The latest update for Stellaris is out this week, delivering the usual combination of bug fixes and balance tweaks, and those who prefer the strategy title’s story-based approach to 4X gameplay can also look forward to a small bit of new Stellaris story DLC being distributed free of charge.
The new Stellaris story content was penned by Alexis Kennedy, co-founder of Failbetter Games. Younger gamers might be familiar with Failbetter via Sunless Sea, the 2D exploration game released last February, but the studio has been around since 2010. New story content isn’t the only surprise found in the patch notes for Stellaris Update 1.4 either. This week’s patch includes a new gift for achievement hunters in the Stellaris community, in the form of 33 new achievements, and a handful of new events for the base game and last month’s Leviathans story pack. Update 1.4 also includes plenty of balance tweaks, adjusting everything from AI performance to resource costs. The patch also improves Stellaris ’ mod support and performance.
Here are patch notes for Stellaris Update 1.4, via Paradox:
Leviathans Story Pack
Added new introduction event for the Artisan Troupe
Added encounter event for the Enigmatic Fortress
Features
Added 33 new achievements
No longer possible to build robots on planets belonging to sectors
Added victory event after defeating the Prethoryn Scourge
Added new events for discovering additional Precursor anomalies, so that the quest chains can always be completed
Changed the way the Extradimensionals work: Instead of spawning reinforcements as soon as a fleet is lost, the Extradimensional portal will create new fleets at a fixed rate depending on the number of dimensional anchors the Extradimensionals have placed in the galaxy. Dimensional anchors are a type of station that the Extradimensionals construct, and their main portal is invincible while any dimensional anchors exist in the galaxy. This should make the war against the Extradimensionals more of a long-term fight and less of a surgical strike against the portal.
Balance
General
Evasion is now capped at 90%
Ship mineral maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% of ship cost
Ship energy maintenance reduced from 0.5% to 0.4% of ship cost
Afterburners now use the auxiliary slot
Regular empires now start with 8 pops
Primitive farms and factories can now be upgraded directly to hydroponics farms/mining networks
Pirate ships have been reworked slightly and buffed in most cases
Primitives are now consistent in how many pops, farms and factories they get on each age of development, and get new pops, armies and buildings when advancing through the ages
Stone age primitives now generate fewer tile blockers
Space Torpedoes technology now requires Fusion Missiles instead of Nuclear Missiles
Venerable trait cost reduced from 5 to 4
Mineral Silos are now restricted to 1 per planet
Increased max minerals from Mineral Silos from +1000/+1500/+2000 to +2000/+3000/+4000
Level 3 mineral silo now only provides +1 mineral per adjacent tile
Increased protectorate tech discount to 95%
Protectorates can no longer conduct independent diplomacy
Repeatable technologies have their base cost increased from 1500 to 3000 and their increasing cost increased from 480 to 1000
Slave Processing Plant now gives +10% slave food/mineral production instead of +5%
Reduced spawn odds of tomb worlds
Increased frequency of alien pet deposits
Reduced warscore costs for planetary and vassalisation wargoals
Doubled Pre-Sentient Anomaly spawn chances
Fixed CTD when generating a certain tooltip while the player has no planets
Pops are no longer upset if an occupier purges Pops on one of your planets
Components
Space Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 20 to 10
Space Torpedo power usage reduced from 20 to 10
Space Torpedo maximum damage reduced from 260 to 215
Space Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
Armored Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 40 to 15
Armored Torpedo power usage reduced from 40 to 15
Armored Torpedo damage reduced from 150-300 to 140-280
Armored Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
Devastator Torpedo mineral cost reduced from 60 to 20
Devastator Torpedo power usage reduced from 60 to 20
Devastator Torpedo armor penetration set to 50%
Devastator Torpedo missile HP reduced from 8 to 6
AI
War
Federation AI is now better at picking wargoals for non-conqueror federations, will focus on retaking planets and liberating larger countries
Sector
Major work done to sector AI to make it better at budgeting and utilizing resources
Diplomacy
AI will now sometimes gift countries that are at war with their rivals and threats
AI will no longer ask you to become their vassal multiple times in a row
AI is now less keen to accept a lot of defensive pacts
Slowed down AI requests for federation membership/association status to prevent message spam
Misc
Fixed a bug where AI would send fleets to deal with pirates, only to retreat due to pirates being stronger
Fixed a bug where AI was trying to build buildings on tiles that had presentients on them
User Interface
Added a setting to disable all auto-unpausing from popups
Clicking on some resource icons in top bar no longer opens tabs due to being inconsistent
Construction Ship now sends notification 'fleet order finished' only when the last construction in the queue is finished
Planet view colonize button opens same surface view window as when planet is clicked from expansion planner
'Closed Borders' and 'Truce' are shown as diplomatic statuses
Bugfixes
Garrisons are now properly shown and spawned on occupied worlds.
