Stellaris Dev Diary #424 - Nomads and 4.4 'Pegasus' Preliminary Release Notes

by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

The Stellaris 4.4 ‘Pegasus’ update and Nomads are releasing next Monday, June 15th.

Today we have the preliminary release notes, the last Spinal Mount, the new Achievements, and information about today’s Dev Q&A. We’ll have some last minute fixes and adjustments going into 4.4, so Monday’s patch notes will likely differ very slightly from these.

There are two things that I want to highlight that we haven’t talked about in dev diaries:

There are some changes being made to the Paradox Launcher - when 4.4 releases, your mod lists will automatically disable. Once the mods have been updated, you’ll need to re-enable the modlist to re-enable them. The Launcher will also bail to the main menu if you try to Resume an incompatible save. These changes are intended to reduce the number of people that end up with bricked ironman saves or have crash-on-load issues when we make a major update.

The other is that your trip across the stars with Nomads will be accompanied by seven amazing tracks from Andreas Waldetoft - Boarding the Arkship, Echoes of Home, Enlightenment, Stellar Pilgrims, The Departure, Towards the Unknown, and Waylines, as well as an additional special track, Manduul Haan, by Batzorig Vaanchig.

Now, on to the release notes!

Nomads Preliminary Release Notes​

• Nomadic Empires introduced

  • Arkships

    • Massive mobile capitals that replace homeworlds entirely. Serve as colonies, shipyards, and warships simultaneously, with three specialization classes (Military, Scientific, Civilian) that can be upgraded through three tiers and customized with modules, systems, and late-game Spinal Mounts.

  • Waylines & Waystations

    • Construct Waystations to harvest resources from systems without claiming them. Adjacent Waystations automatically link into Waylines that propagate trade and modifier bonuses. Wayline Pacts allow two Nomadic empires to share each other's network benefits.

  • Contracts

    • Settled empires can issue task-driven Contracts (Military, Science, Resource, Diplomacy) for Nomadic empires to fulfill. Completing Contracts earns Trade, improves Opinion and Trust, and unlocks deeper diplomatic options including Wayline Pacts.

  • Settling and Embarking

    • After completing the Adaptability or Versatility tradition, Nomadic empires can Settle on an empty planet, with options to settle partially or fully and leave the remainder as a subject. Settled empires can Embark onto Arkships through a mirrored process, converting their starbases into Waystations.

• New Ambition path: Defender of the Galaxy

  • Transforms the Defender of the Galaxy Ascension Perk into a full five-level Ambition path. Progress by cooperating with other empires, assuming Galactic Custodianship, and forming the Galactic Defense Force. Unlocks the Paladin Initiative and unique hero ships commanded by promoted admirals. Win condition: defeat two end-game Crises and abdicate your Custodianship.

• Stellar Cannon Megastructure

  • A purely offensive Megastructure requiring a neutron star or pulsar, buildable without an Ascension Perk. Fires your entire energy stockpile at a target system after a 140-day charge, dealing ship damage and colony devastation (10%/25%/50% at each tier). Shots over 50,000 energy also shift all planets in the system one step up the dryness scale.

• Nomadic Enclave: Champions Forge Live!

  • A roving gladiatorial enclave that hosts fleet combat tournaments every twenty years across the galaxy, with weight classes scaling from early- to late-game fleet sizes. Winners hold the Trophy relic until the next tournament. Also offers services including combat intelligence on rivals, tournament venue selection, and introductions to Nomadic Paragons.

• New Nomadic Origins

  • Voidfarers

    • The general-purpose Nomadic origin. Provides a flexible, unscripted start with no overriding narrative obligation, suited to players who want to define their own nomadic path from the ground up.

  • Heirs of the Khan

    • Begin as survivors of a Khan's assassination, hunted by escalating Marauder bounty fleets. Complete unique military Contracts to weaken your hunters. Survive and potentially claim the throne yourself!

  • The Sacred Path

    • A Spiritualist origin built around surveying a series of sacred sites scattered across the galaxy by your ancestors. Each site presents a distinct choice about faith and history.

  • Forever Cruise

    • Two species share a single Arkship: a working Crew and a leisure-seeking Passenger class. Balance the Passenger Satisfaction situation to avoid Planetfall on one extreme and Mutiny on the other.

    • We’ve also added a special “Hospitality Servitors” variant of the Rogue Servitors civic, where the Passengers are even more demanding and maintaining the cruise is more difficult.

• New Ascension Perk: Wanderlust

  • As a Nomad, seek rare systems and be rewarded.

• New Paragons

  • Orun Veyth, the Revenant

    • A scarred admiral who lost everything to a purge and has been settling the debt ever since.

  • Ashar, the Wandering Sage

    • She held a seat at a royal court for decades, then walked away from it because the stars had more to teach her.

  • Sero the Younger, the Naturalist

    • He left a prestigious Grand Archive to study living things instead of dead ones.

