by Eladrin

Hello everyone!

Astral Planes and the Stellaris 3.10.0 “Pyxis” update are releasing this Thursday, November 16th. Today we’ve got the preliminary changelogs for your enjoyment.

The Astral Planes Narrative Expansion is available for pre-purchase now, with a 10% discount until November 27th.

Our largest story based release yet, Astral Planes focuses on mid to late game exploration content with over 30 Astral Rifts with widely branching storylines. Unlike the relative safety of Archaeology sites, the Rifts you explore will lead to completely different realms of existence, where fundamentals that were certain at home may not always be true.

• Added Astral Scars and Rifts
  • Added 30+ Rift Sites
    • Each site contains branching narratives, featuring multiple potential endings and a chance at powerful new rewards
  • Added Astral Thread Resource
  • Added Astral Harvesting and Rift Sphere Technologies
  • Added “Rift in Space” Situation and random Rift Situations.
• Added 8 New Relics
• Added 10 Astral Actions, plus 4 additional Astral Actions if you have the Overlord expansion
• Added Riftworld Origin
• Added 4 New Civics
  • Hyperspace Specialty
  • Dimensional Worship
  • Dark Consortium
  • Sovereign Guardianship
• Added 3 New Music Tracks from Andreas Waldetoft
• 70+ New Event Pictures
• 80+ New Sound Effects
• the formless…

Features

• Leader Consolidation – see Dev Diary 322 for more details.
  • Admirals and Generals have been merged into the Commander, the Military leader class.
  • Governors and some Envoy functions have been merged into Officials, the Administrative leader class.
    • Officials are now assigned to represent your empire in each of the Galactic Community (or Imperium) and your Federation rather than assigning multiple Envoys.
    • Envoys still represent your Empire’s overall diplomatic bandwidth, and handle First Contact, Improving and Harming Relations, and Espionage.
  • Scientists remain the third, Scientific leader class.
  • All leader classes can now govern planets and sectors.
    • Military governors apply Martial Law to a planet or sector, which increases worker and slave output at the cost of specialist and ruler output, adds soldiers to the planet or sector, and causes soldiers to increase stability.
    • Administrative governors increase general material resource extraction and industrial productivity.
    • Scientific governors increase research output on the planet or sector. This replaces the old Assist Research Scientist action, which has been removed.
    • Most governor traits now include apply to a lesser extent to the rest of the sector, unless a local planetary governor is overriding them.
  • Added the Minister of State for most non-gestalt empires. (Some civics, such as Fanatic Purifiers or Inwards Perfection, remove this position.)
  • The Minister of Defense, Research, and State council positions are no longer locked for players with Galactic Paragons, and can be replaced with other council positions when you reorganize your council, though at a cost.
    • No Minister of Defense: -25% Naval Capacity
    • No Minister of State: -25% Diplomatic Weight
    • No Head of Research: -25% Research Speed
  • A balance pass has been made on all leader traits and subclasses. Many have changed significantly, and the overall power level has generally been decreased.
    • Traits chosen when levelling up will now be biased towards the leader’s current position, whether or not you have Galactic Paragons. (i.e., A Scientist that is governing a planet will be more likely to receive leader traits related to planet governance.)
  • The classes of all event leaders and paragons, as well as leader themed civics, technologies, and traditions, have been reviewed and adjusted.
• Council Legitimacy now gives bonuses or penalties to council agenda speed.
• Replaced the Recommended Content window with a more full-featured Additional Content Browser.
  • The Additional Content Browser increases the clarity and transparency of what various DLCs contain, by letting you preview things like Origins, Civics with full tooltips that include nested concepts, animated Portraits, and Shipsets. It is our hope that this will help you make more informed decisions about DLC purchases. (The Additional Content Browser will only be available on some storefronts, and will not update information without an active internet connection.)
• Added Tabbed Outliner.
  • Information is now split across Government, Ships, Politics, and Structures tabs, which will appear as they become relevant to your empire.

Improvements

• Many event chains now include event chain titles in the event window.
• Added three new planet modifiers: Abundant Geothermal Activity, Subterranean Wildlife, Rich Microflora
• Added four planetary decisions to be able to remove some negative modifiers without having to terraform the planet: Remove Bleak Planet, Add Dayside Farm, Remove Hazardous Weather, Remove Dangerous Wildlife
• A toast message will now appear when a truce expires.
• Clarified tooltips of modifiers that increased leader cap
• Expanded on the Zroni dig site descriptions.
• A notification will now be sent when yoour fleets are unexpectedly forced to decloak
• You can now change the destination of a Leviathan Parade Situation at the cost of some unity.

