Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy
Stellaris
Stellaris Dev Diary #383 - 4.0 has Released, What’s Next?
by Eladrin
Hello everyone!
We’re one day early with the dev diary this week, but I wanted to get this out to all of you as soon as possible.
The State of the Release
The Stellaris 4.0 “Phoenix” update and BioGenesis have been released.
BioGenesis is a fantastic expansion and I’m incredibly proud of what we accomplished with it, but I have to be honest - like its namesake, the free patch alongside BioGenesis has been a little bit on fire.
During the lead-up to the release, I was confident that we would be able to finish the revamp and clean up the most critical bugs. We fell short of that goal, and we’re committed to continuing to fix things until the 4.0 release is in the state it needs to be in.
While some suggested delaying the release until the game was in better shape, I wanted to keep as much distance as we could from the summer holidays. I was concerned about repeating a 2.2-style situation, where we couldn't provide full support for the game after launch and it remained broken for too long. Like the 2.2 changes, however, I strongly believe that the system changes in 4.0 improve Stellaris and will give us the platform we need to rise from those ashes and grow for years.
I’m incredibly thankful for the passion of our fans and apologize for disappointing you.
Hotfixes and Patches
We’ve spent the week delivering fixes on a daily basis, starting with a same-day hotfix to take care of a crash found by the early access influencers:
Stellaris 4.0.2 Hotfix
Stability
Fixed crash by preventing the deletion of a ship design that was only present in a build queue
Tuesday morning we fixed a number of the issues you raised, and started getting some performance fixes in:
Stellaris 4.0.3 Patch
Features
Monthly change in Biomass is now shown in the resource bar for Wilderness empires.
Bugfix
Fixed some building upgrades being unconstructable or appearing with Planet Cap: 0
Devouring Wilderness now correctly generates biomass from eating pops
You will no longer be tasked with making an agricultural district if you are a Wilderness Empire and an Orchard Forest if you are a regular empire.
The timeline completion and progression popups no longer remain open when the timeline UI is reopened after being closed.
Fixed shattered rings not showing generator districts
Fixed some unity buildings being broken
Fixed politicians having double the resource output they should
Fixed the bullet points for various species traits
Fixed empire size from district modifiers being applied twice
Zookeepers no longer increase the amount of research that other Zookeeper produce scaling with the number of zookeepers. Oops!
Fixed assembly specialization for machine worlds giving the wrong jobs
Fixed the council position for worker coop providing the incorrect amount of amenities.
Wilderness empires can no longer become the Behemoth, they are perfect the way they are.
Fixed some localization issues with some planetary decisions (English only)
Fixed some tooltips mentioning regular jobs for wilderness
Fixed Wilderness colonization button
Fixed the Avatar Forest's volatile mote upkeep being too high
Fixed the Thermoclastic Roar using improper syntax for killing pops
Fixed some biological offspring ships not calling the correct 3d models
The Order's Demesne should now correctly be swapped for a standard Planetary Defense specialization
Pre-FTL planets should once again have their buildings
Wilderness Deposits have been contained and will no longer be spawning across the galaxy. (Fixes systems generating with no resources.)
Fixed ai megacorps not having an influence budget to build branch office buildings with
Fixed the tooltip that said how many traders you get from branch office buildings depending on civics (English only)
Fixed space fauna gauss weapons dealing -100% hull damage
Fixed biological ship point defense and flak being identical
Fixed juggernaut fusion reactors being equippable on titans not juggernauts
The Faculty of Archaeostudies no longer gives broken jobs
Fixed a planetary deposit making gestalt physicist jobs require consumer goods
Fixed budding pops making robot assembly plants sometimes stop working
Empire with the catalytic processing civics now start with additional food districts
The Catalytic Processing civic now says that Metallurgists are converted into Catalytic Technicians
Fixed some trait tooltips overstating effects by a factor of 100 (English only)
Ancient Clone Vats can now be built in any urban district specialization
Added tooltip description for Wilderness Refining World.
Virtuality no longer allows an infinite workforce loop
The experimental ship from the War Fragment now scale
The experimental ship from the War Fragment no longer drops debris
You can no longer build the Wilderness Glade holding on unnatural worlds
The Wilderness can no longer build multiple shield generators, effectively becoming immune to bombardment.
Fixed numerous buildings sticking around after a Wilderness took over a planet.
Fixed numerous event buildings not having a biomass cost for Wilderness
Fixed the First League Filing Office not giving the unity jobs it should have to most empires.
Physics, Society, and Engineering focused District Specializations now trigger flavor text selection for their District.
Improved post game Behemoth Behavior
Fixed biological ships not having logistic upkeep
Fixed habitats spawning with a broken orbital
Civilians are now generated with a mix of ethics
Pops are now created with a randomly selected ethic when appropriate.
The Ministry of Culture building now says that Bureaucrats are converted into Culture Workers
The Core focus task "Establish a Branch Office" can now be completed
Fixed Natural Neural Network maintenance drones
Fixed Spanish Translation of Precinct Houses
Fixed all rural districts being destroyed when losing a colony
Fix to an unemployment tooltip
Fix issue with colonization on planets, specifically seen on shattered rings
Balance
Logistic Drones now provide a small amount of amenities
The Faculty of Archaeostudies now gives minor artifacts from biology/archaeo-engineer jobs if you have the Archaeoengineers AP
Buffed Prosperity traditions
Significantly buffed the scientist expertise traits
Wilderness and Nascent Stage are now incompatible
Nerfed spawning and assembly specializations for hive and machine worlds
Rebalanced Natural Neural Network - reduced the research generated, but significantly reduced the additional upkeep
Correctly put soldier job efficiency modifier on the Military Academy, not the Fortress
The chance to get the cultist's flagship is now 20% instead of 100%
Districts for Wilderness Empires now cost 50 Biomass
The expand planet decision for Wilderness now costs 5×(Planet Size)^2 Biomass and 50 Influence
Reduced the extra society research from zookeepers
Civilian ethic outputs have been adjusted
State Academy now has a planet cap of 3
Betharian Districts now produce 2 Minerals and 6 Energy by default, rather than just Energy.
AI
Gave the AI a helper event so they don't leave their starting shattered ring segments uncolonised
The AI now values buildings that modify production more.
Stability and Performance
Fixed a crash when exiting to main menu
Found an issue with Weaver growth auras that was lagging the game:
The weaver growth auras temporarily affect all ships in the fleet instead of only biological ships capable of growth due to these performance issues, however they no longer apply an upkeep increase.
Significantly improved how Biomass is calculated
Improve loading time of late game saves
This morning we deployed the 4.0.4 patch, with fixes to some of the high profile bugs and changes focusing on balance, stability, and performance:
Stellaris 4.0.4 Patch
Balance
The default Eternal Vigilance policy will now only spawn defensive platforms in orbit of upgraded starbases
Amenities Updates:
Logistics drones now produce additional amenities if Instinctive Synchronization is taken
Luxury Housing, Drone Storage, and Hive Warrens grant 1500 housing and 2500 amenities.
Paradise Domes, Upgraded Drone Storage, and Expanded Warrens grant 3000 housing and 5000 amenities.
Communal Housing grants 2000 housing and 3000 amenities.
Utopian Communal Housing grants 4000 housing and 6000 amenities.
100 Entertainers now give 1250 Amenities instead of 1000.
The Entertainment Forum is again an upgrade to the Holo-Theaters, and grants 400 Entertainer jobs.