  • Unit Solace, the Caregiver

    • A synthetic father who chose exile over abandoning his fragile son when his people synthetically ascended.

  • Th'aal Hask'Guron, the Champion

    • A warrior of considerable size and considerable joy, who treats every battlefield like a hunting ground and your Arkship like a trophy hall.

  • Seralune, the Lost Princess

    • She boards your Arkship with nothing but polite manners and the feeling she has been somewhere before. Follow where she points.

• New Nomad Civics

  • Caravan Masters

    • Every Waystation is a marketplace, every contract a relationship, and every relationship a potential profit margin.

  • Void Reavers

    • Not all who wander are lost, some are just waiting for you to let your guard down. Siphon resources from colonies in systems where your Waystations lurk, or skip the subtlety and plunder planets directly with the Plundering bombardment stance. Yarr!

  • Star Seekers

    • Life between destinations is its own destination. Gather resources as you travel, then burn through your stockpiles in a galaxy-spanning festival that grounds one Arkship and celebrates everything your people have seen.

  • Flight Schools

    • The best pilots in the galaxy didn't grow up with a planet to land on.

  • Deep Sleep

    • Not every passenger needs to be awake for the journey. Manage your population through the long transits between stars, keeping only the hands you need on deck.

• New Species Traits

  • Photoadaptive/Solar Celled

  • Recursive Learners/Structural Awareness

  • Reaver

  • Terraphobic

  • Interconnected

• New Music tracks by Andreas Waldetoft and Batzorig Vaanchig

• 8 new achievements

4.4 'Pegasus' Preliminary Patch Notes​

Feature​

• The Paradox Launcher now automatically disables your mods on major version updates.

  • To re-enable your mods after they have been updated for the patch, change the ‘DLC only’ play list back to your associated mod list. Your preferred mod list will then stick through the major version.

  • Attempting to resume an incompatible save will now divert you to the main menu instead of loading it.

  • The launcher should now show a warning if there has been a major patch since your last saved game

• Joining & Leaving wars in progress

  • Empires that are not the primary participant in a war may now attempt to enter an ongoing war by negotiating with the leader of the side they want to join, or leave an ongoing war by negotiating with the leader of the opposition. These can be found as terms in trade negotiations.

    • Leaving a war creates a truce, and negatively affects your former ally’s opinion of your empire due to your treachery.

    • An opponent may be reluctant to let you get off easily if they feel that they’re winning the war, or if they particularly dislike you.

• Empires whose colonies are all occupied now suffer escalating consequences. Each month while fully occupied, they gain a stacking Hopeless War modifier worth +5% War Exhaustion gain, and their wars accumulate +1% Attrition per month, which can take them past the normal 100% cap. Both effects vanish the moment any colony is liberated. AI secondary participants with all colonies occupied also gain increasing desire to seek a separate peace.

  • This will generally only be relevant when an empire has allies in a war, or is in multiple wars with split occupation.

• To further celebrate our 10th Anniversary: We have added a background selector to the Graphics settings screen, allowing players to choose which animated main menu background is displayed, including all DLC frontends, Latest Release, and Random options.

Improvement:​

• Automated jobs now have their own workforce limit slider, letting you directly cap how many of a job's slots are filled by automation.

• Finished the removal of Unemployment begun with 4.3.0.

  • When a pop loses their job, they now immediately fall to their stratum's fallback category (Citizen, Maintenance Drone, etc.) rather than passing through a temporary unemployed tier.

• Reworked Nascent Stage pops to work more similarly to sub-species integration, with approximately 1/60th of the pops growing into their base species each month (on colonies that are at least 60 months old). This should result in Nascent Stage being more reliable and less error-prone.

• Improved how pops compete for jobs combining basic job weights and how efficient they actually are at them, so a more suitable pop will now properly displace one already holding a position. (i.e. Slaves and shackled robots will tend to displace free organics from worker tier jobs, intelligent pops will take more research positions, etc.)

• Higher-stratum jobs turn over more slowly - Workers and Simple Drones may reshuffle every 3 months, Specialists and Complex Drones every 7, and Elites every 13 - so an out-of-place pop won't be kicked out immediately but will eventually be displaced by a better fit.

• Gestalt pops have a weaker attachment to their current jobs overall.

• On underpopulated planets, pops tend to fill jobs proportionally between all the capped jobs they are eligible for, though bonuses to job efficiency (such as from the colony designation or traits) could heavily skew this towards certain jobs. They will still tend to prefer higher stratum jobs when possible.

• Prioritized jobs ignore this proportional fill, but lower strata jobs may still be bypassed in favor of higher weight ones.

• Pops should no longer take deficits into account for job prioritization, as this caused extremely erratic monthly behavior on underpopulated planets.

• Event option tooltips for ethic drift effects in the Costume Culture, Roots Reclaimed, and Fans No More First Contact events, and the Broken Shackles origin homecoming option, now show a single summary line instead of one entry per affected pop group.