Fleets will now prioritize spaceports and military stations over other stations (such as mining stations) in combat.
Close borders wargoal now forces borders open for the duration of the truce regardless of rivalry status, etc.
Ships and weapon components targeting logic now correctly accounts for evasion, so large weapons are much less likely to target corvettes etc
Fixed armor absorbing too much damage if the ship also had shields left
Fixed very high armor values negating the effects of armor penetration
Fixed auto generated ship designs getting wrong combat computers
Swarm units have had their sound volume adjusted
Spaceport no longer provide Naval Capacity while under construction
Fleet view shows current fleet activity instead of order description
Vassals and overlords no longer gives sensor to each other while at war
Sector AI will spend own resources instead of players resources when upgrading spaceports
Uplift species button is locked if no species can be found on any owned planet
Fixed a bug where some leaders could live forever
Planets with Stone Age Primitives will no longer generate Anomalies
Tzynn Empire now starts with the proper number of trait points
Fixed Nomads getting wrong opinion modifier and habitability trait when allowed to settle on a planet
Launcher MOD tab scrollbar appears with correct position and size when content overflows container
Fixed a rare case of portrait duplication caused by prescripted species templates
Fixed so that NPC ship designs now correctly have PD slots for their PD weapons
Situation Log entry list of counters grows up instead of down
Savannah and Alpine worlds now have proper localization in the start screen
Fixed typo in Frontier Hospital technology description
Fixed a bug where upgrade fleet progress could display numbers above 100%
Fixed some outdated hotkey references in tutorial texts
Fixed frantic twitching animation in diplomacy window for main species
Fixed reversed fanatic/militarist bonus to rivalry influence
Fixed some potential event spam when running on high speeds during War in Heaven
Planet edict modifiers are applied to pops again. Use planet modifier categories when applying planet edict modifiers
Fixed Continental, Savanna and Alpine worlds not being used for primitive civs
Enclave governments now get a new ruler when the first one dies
Primitives that nuke themselves will no longer leave pops on a tomb world where they have no habitability
Fixed some ships getting stuck in a looping death animation
Fixed CTD when looking at a ship that fired a shot during the same frame as it died
Fixed CTD that could happen if ground combat was started on a planet without owner
Garrison from Pops will no longer spawn on planets that have already been occupied
Fixed CTD that could happen when assigning a new mission to an observation station
Fixed various issues with Swarm behaviour
Graphics
Tweaked humanoid 02 and 05 portraits
Added updated clothes textures
Added fixed clothes for humanoid 05
Arthropoid battleships sections now all line up
Galaxy view textures have been updated.
Extradimensionals' death effects have been updated.
Performance
Misc performance improvements
For a sneak peek at the new Stellaris story content, take a minute to watch the new Horizon Signal trailer from Paradox Interactive. Then head down to the comments section and let us know if you’re like to see more of these kinds of add-ons included in future Stellaris patches.
Stellaris is currently available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Stellaris news throughout the rest of 2016 and however long Paradox Interactive continues to support Stellaris in the years ahead.