Balance

• Administrative Leaders can no longer serve as the Head of Research.
• Archaeo-Engineers AP now gives +1 Scientist Capacity
• Aristocratic Elite no longer has +20% Governor XP gain, but instead gives a 20% chance for leaders to have a bonus positive and a bonus negative trait.
• Autonomous Drones and Sovereign Circuits now provide +1 Leader Trait Options
• Belligerent Diplomatic Stance now grants -1 External Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Blocked Inwards Perfectionists and Fanatic Purifiers from having a Minister of State.
• Centralised Command society tech increased to Tier 3
• Changed leader recruitment cost to be a quadratic equation instead of exponential
• Cooperative Diplomatic Stance now grants +1 External Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Corporate Authority and Corporate Dominion Civic now grant +1 External Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Council Legitimacy now directly modifies base council agenda speed, at 0% Legitimacy base agenda speed is 50%, at 50% Legitimacy it is 100%, at 100% Legitimacy it is 125%. Empires without Council Legitimacy are treated as if they have 50% Legitimacy for this.
• Decreased the leader XP gain from the Luminary Bloodline trait.
• Democratic Authority now grants +1 Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Dictatorial Authority now grants +25% Ruler XP and -1 Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Empires can now support three leaders of each class without using leader capacity. Generic leader capacity has been removed.
• Eternal Vigilance now gives +1 Commander Capacity
• Factions are now more upset if their ethic is not represented on the council or by the empire ruler.
• Galactic Force Projection now gives +1 Commander Capacity, +2 Max Influence from Power Projection, increases Naval Capacity by 100 and Fleet Command Limit by 50
• Gestalt rulers no longer count towards leader capacity
• Heroic Past, Precision Cogs, Pooled Knowledge and Factory Overclocking all now provide +1 Commander, +1 Official and +1 Scientist Capacity.
• Imperial Authority now grants -1 Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Imperial Cult now grants additional priest jobs to the ruler’s homeworld scaling with their level.
• Imperial Prerogative now gives +2 Official Capacity
• Improvements to Mastery of Nature, planet modifier now gives +50% resource districts
• Increased Leadership Conditioning reward to 3,000 XP
• Isolationist Diplomatic Stance now grants -2 External Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Leader Enhancement policies now increase the starting level of leaders instead of increasing Leader XP gain.
• Leader starting age has once again been increased
• Leaders now have a slightly higher chance to start at a higher level.
• Learning campaign edicts leader xp gain have been reduced
• Mercantile Diplomatic Stance now grants +1 External Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Naval Tradition federation perk now gives +1 Initial Admiral Level instead of +10% Admiral XP gain.
• Nerve Stapled now gives -100% leader XP gain, if you somehow generate leaders from species with this trait.
• Not having a Head of Research (or gestalt equivalent) will impose a -25% penalty to research speed
• Not having a Minister of Defense imposes a -25% penalty to Naval Capacity.
• Not having a Minister of State (or gestalt equivalent) will impose a -25% penalty to diplomatic weight.
• Opener effect for Synthetics now reduces robot upkeep and robot assembly cost
• Philospher King now only provides +5 Effective Ruler Level
• Players can now build multiple Quantum Catapults.
• Pompous Purists Civic now grants -1 External Leader Pool Size in addition to existing effects
• Pops now have ethics attraction towards the ethics of the local planetary governor
• Rebalanced a number of species traits that affected leader XP gain.
• Rebalanced Aptitude Traditions and Leadership Conditioning
• Rebalanced Feudal Society and Franchising Civics and Shared Destiny AP
• Rebalanced Statecraft traditions
• Rebalanced the Auto-Curating Vault, Vault of Acquisitions, Alpha Hub and Citadel of Faith
• Reduced XP gain from Transcendent Learning
• Removed leader pool increase from Transcendent Learning
• Removed Leader Pool size modifiers from ethics
• Removed leader upkeep modifiers from Embodied Dynamism and Collective Self techs
• Removed the -10% leader hire and upkeep cost from traditions that only applied to a single leader class.
• Replaced the +1 Leader Capacity from Oppressive Autocracy with +1 Commander Capacity
• Reworked the Research Institute, Planetary Supercomputer and Military Academy buildings
• Slightly increased time needed to survey a system.
• Specialist subjects now get +1 capacity of the relevant leader type instead of +20% XP gain for that subject type.
• Species traits that give bonuses or maluses to leader xp gain are now multiples of 10% not 25%.
• Technocracy now gives Expertise traits additional effects for scientists when governing planets/sectors.
• The effects of the Ruthless Competition council position now matches Memory Vaults
• The Khanate Successor origin now boosts military leaders
• The Lord High Admiral council position now gives increased naval capacity instead of increased commander xp gain
• The Minister of Defense and Head of Research are no longer mandatory council positions.
• The Minister of State can be removed by Reorganise Council Agenda.
• The Opinion lost with the Trader Enclaves for canceling a trade deal now scales with size of the deal.
• The traditions that previously gave -10% leader hire and upkeep costs for a given class (e.g. Science Division) now also increases the leader capacity for leaders of that class
• Aptitude Tradition adoption now gives Initial Leader Skill: +1 instead of +1 starting trait to leaders.
• Discovery, Domination, and Supremacy Traditions now increase initial skill level for leaders instead of decreasing upkeep and hire cost.
• Transcendent Learning leader XP gain modifier reduced to +25%
• Transcendent Learning now gives +2 Scientist Capacity
• Universal Transactions now gives +1 Official Capacity and +20% Commercial Pact Efficiency
• Updated five existing planet modifiers: Weak Magnetic Field, Strong Magnetic Field, Asteroid Belt, Natural Beauty, Bleak Planet
• You can only find one promising officer every two years.