• The System Initialiser selector now hides systems you are not eligible for (for example, KotG Sol if you do not have the KotG origin).

• You can now use Tab and Ctrl-Tab on the Starbase tab to advance to the next or previous owned Starbase. (This advances through upgraded Starbases, skipping Outposts.)

• It is now possible to queue the return order. Useful when issuing commands for the logistic ship and then you want it to return to the arkship to drop off the stockpile.

• Added a slider to set the amount of randomized nomadic empires that is spawned during galaxy generation.

• When building megastructures that are meant to be located outside of the gravity well, the eligible space will be highlighted in green instead instead of marking ineligible space in red.

• the kill_country console command now accepts an optional ID parameter

• Choosing a Megastructure from the fleet order button moves the camera to the constructor's system

• Habitats and Ringworlds now explicitly state that they have artificial climates.

• Colonize button on planets will now be disabled ( with a tooltip explaining the reason ) if there is already a scheduled colonization action for that planet. Previously players would still get blocked, but it took more steps to realize that you have already ordered a colonization ship.

• Added message for mission completion.

• Orders to construct megastructures will no longer be automatically canceled by issuing some other order. Player will need to explicitly click cancel orders button to avoid unintended cancellation and loss of progress.

• Fleets are now willing to fight further from the center of the system. Especially noticeable if fighting stationary targets at the edge of the system.

• Fleets that return to or are built at a Juggernaut or Arkship now automatically follow it.

• The Megastructures UI now shows the top 10 recommended systems for Arc Furnaces, Dyson Swarms, and Habitats when hovering over each megastructure type.

Bugfix​

• Fixed an issue where pops could end up in "reprocessing" jobs forever.

• Certain leaders are no longer immune to the negative side effects of mutagenic spas.

• Fixed an issue where the Mindlink Metropolis district would appear in the wrong position on the capital planet screen after unlocking the Mind Meld perk.

• Habitat Mining Station designation was incorrectly scoring energy zones instead of mining zones.

• The Machine Uprising no longer requires the robots to outnumber organics 100:1 to have a slight chance of success. Disassembling or displacing Mechanical pops during the uprising now also has finer granularity.

• Space Fauna in the Vivarium no longer lose their species type or culling resources after maturing to a new life stage.

• Recently captured Space Fauna no longer revert growth or lose their ship design after a few months.

• Fixed some Leader Maximum Negative Traits modifiers being listed in places where they shouldn't.

• Imperial Heirs can now gain more relevant leaders traits they were prevented from getting before.

• Fixed Necrophage origin tooltip incorrectly stating 1.2K prepatent Pops instead of 2.4K for non-genocidal empires.

• The Adrift anomaly ship has been renamed from "Science Ship" to "Courier Ship".

• Vipra and the Behemothkin are now correctly replaced with spider-like portraits in Arachnophilia mode. (Even though the Behemothkin has four arms.) The Mindwarden intentionally is excluded because their armor is piloted by millions of spiders.

• We make Great Pets requires owning an alien zoo again

• Make selectables of different types not able to be selected together

• Monthly Loyalty Change breakdown tooltip displayed all modifier values at twice their actual value.

• Fixed all four hostile DSC aura types sharing the same stack ID, causing only one to be active at a time.

• Fixed the Surveyor attempting to apply incorrect deposits.

• The Ember Cruiser and the Ember Battleship now display the correct localized text strings in their descriptions

• The Necrophage origin tooltip display "prepatent" as intended and swap the wording of "Rulers" to "Elites"

• The Storm Chasers origins modifier no longer has a :: instead of : in its description

• Fixed colonisable planets sometimes generating with no energy generator districts.

• Fixed Volcanic worlds not having uncapped energy districts.

• Fixed Production Unit ringworld segment missing correct zones for fallen machine empires.

• Try to prevent systems spawned via mandatory_neighbors from spawning too close to other systems.

• Fixed precursor civilizations always appearing in the same region of the galaxy regardless of seed.

• Crises will no longer spawn starbases after purging a pop if there are hostiles in the system.

• Fixed fleet return orders being silently cancelled when the fleet was in orbit of a friendly starbase.

• if the Deep Space Citadel Design name is too long, it no longer overflows the button asset.

• Fixed some names containing certain characters (e.g. "ä") not being displayed.

• Thermophile Void Dwellers no longer start with food production

• The Create Resort World and Arcology Project decisions now correctly block each other even in the build queue.

• Fixed a logical discrepancy in planetary decisions on nanite worlds.

• The Symbiont Overdrive edict now unlocks correctly for Wilderness empires.

• The Confidence in Variance agenda correctly appears in Domination Traditions for Gestalt empires, and it has a finisher effect.

• The Biomorphosis Situation no longer mentions Genomic Research Facilities if you are a Wilderness empire.

• Next-tier unlock of Focus Tasks now requires 50% of your empire's available tasks, not 50% of all tasks

• Common Ground and Hegemony starting empires can no longer be homicidals

• Fixed an issue with the Rubricator system not spawning under certain circumstances

• Fixed Non-Aggression Pacts not having decreased Trust requirements if you have the Familiar Face civic.

