrator” job is being renamed to “Politicians”, with “Administrator” being the category term for Bureaucrats, Priests, and other “unifying” jobs that guide your Empire. The Bureaucratic Colony Designation will also be renamed to “Administrative Center”, to better apply to any of these jobs.

1642604768855.png

Early feedback said that suspension of disbelief was being tested by Politicians being productive, but we embrace utopian ideas.


1642604776753.png

Less bureaucracy, more administration.


Civics like Technocracies and Merchant Guilds have been modified to no longer grant incidental Unity bonuses. Technocracy is actually changing quite a bit - it will now grant +1 Research Option, and the research expertise bonuses (such as Expertise: Voidcraft) of your scientists are doubled when selecting technologies to offer. This should give Technocratic empires the ability to better manipulate the technology deck when they’re hunting for specific types of technologies. They also once again require any level of Materialism rather than being restricted exclusively to Fanatic Materialists.

1642604787609.png

Technocracies excel at manipulating the research deck if you're looking for a specific tech.

We’ve also heard your feedback regarding the loss of Culture Workers. We’ll see if we can find a good place for them to return for those of you that prefer creative art to beautiful spreadsheets. In the Open Beta, the Ministry of Culture and Artisans will still be providing them, and we’ll be doing another pass on the buildings to see if there are any other good places to put them.

A Job to Die For...​


The Custodian team has the mandate to work on directives that come straight from the Game Director, Quality of Life changes they think would improve the game, and Community Requests that they wish to champion. They also have the right to pitch what we call “Passion Projects” for things they simply want to do.

One of these comes to life (sort of) in the 3.3 patch, as the Permanent Employment Megacorp civic.

1642604796161.png

Speaking of which, we're hiring!


A MegaCorp variant of Reanimators, this civic allows the construction of Posthumous Employment Centers, as well as the ability to reanimate Leviathans that the original Reanimators gained in the Lem update.

At the Posthumous Employment Center, carcasses bereft of consciousness can find new purpose and a new opportunity to pay off their debts. The Reassigner jobs from the P.E.C. provide organic pop assembly of mortally impaired… Well… Zombies.

1642604810235.png

Unfortunately for them, it's impossible to fulfill their contracts.

1642604818601.png

Thrifty Zombies. Give me the brain!


Zombies cannot produce leaders, have no happiness, are infertile, and can only work Worker strata jobs… But on the bright side, they don’t have any upkeep and won’t ask for any more raises.

There are a few more interesting interactions I’ll leave for you to find on your own during gameplay.

Announcement Number One…​


An upcoming event that we wanted to tell you about is…



1642604825608.png




DEV CLASH! DEV CLASH! DEV CLASH!

Announcement Number Two…​


Regarding the Open Beta we’ve been talking about… We’re planning on running the Unity Open Beta starting… checks watch… now.



Please note that the 3.3 Unity Open Beta is an optional beta patch. You have to manually opt in to access it.
Go to your Steam library, right click on Stellaris -> Properties -> betas tab -> select "stellaris_test" branch.



It’s up. Right now. Go play! The Unity Open Beta will run (assuming everything goes to plan) until the 3rd of February, and also has a sneak preview of the 3.3 Custodian release, “Libra”.

As we move into a more frequent release cadence than we used to have due to the Custodian initiative, with the 3.3 release we’re switching to Constellation names for patches to reduce the (sometimes significant) overhead related to negotiating with Author’s estates.

###################
# Features
###################
Major updates have been made to the Unity system in Stellaris. In general, Unity is generally more valuable and useful than before and is used for many internal matters, while Influence is used mostly externally.