Reverted many of the leader changes:
Leaders once again gain traits at every level.
The number of trait picks per level has been set back to 2 by default.
Low level traits that were merged and buffed remain so.
It automates:
Automation buildings upkeep now only scales their upkeep with districts they automate: 8/10 for rural districts, 10/12 for city districts - buildings no longer factor into its upkeep.
Automation tooltip now mentions the scaling upkeep
Automation buildings are now associated with Assembly Patterns and Construction Templates technologies
It automates...even for hives.
Gestalt Machine Empires can now turn off Migration Controls.
Maintenance Drones now auto-migrate like the Denizens that they are.
Bugfix
Fixed space fauna cost values
Fixed various checks for Offspring Drones that were broken
Fixed the Permanent Employment civic
Fixed the planetary supercomputer not having the same modifiers as the research institute
Fixed the Logistics Hub going missing from the game
Fixed a broken modifier on the Hive Confluence building
Fixed telepaths not gaining correct modifiers
The Clone Army starting event no longer fires twice
Commercial specialisations now accept all urban buildings
Fixed BioGenesis not unlocking the crisis tab if you do not own either The Machine Age or Nemesis
Neglected bio-trophies should now show on the planet UI and have a happiness penalty
Fixed planetary deposit researcher interactions with gestalt empires
Maintenance drones now count as better than slaves for assorted checks
Starting the game as a Nascent Stage Life Seeded empire will no longer leave you with only presapients and immediately game over.
The opinion penalty for purging pops have been reduced by 100
The amount of Menace gained from purging pops has been reduced by a factor of 100
Fixed the Splinter Hive Holding being 100 times more effective than it should have been
The Coral Portrait now has access to rooted instead of the platypus.
AI Megacorps will no longer be dirty cheaters that ignore the branch office building limit
Debris is no longer incorrectly displayed as coming from our own empire.
Scripted species can now inherit their parent species rights instead of getting default rights
The Logistics Ceiling setting has been reset to default for everyone since it changed in 4.0
You may no longer use Fallen empire technology to mine for minerals in the mantle of ringworlds
UI
The Build District icon is now more clearly labelled.
Made some adjustments to the Planet UI to hopefully make it clearer when you can build District Specializations.
The Build Queue will now automatically start opened in the Surface or Management tabs of the Planet View if there is something in the Queue.
Clearing a blocker will open the Build Queue if it is closed.
Fixed the diplomatic window showing the city elements based on the ship set instead of the selected city set.
Fixed some modifiers from jobs being unlocalized in tooltips.
Fixed being able to disable event messages if their default settings haven't changed.
The pop totals in the job strata tooltip are now consistent with the strata UI.
Fixed missing information in tooltips for why you can't upgrade buildings.
Stability
Added more safeguards around ship graphical culture to avoid a crash
Fix CTD happening when hovering over some leader traits in the selection UI
Fix CTD related to districts getting deleted while a specialization was in the build queue
Fixed crash on startup when generating modifiers (Thanks for helping us find this, More Events Mod!)
Fixed issue with script killing pops assigned to a job may CTD
Fixed CTD in colonization view due to invalid deposit entry
Fixes CTD in planets and sector view due to species
Performance
Multiple AI performance optimizations
Reduced memory footprint in growth calculations
Threaded and cached procreate calculation on pop groups to improve performance
Reduce calculations done for planet economy
Next Steps
We’re planning a 4.0.5 patch tomorrow with more fixes. Some of the headline features of that one will include fixes to common desyncs affecting multiplayer stability, district tooltips showing the effects specializations have on them, a fix to hive and machine worlds destroying their rural districts upon terraforming, and performance improvements.
Here are some partial patch notes - we’re still working on fixes today so this isn’t comprehensive, and as usual with preliminary patch notes some things may be removed from them or changed based on testing.
Stellaris 4.0.5 Partial Patch Notes
Improvement
Converting a planet into a hive world or machine world now preserves the generator, mining and farming jobs. Known Issue: The special districts on these planets do not swap names or icons to rural districts.
Void Dwellers, Aquatics and Cave Dwellers now grant their robots the relevant trait when they invent robots
Bugfix
Fixed Pearl Divers not mentioning both a food and mineral upkeep in the tooltip
Fixed some duplicated text on the strong and very strong traits
Blocked Behemoths from laying eggs in combat
Fixed the Artifact Relay decision for hive minds
Fixed the Galactic Market Nomination decision
Fixed Fanatical Purifiers and Devouring Swarm getting the 'Declare a Rival' Empire Focus
Bio Titans built in GDF service should now be made of meat and not metal
Fixes ethics divergence always switching the entire pop group instead of amount
The Automated Curation Algorithms technology will no longer be offered to Wilderness Empires
Colonization can not be started again if there's already a colony ship in progress.
Increased the amount of workforce Wilderness pops gain to 99999, this way if you ever have more than 1000 of a job the wilderness won't start trying to employ pops like a normal empire
Wilderness Empires will no longer be able to build the automation buildings only to destroy them at the start of the next month
The Automation Buildings should only show up in a research option once now instead of four times.
Fixed multiple pre-FTL buildings sticking around after their owners had been invaded
Advanced AIs now start with some extra unity
Genocidal Necrophage empires no longer start with a Chamber of Elevation
Incompatible Cybernetic Creed buildings are removed from the building list when you embrace a Creed
Finishing Biomorphosis while having 7 tradition trees shouldn't reward a ghost tradition tree
Fixed the Planetary Supercomputer demanding paperclips
Permanent Employment now correctly starts with 400 zombies
Added missing loc from Sanctuary World designation tooltip,
Scavenger Bot is now named correctly in Timeline Event.
You can no longer ruin your game-start economy by focusing on astro-mining while using resource consolidation to have no mining stations in your home system (Resource Consolidation and Astro Mining Drones now exclude each other)
Fix issue where fleet/ship stats were not updated correctly when modifiers changed
Fix modifiers not having an effect on displayed Fleet Power
Biomimetic now applies a 50% workforce bonus to roboticist and replicator jobs
Bodysnatchers now may edit Population Controls, similar to Necrophages.
The War Fragment will no longer ask you to declare war on empires you have banch offices on. Profit comes first.
Officials can now get Architectural Focus trait from Resourceful Ascension event
Eternal Vigilance now also generates Defense Platforms for Deep Space Citadels
Planet and slave market tooltips will correctly include dystopian specialist jobs into the general specialists list.
Fixed an issue where if you gained the jump drive tech before researching level 2 and 3 hyperdrives, your science ships and constructors would not be equipped with jump drives
Fixed a bug that may have sometimes caused pop decline to be determined incorrectly on planets with multiple species.
Fatal Mutations no longer cause complete planetary extinction
Pox Bombardment for some weird reason no longer works on mechanical beings
Armageddon and Pox Bombardment are once again capable of bombing your enemies into the stone-age (tomb-world)
Balance
Reduced the biomass cost for planetary expansion for wilderness by roughly 50%
Xenophobic Individualist machines start with an Alloy Foundry instead of a Medical Center
Further tweaks to the ethics effects of civilians:
Reduced the happiness for xenophobes and pop upkeep for xenophiles by 50%
Increased the amenities for pacifists by 10x
Doubled the trade for egalitarians.
Habitats now have a Solar Farming Bay specialisation for their Reactor districts, this gives farmer jobs, turning the district into a hybrid energy/food producer.
