patchtracker.gg
by MrFreake_PDX
Hello Stellaris Community!
We hope you all had a great holiday season. Thank you all for your feedback on the last open beta update, we're looking at how we can incorporate that feedback moving forward. We've got another beta update coming today with some smaller fixes and tweaks that were worked on over the holiday period.
We will continue to use this Open Beta Feedback form[pdxint.at] to collect feedback for this update of the Open Beta.
Known issue: Resyncing after an OOS will cause the host to be unable to resume the game (You can work around this by rehosting the lobby). We hope to have this issue resolved next week.
4.3 ‘Cetus’ Open Beta Patch Notes 2026-01-15
Balance
Increased base Naval Capacity to 50.
Reduced the number of Utility slots on Starbases and Deep Space Citadels.
Deep Space Citadels now have the Hull and Armor matching normal Starholds, Star Fortresses, and Citadels, plus innate shields equal to their armor.
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Ground Combat Changes:
Generally reduced the Army Count and effects that grant extra Defensive Armies.
Many weapon and defensive technologies now also improve army health or damage. Subdermal Stimulation increases Army Morale.
Powered Exoskeletons now grants a higher bonus to Army Damage. Replaced Worker Production bonus with a larger bonus to Worker and Simple Drone Job Efficiency.
Integrated Cybernetics now also grants bonuses to Army Damage and Health.
Psionic Theory now also grants a reduction to Army Morale Damage Taken.
Slightly increased Orbital Bombardment Damage.
Removed Gestation Worlds. Instead Cybernetic traditions now grant access to Augmentation Centers for Driven Assimilators, providing Augmentor Drones. These jobs provide Amenities and Organic Pop Growth for Cyborgs.
Branch Offices now cost trade to establish instead of energy.
Imperious Architecture/Synaptic Extensions now grants additional housing and jobs to capital buildings, scaling with the tier of the capital.
Trickle Up Economics now increases trade from living standards.
Volcanic Worlds are now less common than other habitable planet classes.
Replaced the increased naval capacity for artificial ships for Beastmaster empires with increased cost and upkeep.
Reduced the power of Pirate Fleets
Driven Assimilators now start with 2,000 cyborg pops instead of 1,000. However, they start with 1,000 fewer machine pops.
The Animator of Clay's interaction that spawns pops for Shroud-Forged Empires now only spawns pops on planets with a Shroud-Touched Region or a Zroni Equilibrator. The cost has also been changed from a flat 500 Zro to 250 Zro per colony targeted.
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Cybernetic Creed changes:
Augmentations of the Fellowship now gives +10% Job Eff to Metallurgists, Artisans and Bureaucrats.
Augmentations of the Templars now gives +10% Job Eff to Soldiers and Bureaucrats, and +10% to both Army Damage and Health.
Augmentations of the Choir now gives +10% Job Eff to Researchers and Bureaucrats.
Augmentations of the Commune now gives +10% Job Eff to Workers and Bureaucrats.
Ritualistic Implants now gives +5% Job Eff to Metallurgists, Engineers, Bureaucrats, Soldiers and Workers, and +5% Army Damage.
Cybernetic Creed traits are no longer locked to Spiritualist ethics.
When combined with Media Conglomerate, the United Creeds will continue to produce Unity instead of Trade.
Bugfix
Prevent nascent stage purifiers from purging their own children
The Anomalous Cube dig site will now be properly hidden until it can be properly explored.
Servile species no longer generate leaders.
Gestalt Empires will no longer gain the "Form a Mercenary Enclave" focus.
Genocidal Empires will no longer gain the "Enclave Research Support" focus.
Fixed the incorrect trigger used for collateral damage
Fixed a large number of ship components that did not have their modifiers applied correctly.
Fixed some old triggers that were checking for pre-4.0 pop assembly. This should improve AI handling of building Clone Vats and Robot Assembly Plants.
Ground Combat Collateral Damage will no longer kill the last 300 pops on a planet. (Instead of the last 3.)
Added missing name list for the Mindwarden species. They can now be insulted properly.
Fix upgrading Hunting Expanse to Hunting Nexus.
Changing the design of Deep Space Citadels now works correctly, persisting in save games.
The GDF/Imperial Armada now correctly shows their naval capacity in the GalCom UI.
The Independent GDF no longer grows infinitely.
Fix techs showing Experimentation Chambers unlocks even without Twisted Experiments civic
The Generator Ring World designation is now available to non gestalt empires
The Enhanced Memory and Learning Algorithms cyborg species traits and their negative versions have been differentiated. Learning Algorithms now grants +25% leader xp gain and +1 councilor skill.
The Infinity Sphere leviathan species trait now grants +25% researcher job efficiency instead of the deprecated -50% researcher job upkeep.
The "Population trials" option from the Synthetic Transformation situation now properly grants the biggest resource deposit.
Fixed several civics preventing Megacorp government reform.
The tooltip for the Hive World AP no longer lists removed modifiers.
Fixed several cases of Corporate civics being removed upon becoming galactic emperor.
The Elevated Synapses Overtuned trait now properly doubles it's leader XP bonus when "Damn the consequences" is activated
Lost Colony Hiveminds now also get the +10% habitability granted by the non hive version of the origin.
Machine Leaders should no longer get the Synthetic trait after any species modification. It should now only occur after the relevant traditions have been unlocked.
The unique planet modifier from Payback now gets properly removed if their capital is conquered before it expires.
Thrall Worlds now properly swap out soldier jobs from districts and buildings into battle thralls
The vivarium effects from Primal Calling have now been properly scaled to account for the vivarium size increase
Fixed and unlocalized string in the Rainbow Ice Sheet event.
Fixed a missing loc string in the Flaming Tornadoes event.
The gene mentorship description now properly displays 30% leader experience gain
Psychological Infertility is now properly compatible with Lithoid species
Slightly increased the odds of caravaneer proximity events happening
Reverted: add_skill_without_trait_selection now correctly only levels up without adding traits.
Fixed the amount of amenities that Identity Designers were providing.
UI
Fixed planet modifiers not updating correctly in the colonization view.
Fixed planet modifier icons in Expansion Planner not updating correctly in some cases.
Fixed the overlap of Dig Sites and Devastation components in Planet UI.
Performance
The render cycle is optimized to perform as if V-Sync were off, but without screen tearing.
Stability
Added the possibility to hotjoin while other players are hotjoining.
Modding
Console command effect can now target the observed country with root
The patch notes from previous open beta updates are available on the Paradox forums.[forum.paradoxplaza.com]
How to Opt-In
To access the Stellaris beta, go to your Steam Library, right-click the game, and select "Properties". From there, choose the "Betas" tab, and in the "Beta Participation" dropdown menu, select the cetus_open_beta beta branch from the list.
A Note for Linux Users:
The Linux binary at the moment requires a openssl 4 enabled version of curl, this is not provided by Steams base environment, we are currently addressing this.
You can either try and run Stellaris directly if your system has this provided for you or use proton to run the windows version
Run Stellaris directly:
Right click Stellaris in Steam and select "Properties..."
Goto "Installed Files" tab and select "Browse..." (this should take you to where Stellaris is installed)
Find the file "stellaris" and double click it
Run thru Proton:
Right click Stellaris in Steam and select "Properties..."
Goto "Compatability" tab and tick the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" checkbox
Select "Proton 10.0-3" or a suitable version (https://www.protondb.com/app/281990 for help)
Update the game and press "Play" in steam
Thank you for all your feedback so far, and thank you for playing Stellaris!