A summary of major changes include:
  • All means of increasing Administrative Capacity have been removed. While there are ways to reduce the Empire Sprawl generated by various sources, empires will no longer be able to completely mitigate sprawl penalties. Penalties and sprawl generation values have been significantly modified.
  • The Edicts Cap system has been removed. Toggled Edicts will have monthly Unity Upkeep which is modified by Empire Sprawl. Each empire has an Edicts Fund which subsidizes Edict Upkeep, reducing the amount you have to pay each month to maintain them.
  • Unity Ambitions and Campaigns now function like Toggled Edicts and last until cancelled with upkeep rather than costs. Known Issue: Sacrifice Edicts do not show their up-front costs. Or charge them, other than the actual sacrifices, so these two cancel each other out.
  • Several other systems that used to cost Influence are now paid in Unity.
    • Reforming government now costs Unity. The cost is based on Empire Size.
    • Resettling pops that previously cost Influence now costs Unity. Abandoning colonies still costs Influence.
    • Suppressing or Promoting factions no longer costs Influence. Known Issue: Unity costs for Faction Manipulation are not yet functioning.
    • Most Megastructures now cost Unity rather than Influence, with the exception of any related to travel (such as Gateways) or that provide living space (such as Habitats and Ring Worlds).
  • Since Factions are no longer producing Influence, a small amount of Influence is now generated by your fleet, based on Power Projection - a comparison of your fleet size and Empire Sprawl.
  • Leaders now cost Unity to hire rather than Energy, and have Unity upkeep.
  • Planetary Ascension Tiers have been added to the game. After acquiring three Ascension Perks, Unity can be spent to improve the effects generated by a planet’s Designation by 25%. Costs increase with Empire Sprawl and the number of times you have performed this action. As you acquire more Ascension Perks, the maximum Ascension Tier increases, with an extra maximum bonus once all Ascension Perks have been unlocked.
  • More changes can be found in the Balance portion of the Patch Notes.

For additional details and background, see Stellaris Dev Diary #237.

  • Added Plantoid, Lithoid, Necroid, and Aquatic pre-sapient pops to discover if you own the respective Species Packs.
  • Added an event chain about a mysterious labyrinth.
  • Finishing tradition trees now unlocks the ability to select previously locked Federation types.
    • Mercantile unlocks Trade League
    • Discovery unlocks Research Cooperative
    • Unyielding unlocks Martial Alliance
    • Domination unlocks Hegemony
  • New Megacorp Civic: Permanent Employment added.
  • The Hydrocentric AP now allows aquatic empires to flood habitats, making them suitable for Aquatic species.
  • New Events! Some are *quite* refreshing

###################
# Performance
###################
  • Refactored bonus resources that civics grant to jobs.
  • Refactored unemployment benefits from living standards. A side-effect of this was better tooltips.
  • Refactored Living Standards to use pop modifiers on the living standards script, instead of being checked for each pop category. A side-effect of this is better tooltips.
  • Greatly improved the performance of telling a fleet of ships to upgrade. This mainly affects the tooltip of the UI (which was very expensive when hovered over), but also saves some time each time the AI attempts to upgrade its fleets.
  • Reduced framerate impact of species view when there are many species in the galaxy.
  • Reduced framerate impact of colonisation selection UI when there are many species available to colonise with.
  • Reduced frame rate impact of opening planet view.
  • Updated ship shader to support empire color in emissive, decreasing the amount of draw calls for Aquatic ships.

###################
# Balance
###################
  • Fixed unmodifiable traits so that you can now correctly remove special habitability traits, along with various other traits that you were not meant to be able to add but it was fine to remove. Also allowed you to apply existing species templates containing such traits to the rest of the species. (This mainly covers flavour-based traits - there are still some such as Mechanical or Psionic or Necrophage which you will not be able to add or remove via species modification).
  • Capital designations now provide production bonuses.
  • Many updates to authorities, civics, techs, traditions, and ascension perks related to the Unity rework.

Civics:
  • Imperial Authority now gains increased Influence from Power Projection.
  • Imperial Cult Civic now grants 100 Edict Fund instead of 2 Edict Capacity.
  • Inwards Perfection now grants 50 Edict Fund instead of 1 Edict Capacity.
  • Citizen Service no longer provides +2 unity to soldier jobs. Instead it grants -25% war exhaustion and +2 starting level to your Admirals and Generals.
  • Cutthroat Politics now also reduces Edict Upkeep by 20%.
  • Merchant Guilds no longer produce bonus unity.
  • Brand Loyalty civic now grants 25 Edict Fund instead of 1 Encryption.
  • Subsumed Will and OTA Updates now also grant 25 Edict Fund.
  • Feudal Society now also reduces Leader hiring costs by 50%, waives Unity upkeep costs for employed Leaders, causes employed Governors to instead generate Unity equal to their skill level, but removes the ability to dismiss Leaders.
  • Technocracy no longer generates unity. Instead the civic now doubles the chance that your scientists will discover a technology from within their expertise and grants you +1 research slots. The civic only requires you to be partially materialist.
  • Pearl Divers now produce one more trade value (3 by default) and will not steal Angler jobs when food is short anymore.