Knights OP:
Halved the number of knight jobs from most sources
Squires no longer grant the stability of soldiers
Reduced the Bonus Pop Growth from the Lover's Pox
Reduced the Stability from Memorialist job swaps
Updated Scientist Expertise traits
Assault armies now cost food instead of minerals for empires with biological ships
UI
Changes to modifiers are now mirrored in the UI immediately, even when paused
Re-added pop decline alert.
Improvements to the Build District tooltip
Now tells you it will Build a District if you can afford it and click on it
The modifier tooltip on a district will now also account for the modifiers coming from the district specialization.
Stability
Fixed an OOS after hotjoining due to leader trait assignments
We’re currently trying to track down a memory related issue that causes the game to slow down over time - exiting the game and reloading fixes it as a temporary solution but we’re hoping to get a fix in place in either 4.0.5 or 4.0.6. There are also a couple of desyncs that aren’t listed in there yet.
We’ve had a lot of string changes since our last localization pass, and we recognize that it’s difficult to play with so many English placeholders. 4.0.5 should fix some of the most common issues in Chinese, and early next week we’re planning a patch that will more comprehensively update localization for all non-English languages.
What’s Next?
Tomorrow (May 7th) at 5 PM CEST (8 AM PDT) we have an AMA (“Ask me Anything”) scheduled in /r/Stellaris on Reddit - you can post questions now if you like. We’re also going to be holding a free weekend on Steam starting May 8th, after the 4.0.5 release.
Next week we’ll have the traditional post-release Stellaris Art Blast and more patches and updates - likely not at the pace we’ve kept up this week, but I expect that we’ll probably have two.
Thank you for your patience, and thank you for playing Stellaris.
Project Caesar Announcement - May 8th, 18:00 CEST
Planetary Scans of this Tombworld show signs of New Archeology!
Scientists state on May 8th at 18:00 CEST, Paradox Interactive unveiled their next Grand Strategy Game, Project Caesar, in a massive showcase!
We have another patch ready for you, bringing a number of bug fixes, balance adjustments, performance optimizations, and stability improvements.
Our work continues for all of the above and more.
Please find the patch notes below:
[expand type=details expanded=false]
Stellaris 4.0.4 Patch Balance
The default Eternal Vigilance policy will now only spawn defensive platforms in orbit of upgraded starbases
Amenities Updates:
Logistics drones now produce additional amenities if Instinctive Synchronization is taken
Luxury Housing, Drone Storage, and Hive Warrens grant 1500 housing and 2500 amenities.
Paradise Domes, Upgraded Drone Storage, and Expanded Warrens grant 3000 housing and 5000 amenities.
Communal Housing grants 2000 housing and 3000 amenities.
Utopian Communal Housing grants 4000 housing and 6000 amenities.
100 Entertainers now give 1250 Amenities instead of 1000.
The Entertainment Forum is again an upgrade to the Holo-Theaters, and grants 400 Entertainer jobs.
Reverted many of the leader changes:
Leaders once again gain traits at every level.
The number of trait picks per level has been set back to 2 by default.
Low level traits that were merged and buffed remain so.
It automates:
Automation buildings upkeep now only scales their upkeep with districts they automate: 8/10 for rural districts, 10/12 for city districts - buildings no longer factor into its upkeep.
Automation tooltip now mentions the scaling upkeep
Automation buildings are now associated with Assembly Patterns and Construction Templates technologies
It automates...even for hives.
Gestalt Machine Empires can now turn off Migration Controls.
Maintenance Drones now auto-migrate like the Denizens that they are.
Bugfix
Fixed space fauna cost values
Fixed various checks for Offspring Drones that were broken
Fixed the Permanent Employment civic
Fixed the planetary supercomputer not having the same modifiers as the research institute
Fixed the Logistics Hub going missing from the game
Fixed a broken modifier on the Hive Confluence building
Fixed telepaths not gaining correct modifiers
The Clone Army starting event no longer fires twice
Commercial specialisations now accept all urban buildings
Fixed BioGenesis not unlocking the crisis tab if you do not own either The Machine Age or Nemesis
Neglected bio-trophies should now show on the planet UI and have a happiness penalty
Fixed planetary deposit researcher interactions with gestalt empires
Maintenance drones now count as better than slaves for assorted checks
Starting the game as a Nascent Stage Life Seeded empire will no longer leave you with only presapients and immediately game over.
The opinion penalty for purging pops have been reduced by 100
The amount of Menace gained from purging pops has been reduced by a factor of 100
Fixed the Splinter Hive Holding being 100 times more effective than it should have been
The Coral Portrait now has access to rooted instead of the platypus.
AI Megacorps will no longer be dirty cheaters that ignore the branch office building limit
Debris is no longer incorrectly displayed as coming from our own empire.
Scripted species can now inherit their parent species rights instead of getting default rights
The Logistics Ceiling setting has been reset to default for everyone since it changed in 4.0
You may no longer use Fallen empire technology to mine for minerals in the mantle of ringworlds
UI
The Build District icon is now more clearly labelled.
Made some adjustments to the Planet UI to hopefully make it clearer when you can build District Specializations.
The Build Queue will now automatically start opened in the Surface or Management tabs of the Planet View if there is something in the Queue.
Clearing a blocker will open the Build Queue if it is closed.
Fixed the diplomatic window showing the city elements based on the ship set instead of the selected city set.
Fixed some modifiers from jobs being unlocalized in tooltips.
Fixed being able to disable event messages if their default settings haven't changed.
The pop totals in the job strata tooltip are now consistent with the strata UI.
Fixed missing information in tooltips for why you can't upgrade buildings.
Stability
Added more safeguards around ship graphical culture to avoid a crash
Fix CTD happening when hovering over some leader traits in the selection UI
Fix CTD related to districts getting deleted while a specialization was in the build queue
Fixed crash on startup when generating modifiers (Thanks for helping us find this, More Events Mod!)
Fixed issue with script killing pops assigned to a job may CTD
Fixed CTD in colonization view due to invalid deposit entry
Fixes CTD in planets and sector view due to species
Performance
Multiple AI performance optimizations
Reduced memory footprint in growth calculations
Threaded and cached procreate calculation on pop groups to improve performance
Reduce calculations done for planet economy
We hope that your experience is improving with each of these iterations, there are more to come.
Talk to you again soon.
Stellaris 4.0.3 "Phoenix" Hotfix Released
Greetings everyone,
We have just released a new patch aiming to address a number of the reported issues since yesterday's release of 4.0. We want to thank players for their feedback and bug reports on the issues experienced with the 4.0 release, your feedback is extremely valuable to us and helps us identify and address bugs and issues - we are working hard to bring Stellaris 4.0 to its best. Please keep the feedback and bug reports coming.
As a preview of what we're currently looking at: 4.0.4 will address purging being 100x as effective as intended, Offspring drones, and Amenity improvements for both Holotheaters and Gestalts. (This is a non-comprehensive list, just a sneak peek at some of the changes coming in 4.04.)
4.0.4 is also currently planned to be released this week. As always your reports have been very useful so please keep sending these our way to help us get to everything that has been affected in this major release.
For those of you who are looking to finish 3.14.* save games before moving onto 4.0.* patches, you can roll back using the Steam betas feature. Right Click Stellaris > Properties > Betas Tab and choose “3.14.1592653 - Circinus Version Rollback” from the dropdown. When you’ve completed your save games, you can choose “None’ in the same dropdown to upgrade to the latest version of 4.0.