• Uplifting can no longer uplift pops on uncolonized planets.

• Fixed AI not budgeting zro for starbase construction and upkeep.

• Fixed AI not budgeting dark matter for starbase construction and upkeep.

• Fixed AI not budgeting food for starbase upkeep.

• Fixed AI not budgeting exotic gases for non-orbital ring starbase buildings.

• Fixed AI not budgeting rare crystals for non-orbital ring starbase buildings.

• Fixed a background error where the "First Paragon Trait" timeline event kept trying to happen when the leader is a paragon

• Fixed empires with Biological Ships not getting access to G-slot defensive platforms

• You can no longer build dyson swarms around depositless stars

• Bio-ship empires now correctly receive bio-ship technologies during the crisis tech grant, instead of silently getting nothing.

• Retreating ships with long range weapons will no longer be able to escape the outer bounds of the system

• Fixed overlord expansion tithe being applied after the outpost influence cost cap.

• Fix mobile starbases' country modifiers not always being applied

• Fleet UI will no longer change header color when inspecting various types of ships if communications are not yet established.

• Fixed elites from providing double exotic gases from the gaseous fauna modifier.

• Updated bio-trophies not benefiting from some modifiers to social classes.

• The Fallen Empire demanding you to accept humiliation will no longer have a broken tooltip option.

• Fixed a possible crash on INF_ORIGIN_RED_GIANT_TRIANGULATION special project.

• Fixed fleets being unable to return to a mobile starbase while it is in FTL transit.

• Scripted localization error corrected in two Shroud-related events.

• Fixed issue where after quelling a rebellion, rebel systems further away from the player's territory were maintaining their independence.

• When reading saved outliner settings, incorrect entries in the "sort" arrays are now updated correctly.

• The Sentinel Auxiliary Fleet given to help you fight the scourge no longer contains multiple designs with empty slots

• Collateral damage from titanic weapons now correctly benefits from weapon type damage modifiers and properly attributes kills for scripted on-actions.

Balance​

• Orbital Rings can now be dismantled.

• Abandon colony cost decreased from 200 to 50 influence.

• Planet designation bonuses have been noticeably increased across the board. (10% -> 15%, 5% -> 10%)

• Some key technologies related to Ascension Paths will now have higher chances to appear if you're on that Path.

• Added Interlink faction for Democratic Interlink cyborg pops

• Void Dweller empires can now be selected as Advanced Start empires.

• Updated Orbital Ring armor values.

• Merged the Titan Assembly Yards and Colossal Assembly Yards starbase buildings into a single Capital Assembly Yards building. Unlocks with any capital ship technology, costs 1250 alloys / 25 energy upkeep, and grants +2 Shipyard Capacity.

• All species trait slave_cost resources changed from energy to trade.

• Updated the spawning conditions for mining and research deposits in galaxy generation.

• Added a Fallen Empire Strength galaxy setup slider (0.25x to 5.0x); Fallen and Awakened Empire fleets now scale with it and with difficulty, gain rare titans and colossi, and Awakened Empire fleet count now reacts to the strongest empire in the galaxy.

• The Civil Exclusion agenda now also grants Slave Workforce as part of the finisher effect.

• The Black Hole Observatory has been replaced with the Stellar Observatory. This can be built in all star systems, but the output depends on the system star type.

• Branch office influence cost is now capped to 1000.

• The energy cost to establish a branch office has been converted to trade. This cost no longer scales with distance.

• Having Low Economic Intel on an Empire now gives you visibility on deposits in the empire's space.

• Intel on Systems no longer gives Intel on Colonies.

• The Expel Corporation War Goal now provides you with trade instead of energy for each branch office destroyed.

• Astrometeorology civics now give +50% Stellar Observatory output.

• Scientists can now obtain the Engineer trait.

• Commanders can now obtain the Roamer trait.

  • The Roamer trait now provides +10% Sublight Speed as a base effect, +10% Survey Speed for Scientists, and +5 Evasion for Commanders.

• Grand Archives can now be built around non-habitable planets.

• Unity resource culling conversion value adjusted from 1 to 3

• Commander traits that grant resources when ships are killed (Material Liberator, Crusader, Shipbreaker, Plunderer) now have larger rewards and scale by the destroyed ship's used naval capacity instead of a flat per-kill amount.

UI​

• Situation Log UI improvements, including categorization of entries and new interface looks

• Starbase module and building tooltips now show equipped component stats

• Ship details panel now shows full weapon and strike craft stats in component slot tooltips

• Expansion planner sort buttons now display district type names instead of resource names.

• Fixed too large leader tooltip hitbox in Paragon recruitment and conversation event windows.

• Build queue tooltips for Shipyards now show ship class icon and design name

• Megastructure UI overhaul and art pass

• Fixed misleading tooltip for outpost influence cost when it is capped.