Traditions and Ascension Perks:
  • Executive Vigor Ascension Perk now grants 100 Edict Fund instead of 2 Edict Capacity.
  • Grand Council and Harmonious Directives Traditions now grant 50 Edict Fund instead of 1 Edict Capacity.
  • Integrated Preservation Tradition no longer increases admin cap, instead it gives your empire a flat 30% increase to Automatic Resettlement Chance.
  • The Void Dweller finisher from the Expansion tradition tree now also discounts upgrading habitats.

Technologies and Buildings:
  • Planetary Unification now grants +5% Unity production and a one time Unity award instead of +2 Unity.
  • All other technologies that increased unity production now instead increase Edict Fund by 20.
  • Autochthon Monument, Corporate Monument, and Simulation Site building lines now generate a small amount of Unity and increase Unity generation from jobs on their planet.
  • Hive empires can now build a variant of the Autochthon Monument line called Sensoriums.
  • Memorialists and Death Cults can now choose whether to build their specialized Unity buildings or regular ones. Memorialist buildings now replace the Autochthon Monument line.
  • Spiritualist empires can now acquire the technologies associated with the Autochthon Memorial and similar buildings, as well as their faith based line.
  • Renamed Administrator jobs to Politicians. Assigned Bureaucrats, Priests and other related jobs to the new Administrator economic category.

Origins:
  • The Here Be Dragons endgame trigger now lets Machine Intelligences with the Synthetic Age ascension perk reach it after 4 ascension perks rather than 6.
  • The Living Metal technology can now be discovered as long as you have some within your borders.

Miscellaneous:
  • Increased political power of ruler and specialist strata under Decadent Lifestyle.
  • Increased the consumer goods upkeep of Decadent Lifestyle.
  • Increased the likelihood of getting endgame crises that are not the Unbidden.
  • It now costs 25/50 influence to upgrade a habitat in addition to the alloy cost.
  • Regenerative Hull Tissue, Nanite Repair System and Nanobot Cloud have had their values sliced in half however they now heal on a percentage basis rather than a static one leading to a net buff in most situations.
  • Scientists currently researching a technology can now gain new traits as they level up.
  • The "Sell to Private Collector" minor artifact decision now grants a flat 500 energy and has a 6 month cooldown.