We’ve also seen some complaints about players not being able to access the BioGenesis DLC content. These issues are generally fixed by verifying your game files on Steam. Right-click Stellaris, go to Properties, Installed Files and click “Verify integrity of game files”. If this doesn’t resolve your missing DLC issue, you can open a ticket with Customer Support at support.paradoxplaza.com, who will be able to provide you with assistance getting access to the new expansion.
Please find the 4.0.3 patch notes below. [expand type=details expanded=false]
Stellaris 4.0.3 Patch
Features
Monthly change in Biomass is now shown in the resource bar for Wilderness empires.
Bugfix
Fixed some building upgrades being unconstructable or appearing with Planet Cap: 0
Devouring Wilderness now correctly generates biomass from eating pops
You will no longer be tasked with making an agricultural district if you are a Wilderness Empire and an Orchard Forest if you are a regular empire.
The timeline completion and progression popups no longer remain open when the timeline UI is reopened after being closed.
Fixed shattered rings not showing generator districts
Fixed some unity buildings being broken
Fixed politicians having double the resource output they should
Fixed the bullet points for various species traits
Fixed empire size from district modifiers being applied twice
Zookeepers no longer increase the amount of research that other Zookeeper produce scaling with the number of zookeepers. Oops!
Fixed assembly specialization for machine worlds giving the wrong jobs
Fixed the council position for worker coop providing the incorrect amount of amenities.
Wilderness empires can no longer become the Behemoth, they are perfect the way they are.
Fixed some localization issues with some planetary decisions (English only)
Fixed some tooltips mentioning regular jobs for wilderness
Fixed Wilderness colonization button
Fixed the Avatar Forest's volatile mote upkeep being too high
Fixed the Thermoclastic Roar using improper syntax for killing pops
Fixed some biological offspring ships not calling the correct 3d models
The Order's Demesne should now correctly be swapped for a standard Planetary Defense specialization
Pre-FTL planets should once again have their buildings
Wilderness Deposits have been contained and will no longer be spawning across the galaxy. (Fixes systems generating with no resources.)
Fixed ai megacorps not having an influence budget to build branch office buildings with
Fixed the tooltip that said how many traders you get from branch office buildings depending on civics (English only)
Fixed space fauna gauss weapons dealing -100% hull damage
Fixed biological ship point defense and flak being identical
Fixed juggernaut fusion reactors being equippable on titans not juggernauts
The Faculty of Archaeostudies no longer gives broken jobs
Fixed a planetary deposit making gestalt physicist jobs require consumer goods
Fixed budding pops making robot assembly plants sometimes stop working
Empire with the catalytic processing civics now start with additional food districts
The Catalytic Processing civic now says that Metallurgists are converted into Catalytic Technicians
Fixed some trait tooltips overstating effects by a factor of 100 (English only)
Ancient Clone Vats can now be built in any urban district specialization
Added tooltip description for Wilderness Refining World.
Virtuality no longer allows an infinite workforce loop
The experimental ship from the War Fragment now scale
The experimental ship from the War Fragment no longer drops debris
You can no longer build the Wilderness Glade holding on unnatural worlds
The Wilderness can no longer build multiple shield generators, effectively becoming immune to bombardment.
Fixed numerous buildings sticking around after a Wilderness took over a planet.
Fixed numerous event buildings not having a biomass cost for Wilderness
Fixed the First League Filing Office not giving the unity jobs it should have to most empires.
Physics, Society, and Engineering focused District Specializations now trigger flavor text selection for their District.
Improved post game Behemoth Behavior
Fixed biological ships not having logistic upkeep
Fixed habitats spawning with a broken orbital
Civilians are now generated with a mix of ethics
Pops are now created with a randomly selected ethic when appropriate.
The Ministry of Culture building now says that Bureaucrats are converted into Culture Workers
The Core focus task "Establish a Branch Office" can now be completed
Fixed Natural Neural Network maintenance drones
Fixed Spanish Translation of Precinct Houses
Fixed all rural districts being destroyed when losing a colony
Fix to an unemployment tooltip
Fix issue with colonization on planets, specifically seen on shattered rings
Balance
Logistic Drones now provide a small amount of amenities
The Faculty of Archaeostudies now gives minor artifacts from biology/archaeo-engineer jobs if you have the Archaeoengineers AP
Buffed Prosperity traditions
Significantly buffed the scientist expertise traits
Wilderness and Nascent Stage are now incompatible
Nerfed spawning and assembly specializations for hive and machine worlds
Rebalanced Natural Neural Network - reduced the research generated, but significantly reduced the additional upkeep
Correctly put soldier job efficiency modifier on the Military Academy, not the Fortress
The chance to get the cultist's flagship is now 20% instead of 100%
Districts for Wilderness Empires now cost 50 Biomass
The expand planet decision for Wilderness now costs 5×(Planet Size)^2 Biomass and 50 Influence
Reduced the extra society research from zookeepers
Civilian ethic outputs have been adjusted
State Academy now has a planet cap of 3
Betharian Districts now produce 2 Minerals and 6 Energy by default, rather than just Energy.
AI
Gave the AI a helper event so they don't leave their starting shattered ring segments uncolonised
The AI now values buildings that modify production more.
Stability and Performance
Fixed a crash when exiting to main menu
Found an issue with Weaver growth auras that was lagging the game:
The weaver growth auras temporarily affect all ships in the fleet instead of only biological ships capable of growth due to these performance issues, however they no longer apply an upkeep increase.
Significantly improved how Biomass is calculated
Improve loading time of late game saves
[TAG-108]
The team is working through the issues and you can expect regular patching to continue in the near future as we bundle up and release any further fixes as soon as they are ready.
Thank you for playing Stellaris!
Stellaris: BioGenesis Available Now
Stellaris: BioGenesis - the first episode of Stellaris: Season 09 - is available now!
BioGenesis, the first episode in Stellaris: Season 09, allows you to step into the role of a master geneticist, sculpting the galaxy to your design with living ships, engineered ecosystems, and enhanced species. Forge new paths with unparalleled bioengineering tools to create a civilization that thrives on adaptability and evolution – or exploit these tools to dominate the stars.
But beware, the wonders of life may harbor unforeseen dangers, including ancient threats lurking in the depths of space. The line between creator and creation blurs as you unravel the mysteries of life itself, unlocking the power to forge a living weapon capable of reshaping the galaxy – or devouring it.
Evolution had its chance. Now it’s your turn.
Explore the changes to your society as your scientists master the power of your species’ genome, pursuing one of three new Genetic Ascension paths in the BioMorphosis Situation: Purity, Cloning or Mutation, each with their own advanced government authorities.
Will you man the bulwarks, with the Starlit Citadel origin, become what you eat with the Evolutionary Predators origin, or play as a living, sapient planet with the unique Wilderness origin?
They’re made of.. Meat?
BioGenesis also features two new Bioship shipsets, each with three growth stages that become more powerful over time. Each class of Bioship has a distinct role in combat, from the aggressive short-ranged attacks of the Mauler, to the support and debuff abilities of the Weaver, the waves of strike craft disgorged by the Harbringers, to the long-range devastation caused by the X-class weapons on the Stinger. These are the Bioships you’ve been waiting for.
BioGenesis includes:
Gestalt Hive Empires (also unlocked by Utopia)
Two biological Shipsets with distinct mechanics from traditional spacecraft
Three new Origins
Evolutionary Predators - Push the boundaries of Species Traits by unlocking and combining unique phenotype abilities to craft the ultimate adaptive empire.