• Hid leaders from Combat UI

• The Planet View UI now shows districts that are being built as part of the overview where the built, unused and blocker ones are to give a more accurate overview of the situation

• Inactive triggered Auras will now be hidden from the component tooltip of the shipview

• Rename and move some steps in the Empire Creation menu

• Add a scrollbar to Empire Creator's planet class description

• Transport fleets docked at a starbase without a docked ship upkeep modifier no longer show a "Ready to land troops" tooltip.

• "Research Projects in System" in right-click menu for construction ships is now shown if multiple construction ships are selected.

• Renamed "Civilian Ships" to "Utility Ships"

• Policy groups that have been unlocked but not yet initialized are no longer shown in the policies view.

• Tooltips can now update their text while locked in position.

• Removed the "Auto Track Log Entries" button from the event window (mods may re-enable it).

• Improved concept tooltips for starbase building and module unlocks.

AI​

• AI now treats unity as a real production target across all three plan stages, research can scale 40% higher in advanced (2500 -> 3500 cap), and endgame alloys drop from a 2300 ceiling to 1300 so that the trillions-of-research endgame research numbers can actually outcompete alloys for build slots/pops.

• The AI now steers building construction toward building sets that match each planet's designation for tighter, better-specialized worlds.

• The "underdeveloped planet limit" that was supposed to prevent AI overextension is more effective. Instead of only applying in the first 15 years and then only against bad planets, it now softly discourages colonization of any world once the empire already has too many undeveloped colonies.

• Empires that are still small will now expand more aggressively, so they more reliably claim their homeworld's guaranteed habitables and nearby good worlds before settling into build-up mode.

• AI resettlement now moves pops from overpopulated worlds to underpopulated ones regardless of how those planets got that way, rather than only emptying out worlds with terrible habitability. New colonies should grow faster and veteran worlds should stagnate less.

• On well-developed planets (2500+ pops), the AI is now more likely to round out its rural districts so it unlocks the building slots they provide. It still won't waste slots on a district whose specialization zones aren't available yet, so early-game behavior is unchanged.

• Fixed an issue where optional subplans (like pop count and strategic resource targets) were still required to complete a plan, which stalled the AI on one economic tier for long periods; they now behave as true stretch goals

• Added a new intermediate economic plan between the basic and advanced tiers, so AI empires experience a smaller jump in expected income (energy, minerals, alloys, research, etc.) as they graduate out of the early game.

• Fixed a bug where the AI's consumer goods scaling production check looked at the food stockpile instead of the consumer goods stockpile, sometimes causing the AI to over-build or under-build CG production.

• The AI now proactively tears down and rebuilds urban zones that don't match a planet's designation - for example, a col_foundry world will swap out a generic zone_industrial for zone_foundry to double-specialize into its designation. Swaps apply a per-building penalty for each existing building that doesn't carry over through the new zone's included_building_sets, require a larger affinity margin when the slot is already specialized to prevent churn between near-equivalent candidates, and must clear a minimum-benefit floor so the construction cost is justified by the economic delta. Planets already rich in matched buildings stay put; planets with mismatched buildings restructure.

• Colony designation affinity (the ai_building_set_affinity on colony types) now biases AI zone selection in addition to building selection. A designation that prefers the "foundry" building set will now also weight foundry-themed zones more heavily during construction planning.

• Nanotech Worlds: Fixed AI empires getting stuck after converting planets to Nanotech Worlds. The AI now prioritizes nanolabs, nanotech cauldrons, and nanite transmuters on pc_nanotech colonies instead of leaving rural districts unspecialized.

• The AI will now reactively build storage boosting buildings when any tangible resource is above 90% capacity.

• Increased AI weights for taking Ascension Paths. Added Spiritualist and Materialist AI weight synergies for Psionic and Cybernetic Ascension.

• AI empires that have taken the Synthetic Evolution AP will now always be able to take tech_synthetic_workers (even if they don't normally use robots).

• AI empires are much more likely to take Ascension Perks and their associated Tradition Trees.

• The AI now sometimes uses buildings that provide a static number of jobs, like Alloy Foundries or Civilian Industries.

• The AI no longer rigs their Hydroponic Farms with explosives, ready to blow in the off chance that their economy starts doing too well.

• Reduced the fleet power upgrade threshold the AI requires before they will upgrade ships from +30% to +10%.

• AI will no longer want to build army types that fail the "allow" trigger on all colonies.

• AI can now build armies that cost resources other than minerals or food.

Stability:​

• Fixed OOS with merging species (playing with nascent species)

• Fixed OOS with country economy due to dependency missing in threaded code.

• link_to effect now supports null bypasses (as both the scope and target) instead of crashing.

• Fixed a crash when closing the game via Alt+F4 or the window close button while a save was in progress.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when hovering over event option tooltips generated by effects iterating large numbers of pop groups.

• Fixed an OOS happening on hotjoin when a situation has enough progress to go past the last stage.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when AI empires evaluated megastructure construction orders.