###################
# AI
###################
  • AI rogue servitor empires will now build a organic sanctuary on each planet that has upgraded their capital building, and build additional ones on planets with high science or industrial output.
  • AI can now balance how many pops it needs that produce amenities better (mostly relevant for Hiveminds, so they don’t put ALL their pops on amenity creating jobs).
  • AI tech picking overhaul (f.e. willingness to choose rare tech has been reduced from 400% to 50% and a total overhaul for scripted AI tech selection. The important techs are now: extra research speed, extra resource production, resource producing buildings, ship types and starbase types).
  • AI when calculating the economic plan, ai will now take into account what is currently under construction.
  • AI empires that require food will no longer build bio reactors.
  • AI empires who are not using food will now delete agricultural districts if they happen to have one, for example when they conquer planets.
  • AI ethics such as militarist, spiritualist and materialist will now have an effect on the AI overall economical strategy where they will have additional focus on alloys, unity or science respectively.
  • AI fleets who are following a player fleet with "take point" will now merge with each other when they reach the player fleet.
  • AI fleets will now follow the player more closely with a follow command when they are in the same system.
  • AI is now much more likely to prioritize surveying a system if they know there is a colonizable planet there resulting in faster expansion.
  • AI will now look at the individual unemployed pop when considering what job to create for it, solving various issues where jobs were created for pops who could not work them.
  • AI will now demolish superfluous districts, commonly obtained during conquest and purging the previous owners (no more useless planets with tons of empty districts that just cost energy upkeep).
  • AI will now favour researching techs unlocking the weapon type they favour (according to their personality).
  • AI will now make sure planets contain at least one free building slot if it has unemployed pops and it is unable to find any possible construction which contributes to the AI's economic plan.
  • AI will now only build defense platforms if they have maxed out their fleet cap.
  • AI will now only upgrade fleets if there would be a substantial benefit (+30% fleet power - this reduces wasting a lot of alloys unnecessarily).
  • AI will now remember if they have fought against a crisis together with the player and continue following their fleets as long as the threat of the crisis remains.
  • AI will now spend more of its alloys on upgrading starbases when they have reached their fleet cap
  • Added support for "is_essential" property on buildings which when added to the AI build queue will remove all non essential build tasks (used to enforce ai to build ancient cloning vats).
  • AI budget for alloys will now heavily favour building colony ships if we have claimed planets we want to colonize.
  • AI now understands how to evaluate energy grids and other buildings that apply modifiers to the planet (so now it can create specialized planets better).
  • Fixed AI construction deadlock in certain cases due to being in deficit of consumer goods and food at the same time.
  • Fixed AI often aborting jump drive orders during windup.
  • Fixed an issue where AI would continuously upgrade buildings and create an excessive amount of jobs.
  • Fixed an issue where AI would incorrectly multiply the trade value generated by a building by the number of jobs provided by the building twice.
  • Fixed an issue where hive minds were unable to build the spawning pool.
  • Fixed an issue where the AI did not colonize low habitability planets when there are no other options causing doomsday origin empires in particular to often experience a very swift end to their species.
  • Fixed an issue where the AI would not construct buildings to solve unemployment for their slaves.
  • Fixed bug that made the AI desire repeatable techs way more than they were expected to (compared to regular ones).
  • Fixed several issues where AI would get stuck and not build any modules or upgrade any starbases when there were open module slots which were unable to be filled according to the AI's starbase template.
  • Reactivated "Take Point" Follow behavior for fleets. If you select “take point” in a fleet, your allies and subjects are following this fleet during a war or a crisis.
  • Increased allowed budget for alloys on planet construction which prevented AI from building energy grids or other buildings costing alloys.
  • Lithoid empires are now more liberal in spending minerals on their colony ships.
  • Removed weighted random from AI construction as it now more correctly prioritizes which buildings to build.
  • The AI will now use minor artifact decisions with extra focus put on Arcane Deciphering.
  • Fixed an issue where AI necroid empires didn't build chamber of elevation on their planets.
  • Fixed an issue where clone army origin species would not always build ancient clone vats on their new colonies when possible.
  • Fixed an issue where the AI were not allowed to build Gaia Seeders
  • Fixed an issue where the AI would incorrectly evaluate the potential resources gained by constructing a building.
  • Fixed an issue where the AI would sometimes revert to obsolete fallback behaviour when deciding what to build.

###################
# UI
###################
  • Tooltips should no longer show any percentage values with decimals.

###################
# Stability
###################
  • Fixed a bug where the closest_system effect could cause an OOS.
  • Fixed a crash if script tried to change the species rights of a country (e.g. pirates) without species rights.
  • Fixed an OOS if you ever use every_system_in_cluster in a tooltip (luckily, we never did that).
  • Fixed crash when using pass_targeted_resolution in events.