Wilderness
Starlit Citadel
Civics
Genetic Identification
Crowdsourcing
Familiar Face
Aerospace Adaptation
Shared Genetics
Civil Education
Bodysnatchers
Deep Space Citadel Megastructure
Biological Ascension (also unlocked by Utopia)
Expanded with BioGenesis to include a mutable tradition tree that reflects your path through Ascension
Exploration of the effects of Biological Ascension on society
Advanced Government Forms
16 new genetic Species Traits, including phenotype-based traits
Portraits that change based on pop strata and leader level
The Splintered Hive Fallen Empire
Two Diplomatic Rooms and City Sets
7 music tracks
And a new Player Crisis Path: Behemoth Fury. Driven to create the ultimate lifeform, your society must confront a terrible question - is it better to create a monster… or become one?
Stellaris: BioGenesis is also available as part of Stellaris: Season 09. Season 09 includes all of the major content releasing for Stellaris this year: BioGenesis (Available Now!), Shadows of the Shroud (coming Q3 2025), and the Infernals Species Pack (coming Q4 2025), plus the bonus Stargazer portrait, and a 20% discount!
We’re less than a week away from the release of BioGenesis and the free Stellaris 4.0 “Phoenix” update, and we’d like to take some time to talk about the things coming in the free 4.0 patch coming to Stellaris on May 5th. We’ve also released a list of preliminary (English-only, sorry!) patch notes on the forums, you can read those here.
Game Director Eladrin set aside time to talk about the Free 4.0 Update for Stellaris Official on YouTube.
Pop Groups, Workforce, and Species Modification
Pops have long been one of the biggest causes of late-game performance issues in Stellaris. As such, we’ve grouped singular pops by species, strata, and ethic. This allows us to vastly reduce the number of calculations required as the number of pops increases in the late game.
Pop groups will produce Workforce, which is assigned to jobs on your planets. Pop groups can supply Workforce to multiple jobs, and species traits that previously would create extra resources, now generate bonus workforce when working these jobs.
With pop groups, we’ve also changed pop growth to be simultaneous across all species on a planet, which should result in a more realistic growth and demographics of pops in your empire. With the added focus on Pop Growth, Empires will generally start with large masses of Civilians on their planets, enough to comfortably colonize several worlds, where they will emigrate over time.
We’ve also done some work on Species Modification. Now, with the Gene Tailoring Technology or Integrated Anatomy tradition, you can specify a default template for a species, afterwards any subspecies with Sub-Species Integration set the Integrate Into Default Sub-Species species right will integrate into the default species template over time.
Trade, Logistics, and MegaCorps
The old Trade Routes system was another system that was hurting game performance, made worse by it being also one of the most hard-to-use and unintuitive game systems. We decided that it was time to remove Trade Routes altogether, and instead make Trade a regular resource that can be used and stockpiled.
Trade will now accumulate monthly over time, and represents logistical effort on behalf of your empire. Planetary deficits will now impart a trade expense, as freighters are commandeered by your empire to transport resources to worlds that aren’t otherwise self-sufficient. Military fleets as well will impart a trade cost, decreasing when they’re in orbit of friendly starbases, and increasing when in hostile territory. Trade can also be spent on the Market for the purchase of resources.
This was also an opportunity to make Trade available for Gestalt empires, who can now collect Trade from both jobs and deposits. While they don’t have much use for Traders and Clerks, their Maintenance and Logistics drones will produce most of their trade.
MegaCorps also had a facelift in 4.0. Most corporate Civics now give bonuses to specific Branch Office buildings, and gain Trader jobs on their Capital from the Branch Office building. Branch Office buildings are now limited to one per planet, but give more appropriate jobs to the host planet.
To offset the bonuses to Branch Office buildings, constructing these buildings now also costs Influence, and has an increased effect on Empire Size.
Criminal Syndicates have also had some improvements, for both their playability and for playing against them. Criminal Syndicates can now establish Commercial Pacts. Having a commercial pact with a Criminal Empire will replace all criminal buildings with their "lawful" counterpart. As long as the commercial pact remains, criminal branch offices will not be removed from the planet. All Criminal branch office buildings now produce 25 Crime and give criminal jobs in addition to regular jobs. We have also added a crime floor to non-criminal branch office buildings on empires they have a trade agreement with, which means there will always be a minimum amount of crime on the branch office planet. Criminal branch offices are also up to 25% more profitable on high crime planets.
New Planet UI & District Specializations
The change from Pops to Pop Groups also opened up an opportunity to revamp exactly how Districts, Buildings, and Jobs interact with each other. Districts provide a base number of jobs, District Specializations provide additional jobs per District, and buildings provide Jobs.
District Specializations are a new feature coming in Stellaris 4.0. City Districts will be able to choose two District Specializations, while the Generator, Mining, and Farming districts each can choose one. District Specializations provide extra jobs per district of that type constructed.
Unlocking Specializations will be locked behind key technologies, but choosing a specialization will also open up three additional Building slots.
Assigning and restricting Jobs works remarkably similar to how it did in previous versions of Stellaris, but now instead of assigning Pops to work the job directly, you’re assigning Workforce from several different Pop Groups to work the job.
New Mammalian Portraits & Precursor Selections
And now my deer friends, one mooo-re surprise for you! The Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update brings ten paws-itively stunning new Mammalian portraits to the base game!
We know some of you have Precursors that you like the most - and the least - and with Stellaris 4.0, you’ll now be able to turn off the Yuht after you get it for like the sixteenth time in a row.
We’ve also added a new Empire timeline that tracks major events in your empire. We know this is something that some of you have wanted for a while, and it’s great to be able to look back and remember events that happened in your empire.
There’s so much more to talk about coming in Stellaris 4.0, you can read the full patch notes here.
Stellaris Dev Diary #382 - The Next Step in Evolution
by PDX_Cosmogone
Hi everyone!
Cosmogone here with the final Dev Diary before May 5th and the release of BioGenesis and 4.0. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the various civics and at the latest innovation in galaxy-threatening technology: Behemoths.
Civics
We have a lot to cover, so I’ll be brief here and let screenshots speak for me.
Regular Empires/Corporate civics: Crowdsourcing: Faction Output numbers are non final Genetic ID: Combine with CyberCreed and Dimensional Worship for a no scientist run Civil Ed: “It stacks with Utopian Abundance” - Iggy (2025)
Hive Civics:
Machine Civic:
[REDACTED] [REDACTED] are just a fairy tale told to [From.GetSpeciesSpawnNamePlural] to keep them afraid of the dark and keep them in line.
Alright, this one warrants a few more explanations in regards to the new operations made by Iggy:
- Smuggle population is a new operation available to everyone that lets you steal a few hundred pops from a target empire. Whether you are using it to liberate slaves or acquire fuel for the Synaptic Lathe is up to you.
- Prepare Invasion is exclusive to this civic, and for a cost of pops, will let you strike from the shadows at the beginning of a war, flipping starbases in systems close to you and even spawning a handful of armies on some planets in an attempt to conquer them by surprise. The total number of systems affected by this effect depends on how many pops you choose to sacrifice when preparing the operation with a maximum of 2000 pops of the victim’s species for 50% of its controlled systems.
Behemoth Fury
Our new crisis path, only available to bioship empires, will be a must-play for enjoyers of Kaiju movies, titanic dragons, and BIG monsters in general. In it, you seek to transcend the weak form that binds you to planets and prevents you from just having the time of your life in space under the foolish excuses that you need to breathe, be warm, or that solar radiation can mess up your systems.