Bugfixes

• Blocked special event leaders from having backgrounds and homeworlds. Warform was not hanging around with the Romans.
• Fix a case where the leader UI would remain on screen when exiting to main menu
• Fix councilor position triggers related to authority not being evaluated correctly in galaxy creation
• Fix diplo weight tooltip when affected by a resolution category weight modifier
• Fix gestalt leader backgrounds not clearing other leaders’ BGs
• Fix scripted fleet order buttons having incomplete tooltips (e.g. Azaryn’s terraforming special action)
• Fixed Alien Box event changing getsalt councilor nodes portrait
• Fixed bypasses mapicons always being placed in second position if there is an upgraded starbase in the system, hiding the icon below
• Fixed crash when checking if an invalid system is in sensor range
• Fixed Cultist event chain not having any target to pick planet from if the fleet that attacked was destroyed in the meantime
• Fixed gestalt nodes not having a starting trait
• Fixed leaders with a preset design using the wrong portrait when their species changes without its portrait changing.
• Fixed misaligned buttons and inconsistent tooltips in the Planet View
• Fixed num_owned_relics trigger not displaying its dynamic values in tooltip
• Fixed num_researched_techs_of_tier tooltip not displaying the technology tier
• Fixed random rulers never being generated with origin-locked traits.
• Fixed situation target tooltip not being completely localized
• Fixed Starbases receiving ship modifiers twice
• Fixed the “pick trait” button for recruitable leaders
• Fixed the Inevitable Assimilation tradition for DAs saying you need to adopt Cybernetic traditions twice.
• Fixed UOR ruler not benefiting from other initial skill modifiers.
• Fixed UOR setting ruler level to 4 instead of giving +3 initial levels.
• Leaders excluded from the upkeep cost now correctly produce resources
• Set the base value for percent_of_leader_lifespan to match the leader lifespan define value.
• Subjects now support their Overlords resolutions in the Galactic Community correctly
• The Escape key no longer closes any event windows.
• The first event option for the event Dysfunctional Council now informs you that the leader will be dismissed.
• The Xenophobic Fallen Empire will once again be able to get real mad at you if you border them.
• Worker Coops can no longer be Xenophobic
• You will no longer be able to avoid being synthetically ascended by being an assault army in space.

AI

• The AI will no longer build habitats if they have an uncolonised habitat.
• The AI will prefer building habitats in systems with upgraded starbases unless they have the Void Dweller origin or the Voidborn AP.