###################
# Bugfix
###################
  • Fixed an issue where pops would mass switch from one job to another (for example maintenance drones).
  • Trade value from jobs now get a penalty from low planet habitability.
  • Added Planetary Automation behaviour for districts that grant Bio-Trophy jobs.
  • Added missing custom icon for ship component "Nanite Repair System".
  • Added missing description for deposit "Project Cornucopia".
  • Added missing tooltip when hovering the shipyard tab of a mega shipyard owned by another empire.
  • Blocked building ships in occupied shipyard.
  • Colonizing Consecrated planets no longer enables breaking the Consecrated Worlds limit.
  • Democratic manadates now check for uncapped rural districts, allowing democratic candidates on shattered rings to usher in a new age of digging too deep and too greedily!
  • Ensured that the Arcology Project checks for agricultural districts on Wet Aquatic worlds.
  • Fixed "The Library" dig site occasionally granting unaccessible deposits
  • Fixed Angler job name not displaying in FR.
  • Fixed Megacorp Death Cults not starting with a Sacrificial Temple.
  • Fixed Megastructure view description sometimes not reflecting the selected Megastructure.
  • Fixed Megastructure view not always using the default image when no structure specific image exists.
  • Fixed a bunch of empire names being missing (and therefore displaying in English) in Chinese. Mainly Machine Empires and the Galactic Imperium.
  • Fixed a dev comment being present in an event text when you encounter an empire with Here Be Dragons during First Contact.
  • Fixed an issue where Medical Workers' habitability bonuses would not affect habitability impacts on pop growth correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where only the fleets of the main attacker would go MIA in enemy territory when a new war starts.
  • Fixed an issue where the tooltip breakdown for the habitability of an uninhabited planet was missing country modifiers.
  • Fixed automatic ship design name generation often generating a design of an invalid name (i.e. one your empire was already using somewhere) on certain name lists.
  • Fixed broken localization reference in Doomsday Origin.
  • Fixed cases of unlocalised text when the Galactic Community or Empire tried to build too many Titans for its Defense Force.
  • Fixed fleet upgrade button telling you your ships were already upgrading telling you your ships were already upgrading twice.
  • Fixed gender selection tooltip in empire creation stating that clicking a non selected gender will revert to default gender settings.
  • Fixed grammar of adding a single clue to an arc site or insight to a first contact.
  • Fixed it being possible to build ships in occupied mega shipyards.
  • Fixed missing loc string for Nemma Mining Operation deposit.
  • Fixed potential issue where Sentinels (crisis-fighters) used the same global event target as Sentinels (stone soldiers from an arc site).
  • Fixed several places where tooltips in the contacts or diplomacy views would mistake guaranteeing and being guaranteed, and supporting independence or having one's independence supported.
  • Fixed some inconsistencies with whether Aquatic habitability modifiers were applied and displayed.
  • Fixed some megastructures not animating properly.
  • Fixed some misgenderings of rulers in German espionage and Galactic Imperium events
  • Fixed starbase modifiers not always being properly updated when removing buildings or components.
  • Fixed that an empty broken Federation details tooltip would show up if you tried to look at the federation of a country with no federation in the contacts view.
  • Fixed the Manifesti faction demanding you outfit your ships with the Gestalt equivalent of sapient combat computers.
  • Fixed the species gender selector not having the correct impact on certain Vanilla species' leader portraits.
  • Fixed transport ship jump drive cooldown resetting when landing on a planet.
  • Increased reward of the "Shattered World" anomaly event from 3 to 5.
  • Loading... New Rogue Servitor Planetary Automation Algorithms installed. Bio-Trophy district management for habitats and city worlds updated... Have a nice day.
  • Machine Intelligence empires with the Rogue Servitor civic won't be forced to burn organics during the Primordial Soup event.
  • Pop job weight for enforcers is now adjusted based on if there is crime or not
  • Science ships no longer get a free survey completion when their target system gets taken over by someone else.
  • Shorten string SLAVE_MARKET in French.
  • Streamlined "Unknown Contact" event chain by turning the "Study the Living Sea" planetary decision into a special project.
  • The Nemma World colony event will now actually fire.
  • The Rubricator is no longer lost to the player if a non-default empire kills Shard
  • The orbital station on New Baldarak (which is rendered useless by the events that create New Baldarak) is now correctly removed.
  • The portrait selection view for empire creation now gets a scrollbar if the number of portraits exceed the two visible rows.
  • Transport Fleets should handle Landing armies better, notably when in Aggressive stance.
  • Venus realized that they were larger than Earth and has decided to shrink to a more appropriate size.
  • You can now build a Fleet Academy if you have queued a Shipyard (you don't need to wait for it to complete).