Your path to a new life begins with figuring out how to craft new spaceborne life:
To support the ever growing number of crisis paths, the Crisis tab has been made more modular than ever and can accommodate new backgrounds and color schemes.
But I digress. Behemoth Fury will see you accumulate Feral Insight to progress through the levels, with the biggest rewards coming from birthing and interacting with Behemoths.
Most of the perks revolve around them directly, but quite a few will significantly buff your bioships, your food production and your society research as your entire empire is skewed towards developing and supporting Behemoths. Here are a few examples:
In order to birth Behemoths you must first prepare a suitable vessel for something this size. A megastructure ought to do it. The Behemoth Eggs are built and hatched exclusively with food so those farmers better get to work, because you’ll need a LOT of it.
Newborn Behemoths are not that impressive yet, sporting a mere 28.5K fleet power, and a lot of it comes from how tanky they are. They are still a far cry from the objective of breeding the ultimate predator, but they are a necessary step.
Note the fancy new ship UI that made way for a brand new “Growth” bar and the very non-threatening “Rage Status”. As your baby Behemoth goes around the galaxy, living its best life by eating ships and pop (by bombarding planets, it’s not big enough to eat them whole yet), it will fill up its growth meter. Once the meter is full, it turns into a button, and if you’re far enough along the crisis path, you’ll be able to click it to send the Behemoth back into an egg, or a Chrysalis if you want to be technical about it.
Once again, you can spend a lot more food in order to let an even bigger beast emerge, ready to feast upon an unsuspecting galaxy.
However, this is not without danger. Behemoths are dangerous beasts, and until you can find a way to fully control them, they WILL escape your grasp from time to time, succumbing to their rage and hunger. With the right stimulation, you can, however, induce this rage artificially, unleashing the Behemoth when the time is right.
When Raging, a Behemoth will attack anything else in the system, then attempt to seek out the closest source of food (a colony or a Behemoth egg) to go and devour it. As a Behemoth Crisis empire, you can defeat them in combat to beat them into submission and take control of them, while other empires that can prevail over a raging beast will kill it.
There is more finesse to this system, such as the fact that fully fed Behemoths no longer randomly rage, or that if two Behemoths meet, they will try to fight each other, possibly to the death. The Rage Status indicator in the fleet view should let you know when your beast is at risk of succumbing to its anger.
It is absolutely possible to get killed by your own feral behemoths and I have lost count of the times where I got game-overed when testing the rage while owning a single colony.
The final level of the crisis is the most transformative in terms of gameplay. As usual, crossing that final line is up to you, and it will have important consequences. First off, the Galactic Community will collectively declare war upon you, and even Fallen Empires have a chance to decide to step in.
Having completed the Mind Meld special project, you will assume full control of one of your Behemoths, which will in turn keep any other in line, preventing them from raging unless you use the rage action.
As you merge the minds of your population with the beasts, you will unlock increasingly powerful bonuses before your final ascension.
What’s that? A final boss? Don’t worry about it.
Your capital will swap its city districts for Mindlink Metropolis ones that produce unity and research for each pop that has already been “Transferred” and whose mind became one with the Behemoth. The starting output is tiny, but it will rapidly increase as long as you can find volunteers.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Kaiju take my energy! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
On the other hand, having a mind link with a beast like the Behemoth can prove a little distracting, and raises questions like “What’s the point of anything in life when all I want is to merge into the beast?”
Such thoughts are represented by the following modifier and will grow worse as you progress through the final situation of the crisis.
Who knew that letting a starbeast into your mind would have consequences?
Speaking of, the Growing Pains situation tracks how well you adapt to your new body and will let you unlock increasingly powerful mutations for your Class IV Behemoth, to grow it into the ultimate starborn predator.
The situation progresses faster depending on your approach and your growth factor, which tracks how many pops have been transferred as well as how much you’ve eaten yet.
At this point your Behemoth has reached its adult size and can simply go around the galaxy, gobbling up habitable planets to absorb their biomass and population.
At this stage of its growth, the Behemoth makes full use of the new fleet UI created for “Hero Ship” and can unlock new activated abilities as you progress through the Growing Pains situation. At every stage, you will be given a choice of bonuses to gain, the first of which regards the type of eggs that you want your behemoth to lay. Eggs will be able to hatch into other baby behemoths or swarms of bioships to support your creature as it devours the galaxy.
Eggcellent
By the end of the situation, you should have unlocked five new activated abilities, located under the usual Orders bar. These abilities can target planets, enemy fleets, ally fleets, or the Behemoth itself. Oh yeah, and one of them lets you cloak your Behemoth if you have First Contact.
Can’t wait to see what modders will do with this. Surely nothing too crazy.
In addition to all that, the Behemoth will not be locked in combat (like a colossus), can still be ordered around while fighting, and even got a fancy combat UI improvement to let you trigger its various abilities.
Stellaris MOBA, when?
Here is a sample of the abilities on this specific Behemoth, but bear in mind that all abilities have swaps, except the Thermoclastic Roar that needs none. This is all pretty novel stuff, so the fleet power doesn’t really reflect abilities like this, and honestly, I’m certain you will manage to break this new system in exciting ways, and I cannot wait for the memes.
I definitely don’t have the room for all the mutations here, so here are a few numbers about the Crisis:
26 244 uh no 78 732 Quite a few combinations of mutations
13 different active abilities
21 different passive bonuses
1 allegedly invincible final boss
There is a lot more that I don’t have time to tell you about and that you’ll need to discover by yourselves, so I will leave you with amazing placeholder UI art, courtesy of our UX designer and featuring a hungry and angry behemoths:
Oh and we also forgot about…
There are things that simply didn’t fit in any dev diary, and others that have recently changed about 4.0, so here is a non-exhaustive list:
Hive pops can now live and work in non-hive empires without being purged
We’re adding a whole bunch of new planet-related events
A whole swathe of new mammalian portraits are available for everyone for free!
Hive Worlds and Machine Worlds now work on a similar level to Ecumenopoli!
You can get all the new Fallen Empire Buildings from Machine Age when using Reverse-Engineer Arcane Technology
You can now forgive the Radical Cult! No longer must you chase them down in every system if you don’t want to.
Did we ever show you what the finished Timeline looks like?
Partial Features Release Notes There’s a lot in this release, so we have partial release notes for today. We’ll have the rest alongside the release on Monday.
Preliminary 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ and BioGenesis Release Notes (Major Features Only)
BioGenesis Features Overhauled Genetic Ascension
Choose from three Ascension paths: Cloning, Purity, or Mutation
Evolve your empire's government into one of 18 enhanced authorities
Customize your genetic ascension by blending Purity, Cloning, and Mutation traditions
Biological Ships
Command living fleets that evolve alongside your empire
Customize these ships for specialized roles, from battleships to support vessels, each capable of empowering allies and weakening foes
Two new biological shipsets, Spinovore and Shellcraft
Player Crisis Path - Behemoth Fury
Let them fight! Breed an unstoppable biological monster and unleash it on an unsuspecting galaxy.
Three New Origins
Evolutionary Predators: Push the boundaries of Species Traits by unlocking and combining unique phenotype abilities to craft the ultimate adaptive empire.
Starlit Citadel: Solve the mystery of your empire’s biological attackers while boosting hyperlane choke-point strategies with early access to the Deep Space Citadel megastructure.
Wilderness: Begin as a sapient planetary ecosystem, a living gestalt of countless lifeforms united in harmony, seeking to spread its consciousness to the stars.