Performance

• Added game rule for possible_precalc = can_fill_precursor_job
• Added define TRIGGERED_MODIFIER_UPDATE_DELAY, which lets us spread out calculations of triggered modifiers
• Fixed a case where country modifiers would continually recalculate every day

UI/UX

• Added new backgrounds for assembly and organic assembly.
• Added the ability to add an element to the event window specifying the event chain this event is part of
• Archaeological Sites and Astral Rifts mapicons are now colored depending on their exploration state
• Changed the leader cap indicator in the top bar to only display envoys.
• Fixed fleet command limit multipliers not appearing in tooltip if they add up to +100%.
• Improve and Harm Relations monthly values are now shown to two decimal places.
• Improved the tooltips for Agenda Progress.
• removed the notification for leader pool renova
• The leader list now shows the cap for each class
• The tooltip for Agenda Progress now shows modifiers to monthly agenda progress.
• Update the Main Flag button to show the name of the empire (and debug info if you’re using Debug view)
• Added a subtitle to all longer event chains.
• Added Event Chain Subtitles for the five original precursors.

Modding

• `num_leader_traits` now has a new filter `is_subclass = yes/no/any`
• Add `federation_modifier` and `triggered_federation_modifier` leader trait modifiers
• Add `galcom_modifier` and `triggered_galcom_modifier` leader trait modifiers
• Add `starbase_type` field for starbase components to show the correct text when a tech unlocks it and it’s for orbital buildings
• Add alternate_civic_version to swap locked civics w/ authorities
• Add army_modifier and triggered_army_modifier to leader traits
• Add background_planet_modifier and triggered_background_planet_modifier to leader traits
• Add country__cap_add modifiers for specific leader class capacities
• Add fleet_modifier and triggered_fleet_modifier to leader traits
• Add new on_astral_rift_entered action
• Add piracy_protection_mult modifier
• Add set_completed_rifts command
• Add skill__ static modifiers for each class and the “navy”, “army”, “planet_governor”, “sector_governor” and “background_planet_governor” cases
• Add specialist_subject_conversion_time_mult modifier
• Added a debug ImGui view to the console – So long, and thanks for all the fish <3 (Editor's Note: @MonzUn thank you for all your hard work and best of luck with your new endeavours!)
• Added army_damage_empire_sprawl_penalty_mult modifier
• Added army_damage_taken_mult and army_morale_damage_taken_mult modifiers
• Added astral_rift_difficulty_add modifier
• Added can_spawn_astral_rift trigger
• Added council_legitimacy >= country scope trigger to check an empire’s council legitimacy.
• Added council_legitimacy trigger to check council legitimacy in script
• Added councilor_modifier, triggered_councilor_modifier and force_councilor_trait to leader traits and removed councilor_trait and is_councilor_trait_for_ruler.
• Added create_astral_rift effect
• Added distance_to_capital trigger
• Added dump_astralrifts command
• Added dynamic_capacity parameter to strategic resources
• Added export_modifier_duration_to_variable effect
• Added freeze_leader_age effect to allow leaders to stop aging
• Added in_place_of parameter to spawn_astral_rift
• Added in_place_of parameter to spawn_wormhole effect to use the coordinates of an existing spatial object
• Added inline scripts support for triggers
• Added is_assigned_to_galcom script trigger.
• Added is_bypass_type trigger
• Added leader_lifespan_mult modifier
• Added leader_starting_age_add, leader_starting_age_mult, ruler_starting_age_add, ruler_starting_age_mult, heir_starting_age_add, heir_starting_age_mult, and _starting_age_add and _starting_age_mult (for example commander_starting_age_mult)
• Added mod__lifespan_add and mod__lifespan_mult (ex: mod_scientist_lifespan_add)
• Added new modifiers for leader initial level
• Added on_build_queued and on_build_unqueued effects for mega structures
• Added on_truce_end on_action
• Added planet_max_branch_office_buildings_self_add empire modifier
• Added planet_non_artificial_max_buildings_add modifier
• Added refill_astral_rift_pool command
• Added research_sharing_mult modifier that increases the effectiveness of a country’s research agreements.
• Added ruler_skill_add modifier to increase or decrease the effective level of an empire’s ruler for the purposes of their council position modifiers.
• Added scripted triggers prefers_scientist_governors and prefers_commander_governors which determine the class of your homeworld governor on game start.