###################
# Modding
###################
  • Added "random" toggle to scripted loc. If you set "random = no", it will pick the loc key with the highest weight, or the first valid one if no weights are specified, rather than acting as a weighted random
  • Added ai_ignore_was_human console command for toggling ai passiveness after taking over a human controller empire on/off
  • Added complex_trigger_modifier to mtth functions
  • Added complex_trigger_modifier to mtth functions: now you can use complex_trigger_modifier = { trigger = num_favors parameters = { who = from } trigger_scope = owner mode = add potential = { <triggers> } } in places where you could use modifier = { factor = 1 <triggers> }
  • Added downgrade_all_buildings and downgrade_buildings_of_type effects
  • Added is_starbase_type trigger
  • Added script_values, which are like ai_weight versions of scripted triggers. You can refer to them by key to get a number via value:my_value
  • Added skip_federation_cooldowns console command
  • Easier mod overwriting of objects that dynamically add modifiers
  • Enabled further mathematical operations in many modifier = { factor = x } fields. The full list is now: set, mult/factor, add, subtract, divide, modulo, round_to, round = yes, floor = yes, ceiling, max, min, abs = yes (all taking a number on the right, except where otherwise specified)
  • Enabled scripted localization for base scopes, meaning that "Root." is no longer needed in some localization strings
  • Exposed the default megastructure portrait key as a define
  • Extensive defines to modify the math around the planetary ascension
  • Fixed a number of potential crashes on startup due to interactions between the load order and a number of effects and triggers
  • Fixed a variety of issues with the use of variables as multipliers in triggered resource tables
  • Fixed ambient objects' scale_to_size making ambient objects appear a different size the first time you looked at a solar system than subsequent times.
  • Fixed crash when closing TweakerGUI
  • Fixed issues where mods overwriting objects (e.g. jobs) that dynamically add modifiers would cause issues where the added modifiers would not work
  • In value-based triggers where you would say e.g. num_pops > 32, you can now no longer say num_pops > from, but you can instead say num_pops > from.trigger:num_pops. This change was doing for technical reasons, to save on memory usage by not saving two event targets in each trigger
  • Often-reused scripted effects and triggers will now no longer show misleading file locations in error logs
  • Replaced the modification boolean flag for traits with the additional triggers species_possible_add, species_possible_merge_add and species_possible_merge_remove
  • Stopped some weight/chance fields inexplicably returning 1 even when script said the base should be 0
  • Variables that accepted "trigger:<trigger>" now also accept "modifier:<modifier>"
  • You can no longer use "count" in any_x triggers. You should use count_x instead (which uses much better code)
  • You can now use count_x script lists in export_trigger_value_to_variable

Since this is still a very much in active development branch, we have a few known issues in the Open Beta to keep things spicy. Localization for new strings are currently only available in English, and some things may still only be partially implemented or give placeholder rewards. Due to the many changes, 3.3 Unity Open Beta is not save game compatible with existing saves, and may or may not be compatible with the eventual 3.3 "Libra" release.

The following are some of the known issues in the 3.3 Unity Open Beta. This list is not exhaustive and some issues have already been resolved internally but did not make the open beta build. If you encounter any issues however not reported here please report them via the bug forums :)
  • Sacrifice edicts are not showing their up front Unity costs. Conveniently, they're also not charging them at the moment. Heads still roll though.
  • Unity costs for faction manipulation are not implemented yet.
  • The Byzantine Bureaucracy and Parliamentary System civics need tooltip updating.
  • Depreciated triggers, modifiers, buildings and jobs have yet to be totally removed.
  • Influence from Power Projection tooltip is unclear and needs refactoring.
  • Planetary Ascension does not have any form of confirmation.
  • Fleet reinforcements sometimes create a new fleet instead of joining the fleet it is supposed to.
  • Species traits look a bit wonky in the colonisation window.
  • Aquatic pop portraits not randomizing properly or applying gender options reliably.
  • Void Dwellers with Permanent Employment start with a ruined posthumous employment centre.
  • The tooltip informing the player of the cost to reform their government does not explain how the cost is calculated.
  • AI implementation for new features is still using hot code.
  • AI issue where they are building a lot of buildings that are not using jobs such as luxury housing
  • After submitting to the Khan you will quickly just be attacked again, so don't give up!

Please keep all Open Beta feedback in this thread and report bugs in the bug reports forum so we can keep track of everything. Thanks!