Hive Fallen Empire
Encounter a new Fallen Empire, a fractured hive mind struggling to awake between its three splintered personalities.
Six Seven New Civics
Genetic Identification
Crowdsourcing
Familiar Face
Aerospace Adaptation
Shared Genetics
Civil Education
Bodysnatchers
Deep Space Citadel Megastructure
A versatile new defensive station capable of holding off powerful enemy fleets at any system.
12 new Species Portraits
Evolving and changing with levels and roles
Phenotype Species Traits
16 new traits based on the abilities of the species
Wilderness-themed City Set and Diplomatic Room New Music 65 new events
4.0 ‘Phoenix’ Features Planet Economy has been reworked
Planets produce and consume resources through Jobs.
Districts provide Jobs based on their development.
District Specializations dictate what Job types are provided by Districts and what buildings may be built.
Buildings typically modify the output of the Jobs.
Pop Groups & Workforce game concepts have been introduced
Pops are now grouped together based on Species, Strata, Ethics, and Faction.
Pop numbers have been increased by a factor of 100, allowing more granular manipulation of Pops by various systems.
Pops produce Workforce that fills up Jobs.
A Civilian stratum has been added to represent the masses that do not generally contribute to the empire’s military economy.
Pop growth has been reworked
All Pop Groups on a planet have simultaneous growth every month following the existing Logistic Growth formulas.
Underrepresented pops are no longer given population growth bonuses.
Fractional growth is not retained from month to month - if a Pop Group would have fractional growth, it has a chance to gain 1 pop that month based on that fraction.
All migration is now handled through the auto-migration system rather than push and pull that previously affected pop growth.
The minimum growth for small colonies has been removed. Early colonization will be reliant on migration from the empire capital.
Empire Focuses and Timeline has been added
The Empire Timeline keeps track of important milestones of a playthrough, available in a tab in the Situation log view.
Empire Focus Tasks introduces short and medium term goals for players to strive for, and offers an alternative way of unlocking key technologies.
Empires can choose between Conquest, Exploration, and Development as their primary Empire Focus, affecting what type of tasks are drawn.
Completing Tasks provides progress towards Guaranteed Technology unlocks that are considered critical for that playstyle.
Task completion is retroactive and will award progress if drawn.
Tasks may be discarded for a small cost in Unity.
Trade has been revamped into a standard resource
Trade is now used as the Market currency.
The Trade Routes system has been removed.
Ships now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade
Based on whether they are docked (free), friendly space (reduced), neutral space (normal), or hostile space (expensive).
Larger ships have higher upkeep.
Juggernauts do not have logistical upkeep, and reduce the logistical upkeep costs for ships in their system by 75%.
Planets now have logistical upkeep paid by Trade based on their local resource deficits.
Local deficit costs vary based on the base market value of the resources.
Trade Policies can set how much of your Net trade after logistics upkeep is converted into other resources.
Added galaxy setup sliders for Fleet Upkeep Logistics Costs and Planetary Deficit Logistics Costs.
Databank game info library has been added
The main help button now displays the Databank window where you can explore brief articles on many in-game concepts.
There are about 9000 lines in the export log for us to go through to get you the rest, sorry we couldn’t get them sorted by this dev diary!
Next Week
Join us next week for the full patch notes of the 4.0 release and, of course, to play BioGenesis!
Who’s hyped for meat ships?
Stellaris Dev Diary #381 - Time to Get Wild
Hello there everyone, Iggy here! We’ve had a busy week, now let's see what Eladrin wanted me to talk about… The Hive Fallen Empire and the Wilderness origin? In the same diary?
Okay… Buckle up for a Wild ride!
Hive Fallen Empire
For the first time since Synthetic Dawn, a new ancient will join us in the galaxy: a Hive Mind, once united in purpose, now lies fragmented. Each embodiment is stuck trying to execute its own directive. Each has plans for becoming the dominating force within their former collective… and you might be able to nudge who ends up in charge.
Stellaris supports conference calls now?
After an uncertain but definitely horrible disaster splintered their consciousness, The Hive was left in 3 fragments: Growth, War, and Control. Each one with its distinct personality, system, and tasks. Though don’t let differences fool you. They are all in a federation with each other, and declaring war on one will see you fight all three.
So different, yet refusing to be far apart.
This Fallen Empire will spawn surrounding a central system. Each of the fragments branches off with its own unique system. They all surround the central system, Last Thought, but refuse to claim it. Curious. Like most Fallen Empires, they are content seeing the universe pass by them by… unless you do something that interests or annoys them.
Pretty reasonable imo
No, you really can’t refuse
I made some of these events work on AIs. Don’t worry about the fragment’s Traits.
Each fragment has multiple tasks, and each one is quite a bit more reactive than the old “Hey, give us your scientists” events from Fallen Empires in the past. So, make friends where you can and try not to unleash something horrible on the galaxy.
This shipset had the working name of “Antagonist” in-house...
Something that has always distinguished Fallen Empires from regular empires is that their ships are extra advanced. Well, the same is true here, but instead of using the same old technology of the other Fallen Empires, the fragments use Biological Ones! A special, older, and more intimidating version of the Spinovore shipset.
Just like all other Fallen Empires, this will be your primary source for Dark Matter technology.
Politics is an old species game.
When the sleepers awake, one must end up on top. Absorbing the other fragments, one of three awakened empires will form, each with different goals and behaviors. Two of them will be participating in the war in heaven, the third one has other plans. Here is Control.
Wilderness
This, without a doubt, is the most transformative Origin we have ever added to the game. The Wilderness is a Hive Mind exclusive origin, requiring you to play with Biological Ships, and leaves behind mechanical buildings and nasty things like colony ships. The experience we want to bring you here is experiencing the galaxy as a living planet.
How do you show in a tooltip that everything is different?
As you can see in the tooltip, and what I want to emphasize is that you don’t share a single base building or district with regular empires. You do have some overlap when it comes to civics and such, but in general, you will live as a planet.
Greetings from Tellon
Not an asphalted road as far as the planet can feel.
The Wilderness comes with a unique City Set and Diplomatic room; any empire can play with it, but it was made for the Wilderness. The avian-eyed among you might have spotted that we have a new resource icon up there, Biomass. Biomass is gained by growing new pops and is used for developing your planets and colonizing new ones. Since you are spending Biomass to grow buildings, we won’t expect you to have enough around to work them. That is why all Wilderness pops come with a +1000 Workforce modifier. Please don’t figure out some exploit to smuggle them out of the empire.
Everything is used and reused in the Wilderness.
The Wilderness does not need colony ships. If they can terraform it, they can become it.
Once you have relearned how to navigate the economy as a living planet, you can spread your spores outward, terraforming a new world by using Biomass, awakening a new colony in your image.
Plant Houston, we have liftoff!
The Wilderness Origin is compatible with most civics available to hiveminds, but I managed to satisfy an edgy little primal part of myself when I designed the automatically generated names for the Devouring Swarm variant: the Blood Forest.
People making reaction videos to these, please read them with the intensity and melodrama they deserve.
There is so much more we could show you about the Wilderness, the tradition swaps, the altered technologies, the many unique buildings, but at this point I would like you to find it out on your own!
Next Week
Next week, it will finally be time to reveal our most primal secrets. Join Cosmogone as he shares all our new civics and the Behemoth Fury crisis path!
Meanwhile, I have some Hive Minds to appease.