• Added sector_modifier and triggered_sector_modifier to leader traits.
• Added spawn_astral_scar effect
• Added spawn_beyond_gravity_well parameter to spawn_planet effect
• Added split_astral_scar and copy_survey_data scripted effects
• Added the is_site_locked = yes/no trigger for archaeology sites.
• Added the set_council_position_to_council script effect to place a council position in the council.
• Added trigger leader_lifespan to calculate leader lifespan depending on LEADER_LIFESPAN_DEATH_CHANCE_AGE, MOD_LEADER_LIFESPAN_ADD and MOD_LEADER_LIFESPAN_MULT. Updated script values referencing this define to use the trigger instead.
• Added triggered_system_modifier to leader traits.
• Added X_tech_cost_mult modifiers
• Armies can now have an army_modifier
• can_build_STATION_TYPE_around can now also have astral_rift as from scope
• country_leader_cap_add now increases the capacity for all leader classes
• create_message effect now has a recipient parameter to allow to have another recipient than the automatically resolved one
• create_mining_station and create_research_station now support deposit holder scopes
• create_pop effect now has a count parameter to spawn multiple pops at the same time
• created `can_be_assigned_to_federation` and `can_be_assigned_to_galactic_community` abilities for leader
• Created destroy_astral_rift effect
• Created is_astral_scar trigger
• Created on_astral_rift_exploration_complete on_action to count the number of explored astral rift
• Created set_next_astral_rift_event debug description to more easily keep track of events branching
• Events using the leader event window can now hide not allowed options using hide_option_if_not_allowed
• Fixed fleet scope command limit modifiers not being applied if the fleet doesn’t have a leader.
• Fixed leader trait planet and system modifiers functioning identically to the regular modifiers.
• Fleet and megastructure modifiers from governor skill are only applied from unoccupied planets owned by the same country as the fleet/megastructure.
• Hiring / assigning councilors is now done based on a scripted value instead of hardcoded in the ai
• is_surveyed can now be used on astral rifts
• Leader trait planet_modifier and triggered_planet_modifier now support all leader types. Removed assist_research_planet_modifier.
• Leaders class no longer rely on a hard coded type, and are fully dynamic and based on leaders abilities and defined entirely in the class file
• Megastructures on_build_start/cancel/complete now use the constructing fleet as root if it’s being built by a construction ship
• MetaScripts (Effects,Triggers,Values) can now substitute an argument by the value of another with $ARG1|ARG2$
• num_buildings effect now support’s building category.
• on_destroying_station is now also called when an orbital station around an Astral Rift is destroyed
• Removed is_ruler and is_heir checks from leader potential add on traits, instead using the can_leader_get_normal_trait game rule.
• Removed some unused trait parameters.
• Removed the DLC lock on unlock_council_selection = yes
• Replace diplo_weight_envoys_mult and envoy_cohesion_effect_mult modifiers with diplo_weight_delegate_mult and delegate_cohesion_effect_mult
• Replaced LEADER_AGE_DEATH_CHANCE_AGE with LEADER_LIFESPAN_DEATH_CHANCE_AGE
• Replaced LEADER_AGE_DEATH_CHANCE_INC with LEADER_LIFESPAN_DEATH_CHANCE_INC
• Replaced LEADER_AGE_HIGH_DEATH_CHANCE_AGE with LEADER_LIFESPAN_HIGH_DEATH_CHANCE_AGE
• Replaced LEADER_AGE_HIGH_DEATH_CHANCE_INC with LEADER_LIFESPAN_HIGH_DEATH_CHANCE_INC
• Replaced subclass_background_icon and destiny_background_icon with background_icon.
• Replaced tenth_of_leader_lifespan script value with the more generic percent_of_leader_lifespan.
• Replaced the modifier leader_age with leader_lifespan_add.
• Replaced the required = yes/no parameter for council positions with the optional trigger in the country scope.
• Reworked has_envoy_task to work with any leader class
• Separate Scientist `can_research` into more granular capability definitions
• set_surveyed can now be used on astral rifts
• Situations can now have multiple title selected from triggers.
• SpawnWormhole effect now has a parameter graphics_entity_name to change graphics
• Updated leader trait documentation.

In addition, due to the changes being made to leaders in this update, I highly recommend that if you wish to continue a game in progress that you remain on the 3.9.3 branch until you finish.

See you Thursday!