• CS_SPECIES_COUNT, CS_SPECIES_INDEX OOS when playing with nascent species

• CS_COUNTRY_RESOURCES OOS

• Fixed crash when using horizontalScrollbar in containerWindowType.

• Fixed crash on Mac in galaxy generation due to running out of stack when randomizing traits for species

Modding:​

• Introduced Colony and Carrier as scopes

  • Colony is where your pops, buildings, and most everything else important is hosted. This is ‘carried’ by a Carrier

  • Carriers are either Ships or Planets. You will see most, if not all, planet events have been converted to carrier events. Same with flags and other effects. This is to make them work with Nomads easier.

• Added is_nomadic option for create_country

• Added "rat" as an alias for research_all_technologies console command, which now works in addition to "rta".

• The demotion and promotion blocks in pop job script definitions have been removed.

• The intermediate unemployment job types and pop categories (ruler_unemployment, specialist_unemployment, worker_unemployment, complex_drone_unemployment, simple_drone_unemployment, slave_unemployment2) have been removed.

• The pop_unemployment_demotion_time_mult static modifier and pop_cat_X_unemployment_political_power family of modifiers (used in living standard definitions) have been removed.

• Nascent Stage presapient maturation is no longer handled via script demotion chains. It is now driven by the new forced_integration block on species traits. Set integration_rate (fraction of pops converted per month) and optionally minimum_colony_age (in months) on any species trait to gradually integrate pops into their parent species.

• Two new defines: AI_UNBUILT_DISTRICT_BOOST_POP_THRESHOLD (default 2500) and AI_UNBUILT_DISTRICT_BOOST_MULTIPLIER (default 2.0). The multiplier is applied to any districts that have 0 built when the planet meets the pop threshold, lacks that district type, and at least one of its specialization slots has a potential district specialization for the planet.

• A new ai_building_set_affinity = { = ... } block is now accepted on colony types - each entry multiplies the AI's build weight for buildings in the named building set when that designation is active.

• Defines AI_RESETTLE_FROM_LOW_HABITABILITY_THRESHOLD and AI_RESETTLE_TO_HIGH_HABITABILITY_THRESHOLD have been removed - they no longer drive behavior. The AI now only requires source pops ≥ 2× target pops, and rejects any target with habitability below AI_MIN_HABITABILITY_TO_COLONIZE.

• Two new defines in common/defines/00_defines.txt: AI_FEW_PLANETS_COLONIZATION_THRESHOLD (default 5) and AI_FEW_PLANETS_COLONIZATION_BOOST (default 0.25). When owned planets < threshold, colonization weight is multiplied by 1 + (threshold - owned) * boost.

• UNDERDEVELOPED_PLANET_LIMIT is now a soft weight penalty (limit / count multiplier) applied inside ColonizePlanets rather than a binary rejection in ShouldColonizePlanet, and no longer gated behind AI_BUDGETING_*_YEARS.

• The "optional" flag on an economic plan subplan now truly exempts it from plan fulfillment. Previously it only controlled the order in which the subplan was factored into the scaling-subplan loop, but the subplan's income/pops/naval_cap still counted toward graduation targets. If your mod relied on the old behavior to force pop or strategic-resource gates, change those subplans from optional = yes to omit the flag entirely, or add an equivalent requirement via a new non-optional subplan.

• New define AI_ZONE_SPECIALIZATION_AFFINITY_DELTA (default 0.5) in common/defines/00_defines.txt. This is the minimum affinity improvement a candidate zone must offer over the existing district specialization before the AI will propose a swap. Raising it makes the AI more reluctant to restructure existing zones; lowering it makes the AI more aggressive about perfecting specialization.

• Colony type ai_building_set_affinity entries now also apply to district specialization types. Any district specialization whose included_building_sets list includes a building set named in the colony's affinity table will receive the corresponding AI weight multiplier.

• Added the -logempirestats command-line flag. When set, Stellaris writes one TSV row per (month, empire) to logs/empire_stats_.tsv with columns Game Date, Empire, Plan, Economy, Military, Tech. Covers every playable empire (including the player) for the full session; dead empires keep a row per tick with blank metric cells.

• Added a resource_stockpile_percent = { resource = value >= } trigger. Only valid for resources that have caps.

• New define AI_ZONE_SWAP_BUILDING_LOSS_PENALTY (default 0.2) in common/defines/00_defines.txt. Each existing building in the slot that can't be carried over via included_building_sets subtracts this much from the candidate zone's effective affinity. With the 0.2 affinity delta default, a 1.5 -> 2.0 swap tolerates up to 2 displaced buildings but refuses at 3 or more. Raise to protect developed planets; lower to let the AI restructure more aggressively.