Stellaris Dev Diary #380 - Defenders in the Stars
Hi, it’s Alfray once again and I’d like to introduce you to our latest megastructure, the Deep Space Citadel. This three stage mid-game megastructure is a powerful defensive bastion and converts into a starbase upon completion, much like an orbital ring.
The three stages of the Deep Space Citadel
Unlike orbital rings and regular starbases, Deep Space Citadels can be placed far more freely within a system, provided they aren’t too close to a gravity well (or each other).
The Deep Space Citadel technology is a Tier 3 Military Theory technology which unlocks all three stages of the megastructure and an initial limit of one per system.
This system limit can be further increased by the Mega-Engineering, the Starlit Citadel origin and the Eternal Vigilance ascension perks.
Choosing to build a DSC opens another menu allowing you to select the design.
Once a DSC design has been selected, you’ll be able to choose where in the system it can be placed, provided it’s within the system’s main gravity well. This allows you to choose if you want to defend a choke point or a critical planet.
No, build an Arc Furnace on the molten world, not the DSC!
Defending the Sol-Alpha Centauri hyperlane breach point sounds like a good idea.
As the Deep Space Citadel is upgraded from one stage to the next, it gains successively more L-slot turrets, hangar bays and defensive utilities. The final stage of the DSC also gains access to both a single XL-slot turret and an aura slot capable of equipping auras from both titans and juggernauts. Additionally, to compensate for the lack of module slots on the DSC, it has a special module slot in the ship designer capable of equipping most starbase auras and a few unique DSC auras.
Think of it as a giant “SHOOT ME!” sign.
Defensive countermeasures tailored to your enemy
As shown, each stage on the Deep Space Citadel is individually designable and saved as its own ship design. When building, upgrading or downgrading a Deep Space Citadel, you’ll be prompted to select the design the DSC should become.
The Art of the Deep Space Citadel
Hi! I'm Lloyd and I'm a concept artist on Biogenesis. I'm here to give you a look at how I designed the look of the deep space citadel and how the art team brought it to life.
I was very excited to tackle this station. After working on bioships for a while, it was refreshing to have a chance to get back into some hard-surface design. I began by discussing with the team what we wanted the station to feel like, and what it should represent to our players. I came away with a simple mission - make Helm’s Deep in space. Here are my first sketches of the station. You can see I'm focusing a lot on fortress-like structures as well as shield shapes. Both of these are to enforce the idea that this station is a defensive bastion, a place of safety, protection, and strength. Initial sketches of the deep space citadel. Artist: Lloyd Drake-Brockman
We decided to go with something like option B. This design became more refined as I worked on it, and as it was fleshed out into a three-stage structure. Here you can see an early look at the 3D blockout for the concept art.
Early stages of the 3D concept. Artist: Lloyd Drake-Brockman
Here, I had the idea to bring the shield motif back in the later stages, surrounding the station with shield-like arms that start as round shields in stage 2, but expand to be tower shields in stage 3.
With the design locked in, I polished up the details into the final concept sheets. These sheets inform the rest of the art team how to make the asset. Our philosophy is that a concept should solve as many problems as possible, instead of leaving them for the 3D, texturing, and animation stages.
Stage 1 final concept art. Artist: Lloyd Drake-Brockman
Stage 2 final concept art. Artist: Lloyd Drake-Brockman
Stage 3 final concept art. Artist: Lloyd Drake-Brockman
Turrets final concept art. Artist: Lloyd Drake-Brockman
You can also see the added details of the internal gravity torus, which would allow inhabitants to live comfortably even with a failure of artificial gravity systems, a massive reactor for power, and complex shielding systems. All of this is added to paint the picture of a steadfast, independent station, able to withstand punishing sieges.
With the concepts done, the task moves on to the 3D team who model and texture the station.
Work in progress on the 3D model of the Deep Space Citadel Artist: Emma Quer
The last stage of the DSC is animation. Some of the parts of the station were designed to move, and it's always so exciting for me to see an asset come to life in the game.
Animation of the Deep Space Citadel Artist: Mia Svensson
That's it! That's how we brought the Deep Space Citadel to life for Biogenesis. Personally I thought this was one of the most fun assets to work on, and I hope you enjoy what we’ve made. We really poured our hearts into it!
New Origin: STARLIT CITADEL
Some empires are born into prosperity. Others arise under siege.
CGInglis here, reporting from far beyond the walls to bring you a closer look at the Starlit Citadel Origin, our latest offering for those who prefer their games with a little bit of defiance and a whole lot of fortification!
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a massive orbital fortress.
Long before their species turned its eyes to the stars, a mysterious wormhole lingered on the edge of their home system. From its depths came wave upon wave of aggressors in biological ships. Entire cities were flattened before the invaders were defeated. Then they returned. Again, and again.
Faced with extinction, these beleaguered people placed their hope in the Deep Space Citadel, a towering bulwark bristling with defensive armaments, constructed not at the heart of their system, but precisely where the invaders emerge.
Hi there! I’ll be your turret-encrusted server today. May I recommend the Mass Driver, served with a large side of Point-Defense Flak?
Empires with this Origin begin the game with a fully operational Stage I Deep Space Citadel positioned at the breach. Their homeworld also features a unique building, the Citadel Uplink, which coordinates the empire’s defensive efforts.
This Building supports a rare specialist role, the Skywatchers. Linked to the Citadel through advanced communication arrays and strategic uplinks, the Skywatchers provide a potent array of bonuses: increased planetary stability, bonus naval capacity across the empire, and spawning additional defense armies. Perhaps most significantly, their efforts amplify the effectiveness of all Deep Space Citadels, starbases, and defensive stations within the system.
All-seeing, ever-watchful, mildly overworked.
Your homeworld, though (probably) rich in history, bears the scars of conflict. Marring the surface are the blasted remains of the last wave of invading bioships:
“And I thought they smelled bad on the outside!”
This Origin also introduces a unique dynamic for multiplayer campaigns. If several players choose to be a Starlit Citadel empire, each will begin with their own perilous portal and their own Deep Space Citadel. As the campaign unfolds, these enigmatic wormholes are revealed to be more than isolated anomalies. Like spokes on a terrible wheel, they all lead to a single, central hub:
Who are these guys, and why are they so deeply unchill?
The Starlit Citadel Origin invites players not only to withstand these threats, but also to uncover their source. Whichever empire reaches the hub system first will face the full force of the invaders. If you prevail, you’ll have the chance to fortify this keystone system and reshape the balance of power.
Choose this origin if you enjoy a playstyle centered on defense, a narrative-driven mystery, and just a hint of betrayal among friends!
Next Week
Next week Iggy will be introducing us to the Fallen Hive Mind Empire, the Fallen Hive Mind Empire, the Fallen Hive Mind Empire, and the Wilderness origin.
Stellaris S09E01: BioGenesis Story Trailer "The Feast"
In Stellaris: BioGenesis, step into the role of a master geneticist, sculpting the galaxy to your design with living ships, engineered ecosystems, and enhanced species. Forge new paths with unparalleled bioengineering tools to create a civilization that thrives on adaptability and evolution – or exploit these tools to dominate the stars.
The Stellaris: Season 09 Expansion Pass is your gateway to an entire year of cosmic evolution, psionic mysteries, and blazing ambition. Season 09 includes Biogenesis (coming May 5th), Shadows of the Shroud (Q3 2025), and the Infernals Species Pack (Q4 2025). Plus, get the exclusive Stargazer Species Portrait as an instant unlock!