Enjoy, and see you next week, when we’ll have @Caligula Caesar explaining all of the new modding tricks we’re adding in 3.3.

Edit:
Due to an AI uprising, the modding diary will be #240, not #239. Sorry!
 
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LystAP

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Any sufficiently advanced Human Resources department is, indeed, indistinguishable from magic.
(To any sceptics: Frankenstein was the beginning of the science fiction genre. This is essentially just Frankenstein on a sci-fi space opera scale.)

Some questions regarding the Permanent Employment civic for Megacorp(se) empires:
  • Can reanimated pops be sold as slaves?
That'll be a interesting thought. Not only do they have you working after you die, they can sell off... I mean monetize your zombified corpse.
 
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Darklight731

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Ascending a Planet costs Unity, and this cost is heavily affected by both Sprawl and the total number of Ascension Tiers you have across your entire Empire. Currently it costs the same amount of Unity to raise your first planet to Ascension Tier 2 as it would to raise two planets to Ascension Tier 1, so you’ll want to pick and choose which planets you want to improve, and decide whether you would rather raise all your planets to low Ascension Tiers or focus on reaching the heights of Ascension on your most productive core worlds.


So what you are telling me is that I can have one sector of overpowered worlds and huge starbases? You didn`t tell us we could role-play as Fallen empires in 3.3!
 
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The mechanical restriction pre-dated the Fanatic Materialist, IIRC, and is more a thematic block. Shared Burdens is opposed to minority-cratic rule, which is what technocratic leans into as a concept.

Why? They oppose each other ideologically
In the beta I noticed that the requirement for Technocracy to not have Shared Burdens is gone. It did not make sense to me to remove the restriction from Technocracy but leave it on Shared Burdens.
 
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  • Finishing tradition trees now unlocks the ability to select previously locked Federation types.
    • Unyielding unlocks Martial Alliance
Civics:
  • Citizen Service no longer provides +2 unity to soldier jobs. Instead it grants -25% war exhaustion and +2 starting level to your Admirals and Generals.
Shouldn't Martial Alliance require supremacy instead?

Disagree on the change to Citizen Service. It makes Nationalistic Zeal less unique by giving them in war exhaustion and soldier jobs creating unity makes complete sense for the society Heinlein envisioned for his book since it (is suppose to) ensures the voting population has a common cause. If you're so adamant in removing unity from jobs, why not give them a power projection bonus instead.
 
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I seems to take a very long time for new ship construction to increase influence gains from power projection; on the order of several months or even years. What exactly is the mechanic here? The percentage indicator in the Naval Capacity tooltip increases right away, but the influence change does not.
 

Nevars

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So will Capital planets be able to pick planetary designations now or they just be worthless with planetary ascension? With remnants origin I'm going have to change my capital to be able to take advantage of planetary ascension...
Capital already has capital designation which boost stab and amenities (now also job output).

You simply can't change it to other designation but I would argued that it is one of the strongest, if not the strongest designation anyway.

So it's not useless.
 

Kahldris

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Ooooh baby! The custodian team is hands down the best idea paradox has had for stellaris, i have been pretty bummed becuase while stellaris is a fun game the rework for admin cap on top of sneaking in unity buidling no longer being only 1 per planet (why such a huge change was snuck in...) made the gameplay not as good. Research became too easy and so on we all know the current gameplay loop. These changes are pretty awesome though! I am soo glad that were returning to unit and research not being easy to get for every empire. The other things that have been talked about such as looking at playing tall a bit is also great. I havernt played alot of stellaris this last year but this year I have a feeling I will!

Now as I have the day off lets check out this beta branch....

P.S. I think changing the capital bonus to a production bonus is alot better, the 1st thought you had with the sprawl seemed slightly off top me. Thanks for taking a good look at the game and listening to your player base!
 
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So, according to the patchnotes, you went through with Power Projection being based on fleet size, not fleet power. Does that mean that you can spam cheapest completely empty corvettes to max out your fleet capacity and have a maximum effect?
 
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rubert

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"Tied to unlocking Ascension Perks, Planetary Ascension Tiers are a way of improving your core worlds by expending Unity. In normal empires they represent the active will of the people supporting your government and giving a little extra to do things the way they’ve always been done."

