by Eladrin

Hi everyone!

Today’s dev diary is going to be a relatively short one. The 3.13.1 ‘Vela’ patch is planned for next Tuesday, September 24th, and we have a set of preliminary release notes for you to look over.

The biggest change is probably the removal of Nexus storms from the early game pool.

The Vela cycle will be a very short one, since the 3.14 ‘Circinus’ update and Grand Archive is already bearing down on us.

On to the release notes!

Balance

• Added free pop to first blocker for planetscapers
• Decreased Storm Creation costs and buffed Astrometeorology job
• Stormriders and Subterranean get less devastation from storms
• Scientist governors now also reduce devastation from storms
• The Nexus Storm of 2211 will no longer happen. (Nexus Storms have been removed from the Early Game storm pool.)

Bugfix

• A Fallen Empire cannot ask for a scientist that is exploring an Astral Rift
• Added traits to hired marauder leaders
• Added victory score to the two new precursor relics
• All starting council positions are also filled without Galactic Paragons
• Fixed a spelling error in the event Stormbound Sighted
• Fixed empire designs with different randomized names sometimes preventing each other from spawning in galaxy generation.
• Fixed machine name lists using ruler names for all non-envoy leaders.
• Fixed randomly generated rulers not using regnal names when they should.
• Fixed the concept tooltip for Storm Riders in the Storm Chasers origin tooltip
• Fixed the handling of scientist heirs in the Stormfall event Cosmic Shapes
• Fixes to Unique planets from Cosmic Storms:
  • Unique planets from Cosmic Storms can no longer spawn in the starting cluster of an empire
  • Reduced the size of the unique planets from Cosmic Storms
• Fixing Rick the Cube tooltip in the additional content being misleading
• Payload Padding technology now properly apply its effects
• Removed Double Jobs for Gestalts on Ecumenopolis
• Solar storm orbital resource modifiers now applying correctly
• The Crimson Crawlers: Cooked Consumption planet modifier now has a yellow border
• The Storm Touched trait is made available for individual machines
• The Strip Mine Planet decision is only allowed once per planet
• adAkkaria chain actually ends now when its over
• Added a job weight to Storm Dancers so that pops actually want to work the job
• Allow proper switching between corporate and non corporate planetscapers civic
• Fixed descriptions for the special projects Stabilize the Collision and Harmonize the Collision
• Fixed the secrets of the new precursors
• Fixing resetlement cost modifiers not being capped by minimum economic modifier mult define
• Made militarist empires with imperialist factions less likely to become vassals
• Made the Irradiated Wasteland planet modifier produce +10% physics research
• Planetscapers on Ocean Paradise will now get their blockers as promised
• Removed the mention of sector automation from the planet designation tooltip
• Saturated Filters can now be removed by the one who conquered the planet
• Tempest Invocator storm placement will now be canceled if you lose the selected Scientist.
• The Tempest Invocator’s range is now centered on the selected Scientist’s location.
• Voidforged may not access Geo-Engineering Inc anymore

Stability

• Changed cosmic storm spawn cooldown scale to prevent CTD
• Fixed CTD in fleet manager when reinforcing fleets with ships without fleet size
• Fixed CTD when in-game music player has no permission to write to playlist file

Modding

• Added regnal_second_names_female and regnal_second_names_male to namelists.
• Added use_regnal_name to effects that create leaders.
• Fixed randomly generated empires in static galaxies having missing data if the player empire is randomly generated.
• Removed ruler_names from namelists and added regnal_full_names. When generating regnal names, non-regnal full names will no longer be used if a regnal name is available, but if no regnal name is available, normal names will be used.

Next week’s dev diary will be at 18:00 instead of 13:00, and will have more new stuff than this one. 😀

See you then!