• New define AI_ZONE_SWAP_RATCHET_MULT (default 1.5) in common/defines/00_defines.txt. Multiplier applied to AI_ZONE_SPECIALIZATION_AFFINITY_DELTA when the slot is already occupied by a specialized zone (affinity > 1.0). First-time swaps from a baseline 1.0 zone use the normal delta; swaps that would displace an already-specialized zone need a larger margin. Prevents ratcheting between near-equivalent specialized candidates.

• New define AI_ZONE_SWAP_MIN_BUILD_WEIGHT (default 2.0) in common/defines/00_defines.txt. Minimum CalcBuildWeight a zone-swap proposal must reach before it's queued - any swap whose economic delta doesn't clear this floor is discarded even if the affinity delta would otherwise allow it. Prevents slot churn where multiple candidates cluster near the top and the AI keeps swapping for marginal improvements.

• Added `bottomless` flag for resource converters.

• Added `pop_group_can_join_factions` game rule. Pop groups are no longer hard coded to have happiness to join factions.

• The -incrementalsaves command line parameter will now save every 25 years instead of skipping some. This frequency can be changed by the INCREMENTAL_SAVE_FREQUENCY define.

• Added completion_message_type, completion_message_localization, and completion_message_days fields to scripted actions. When set, the engine automatically sends a notification to the acting player on action completion, with FLEET/MEGASTRUCTURE and TARGET_PLANET/TARGET_SYSTEM/TARGET_FLEET variables pre-populated.

• save_global_event_target_as supports exhibits.

• save_global_event_target_as logs an error if used in invalid scope.

• New on_leaving_system_fleet on_action that gets triggered when a fleet is leaving the system.

• no more errors in the error log about invalid scope when "any_" or "count_" triggers finds no matching elements. It used to evaluate the nested triggers using the parent scope and now it uses an empty version of the correct child object.

• Added error logging if failed to randomly place a system with minimum distance from other systems or if the minimum distance is 0.

• Added error logging to move_system corresponding to the logging in spawn_system.

• Added show_in_build_menu = yes|no (default yes) for megastructure types. When set to no, the megastructure is excluded from the Build Megastructure picker dialog and suppresses the picker button entirely if no other megastructures are available.

• Orbital deposit spawn eligibility unified under canonical can_have_* scripted triggers.

• Added force_show_diplomacy and force_show_espionage, letting you forcefully display a scoped country's respective tab through script.

• New `create_random_fleet` effect with weighted ship designs and optional min/max per entry; the previous deterministic effect of the same name has been renamed to `create_balanced_fleet`.

• Tradition Swaps now support "unlocks_agenda" as an optional field. If you don't have one entered, it will use the one from the base tradition (if any).

• Updated GetPlanetMoon to work for Habitats, Ringworlds, and Arkships

• Renamed system_colony script lists to system_planet_colony.

• Added `level_tooltip` to Starbase Levels, this displays as a custom tooltip appended to the Upgrade/Downgrade starbase tooltips.

• Added `is_orbital_ring = yes|no` to ship sizes, this determines if the Starbase Upgrade/Downgrade button title displays "Starbase" or "Orbital Ring"

• Added `show_in_outliner` parameter to situation type

• Fixed "calc = pop_happiness" in scaled_modifier not working.

• `num_claims_on_system = { target = FROM count >= 6 }

• Introduced a new define SYSTEM_BUILD_AREA_COLOR to control what color should be used to highlight eligible space when picking a spot to build certain megastructures.

• Add has_contract and has_contract_of_type triggers

• A fleet scripted action with planet scope and cooldown 0 will now be ordered for the whole system when used from galaxy map

• Replaced defines BRANCH_OFFICE_COST_INCREASE_MIN_RANGE and BRANCH_OFFICE_COST_INCREASE_SCALE with BRANCH_OFFICE_INFLUENCE_COST_BASE, BRANCH_OFFICE_INFLUENCE_COST_INCREASE_SCALE and BRANCH_OFFICE_INFLUENCE_MAX_COST.

• Added country_branch_office_influence_cost_mult modifier.

• Add carries_colony requirement to special projects

• new carrier_is_type trigger

• Add script list effects and triggers for owned_mission and issued_mission

• Add issuer event targets from mission scope

• inherits_capped_modifiers_from has been removed from the game. It is replaced by shared_capacity_modifier which is now a pool that all districts on the planet share their capacity from. Allowing for new modding possibilities

• Add show_in_issue_list parameter to mission category

• has_cloaking_detection works on starbase scope now

• Add click_to_act_key field to scripted actions, displayed when they are clickable. If not written, a generic click text will try to get generated, based on scope

• Add has_mission_flag trigger to mission scope

• Add is_contract_type trigger to mission scope

• Allow add_mission_counter to be used directly in a mission scope

• Added on_megastructure_build_start on action.