Does this system only go one way or can it reverse if the player is neglecting this planet, similar like the cohesion and level system of the federations? Because for someone who wants to see a more dynamic and fluid internal politics system in the future this seems a bit like a step in the wrong direction. I would like to see "the active will of the people supporting your government" crumble and civil order break down if I as a ruler do my job bad enough to the point that my empire might be plagued by uprising, civil wars, institutional breakdown and even become a failed state. Because that is what can happen to empires, they wax and wane over time, depending on how their societies evolve/devolve and how their rulers rule.
Maybe this will adressed in an upcoming dev diary since I don't know the full extent of what is planned. But from this dev diary it looks like a simple leveling up system and on its own that is just not how societies work and also isn't exciting gameplay-wise.

I am was hoping for something like this but as a system which would have been more dynamic. Eg. "cohesive" planet would gain effiency over time and the cohesity could be gained or lost by different methods. Eg. planet stability, peace, not getting attacked during wars etc. While the current systems seems better than nothing it feels very gamey "push to improve" button. Same goes for the unity gained from the special buildings.

I was thinking unity could have been gained by pops which are "cohesive" (happy, stable planets etc) and then the overall planet output could be focused to either improving the planet or the empire wide stuff.

At very least the planet ascension system will give more tools for the modders.
 
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So, according to the patchnotes, you went through with Power Projection being based on fleet size, not fleet power. Does that mean that you can spam cheapest completely empty corvettes to max out your fleet capacity and have a maximum effect?
Yes:
Empty_corvettes.jpg
 
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cryptkeeper

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I want to ask either for a slider to change base admin cap or how bad admin penalties increase. That way people who play bigger galaxies aren't penalized as much for expanding and going more wide then people who play on smaller galaxies. This would make the end game a bit more bearable, and improve pacing on bigger maps.
 
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Something I've been meaning to say for a while, since there's now buildings that directly increase unity production based on how many ascensions you have, maybe the 5% increase in perk cost per unlocked tree is superfluous? It was introduced to limit tree splashing and encourage people to run out a tree completely, but since finishing a tree will now almost automatically increase your unity production there's a much more visible and intuitive bonus for doing so.
 
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Sibericus

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Ok, I'm not saying it would be balanced, but consider keeping the incidental unity bonuses. Because if Unity is still/will become/has been a resource produced by the movers and shakers of a society that can coordinate/manipulate unified societal action, then it makes sense that certain jobs get unity output under certain circumstances.

Technocracy as the rule of knowledge and science meant that scientists will be some big decision makers in society, and even when they aren't directly involved, their words will have authority. For better or worse. Unrealistic, but that's technocracy.

Merchant Guilds mean that wealthy businessmen are united together and... can... um... exert their influence together I guess. Using organized action instead of just their wealth. It feels weird describing it like that, but that is what it is.

Mass media Entertainers in general can easily sway the masses. Not all entertainers are necessarily mass media entertainers... Oh, an idea for a new ruler job: Pop Idols.


Perhaps instead of just eliminating the unity generation altogether from those instances, you could add thematic unity sinks:

For example, for Technocracy, you could spend unity to perform a mass experiment on a planet that will produce a random temporary production/upkeep modifier, a random happiness bonus/penalty, and at the end it will unlock (but not give research) for an appropriate technology. For example, say you get a bonus to alloy production and a happiness penalty. The scientists want to try out a new alloy method, but the process is too labor intensive and noisy, so they scrap the idea, but the experiment gave them some good ideas on the next step, which could be a metallurgist output tech. Another trade-off could be that it occupies your construction queue with two stages of setup (to apply the modifier) and result collection (to actually get the research unlock), so you can't build anything until the experiment is done.

For Merchant Guilds, maybe you could whip up a consumer frenzy, boosting consumer good consumption and happiness, at the risk of causing unrest, crime, and instability.
 
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Capital worlds do have a designation. It's called capital world designation. And they also mentioned they added a 5% boost to resource production. So that should be affected by the planetary ascension tiers
That sounds like it's what I had missed - thanks!