• Trigger has_cloaking_detection now takes modifiers into account

• Megastructures can't have build and dismantle times \\<= 0

• Add ship_size_damage_factor modifier

• Add triggered_requirement field to special projects

• Add is_nomadic government restriction

• Add is_nomadic country trigger

• Allow ship and fleet scope in set_graphical_culture effect

• Hooked on_actions for encampment and packing up from code

• Replaced is_moving trigger by is_system_locked

• New on_action on_system_locked_ship_killed fired when an encamped ship is killed

• Add can_access_decisions rule to show or hide the Decisions button

• Add time_to_accept and time_to_complete to missions

• Added custom_class_text_color as a hero ship parameter to determine which color highlight to use for the ship class on the fleet UI.

• Add create_sector effect for orphan colonies

• Added planet_artificial_max_districts_add which increases the district cap on colonies for which the planet class has is_artificial_planet = yes

• Add galaxy_radius trigger

• Removed on_fail effect for missions, on_cancel effect is now run when a mission is ended early, no matter the reason.

• `damage_ship` now supports passing the attacker country

• Added steal_planet_output effect

• Added potential trigger for situation types

• Planet decisions now support `important=yes` setting. Important decisions will appear at the top of the list and be be highlighted.

• Replaced has_authority = auth_corporate with is_megacorp = yes

• Deposits' potential, resources, and drop_weight now support astral rift scope.

• Updated deposits documentation.

• Replaced right_horizontal_slider with bottom_horizontal_slider, which correctly uses a horizontal button.

• Starbase scope now supports "ship" to scope to the station ship.

• scripted actions now support more on_actions along their process

• Updated `potential` and `possible` triggers for megastructures to include the constructing fleet or upgrading megastructure as a scope.

• Created a resource converters database used to handle stockpile alternate paying methods for a country

• Created `set_resource_converter` effect to set a country's resource converter

• Added construction_capabilities to ship size.

• Added error logging for unsupported values of "station" in deposit types.

• Removed obsolete game rule can_build_military_station_around.

• Megastructure definitions now support three new optional fields: tooltip_best_systems_header (loc key for the section header), tooltip_system_score (used to rank systems), and tooltip_system_filter (trigger block to exclude ineligible systems). Set tooltip_show_star_resources = yes instead of tooltip_system_score to display the star's actual resource output as the ranking metric. The number of systems shown is controlled by the MEGASTRUCTURE_TOOLTIP_BEST_SYSTEMS_COUNT define (default 10).

• Added the `override_trade_restriction` resource-converter flag. When set to `yes` on a resource in a country's resource converter, that country can buy and sell the resource on the market regardless of income or galactic market access (the income/galactic-market gate is skipped, but `tradable_in_market` is still respected).

• Ethics now support `triggered_country_modifier` blocks for conditionally applied country modifiers.

• New weapon_component_template fields collateral_damage and collateral_range for AoE damage to nearby hostile ships on hit, inheriting the weapon's penetration and damage type modifiers.

• New weapon_component_template fields chain_damage, chain_range and chain_count for arc/bouncing damage that randomly selects a hostile ship within range of each previous bounce target.

• New attacker_ship parameter on the damage_ship scripted effect for full on-action scope attribution when the damage source is a known ship.

Stellar Engine​

Hi folks, Alfray Stryke here with our final Spinal Mount. As a reminder Spinal Mounts are modules that can be equipped onto Tier 3 Arkships that are designed to roughly be mobile kilostructures.

The Stellar Engine allows you to inject dark matter into a star or gas giant, providing a significant increase to the output.

After injecting dark matter into a star, it will gain an additional energy or physics research deposit, depending on the current output of the star. Stars without a deposit will default to gaining a physics research deposit. Of course, as a Settled empire, if you happen to know of any Nomadic empires that has an Arkship outfitted with one of these Spinal Mounts, you can issue a Contract for them to Ignite a star or gas giant in one of your systems.

Igniting a gas giant on the other hand, turns it into a protostar with a unique energy and physics producing deposit, but this has some drastic consequences to the local moons.

Nomads Achievements​

As usual, we have a few new achievements for you to chase.

Khan of Khans

As Heirs of the Khan, seize back your throne and have at least 5 Satrapy Vassals.

Forever is a Long Time

As Forever Cruise, survive for at least 200 years and reach the End Game Crisis.

The Long Way Round

As Sacred Path, complete the pilgrimage to all seven Sacred Sites.

Take My Energy ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Cook a homeworld with a Stellar Cannon.

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Embark when your homeworld is at 70% devastation.

I Win Longest Road!

Connect 2 Capital Planets with a Wayline that is at least 20 Waystations long.

It's Full of Stars

As a Nomadic empire, settle on Europa as your Empire's Capital.

Defenders of the Galaxy

Defeat all End Game Crises before abdicating as DotG without ever having any non-Arkship colonies.

Community Q&A​

We’re holding a Question and Answer session today on the official Stellaris Discord[discord.gg]. Come ask us anything about Stellaris!

Next Week​

Next week’s dev diary will be looking at the first few days of the 4.4 release and likely include a preview of our planned week 1 patch. (And a review of hotfixes, if any occurred.)

See you then!

The artists put together a new piece of wallpaper for you based on the blueprints in the Arkship view.