Hi all! We're happy to announce the release of the 3.4.4 patch. Please find the final patch notes below. It's another herculean effort from the team that we hope you will enjoy! "STELLARIS 3.4.4 "CEPHEUS" PATCH NOTES [expand type=details] ################################################################# ######################### VERSION 3.4.4 ########################## #################################################################

Improvements

• Automated Exploration and Automated Research are now available from the start of the game rather than being tech-locked.
• Construction ships now have an Automated Construction mode, which will automatically build Research and Mining Stations over appropriate deposits. (It will not automatically build Observation Stations, Hyper Relays, or other constructions.)
• Imperial Fiefdom changes
• The Imperial Fiefdom overlord is now barred from terms that allow it to join offensive wars of their subjects.
• Every member of the empire that does not start with the overlord nearby will start with a small overlord colony/outpost in the vicinity.
• The overlord's empire will be connected by 'Derelict Gateways' that the overlord can use, but which become ruined once the civil war starts
• Changed it so players can remain loyal to the overlord when the civil war begins, if they so wish. The AI will always go independent.
• Added Hydroponics Station designation for habitats. This designation removes 2 housing from Habitation Districts in exchange for adding 1 farmer jobs.
• Planetary automation will now seek to clear blockers as soon as there is any need. It now uses the same formula as the indicator on the outliner: i.e. if it is limiting the number of districts OR if there are buildings that could be built by clearing the blockers OR if planet growth speed is reduced (previous behaviour was to only check the first of those).
• Made some clarifications for the Shroudwalkers, so it is clearer what asset you are getting from them and how the planet modifier works.
• Criminal pops no longer reduce the efficiency of criminal syndicate branch offices.
• Added Quantum Catapult event art.
• added Hyper Relay event art image.
• New Overlord music track will now play in the main menu
• Empires created by releasing sectors or from status quo peace deals now have some starting resources to not immediately suffer deficits.
• Clarified that Subjugation War Terms only apply to Vassals and Subsidiaries.
• The tooltips for Resource Contribution terms now inform you that they block trade deals for the resources involved.
• The Reemployment Center holding now shows when the next zombie will be created.
• Spawning Pools and Progenitor Nests are now under the Pop Assembly building category.
• Added subjugation agreement caps of +1,000 / -10,000.
• Refined the Teachers of the Shroud requirements tooltip.
• Clarified that Progenitor Hives can only release sectors if they do not have the devouring swarm civic.
• Players will now be notified when their Overlord has built Holdings on their planet
• Starbase Transit Hubs now also fulfill the necessary requirement for slaves or non-sapient robots to automatically migrate from planets in the system.
• The dividend event now specifies which enclave is paying its dues.
• AI logic for voting on Free Migration has been adjusted to more strictly align with Xenophile/Xenophobe ethics.
• AI 10 year voting cooldown extended to now apply to other diplo actions like declaring war.
• Clarified the tooltip for the Strip Mine decision.
• Added a setting to Galaxy Setup that permits the disabling of L-Gates.
• Planetary Automation will now build pre-emptively if there are 0 jobs available on a planet or if there is an unemployed pop that can work a job from the suggested building. This should solve both the case where we shouldn't make specialist jobs for slaves but also allows us to preemptively build more jobs to allow for auto migration.
• Added an Upgrade module to the Planetary Automation such that players can now enable/disable automatically upgrading buildings on their planets.
• Vassal loyalty tooltip in subjugation view now includes full breakdown information.
• Subjects are now informed that they have a -50% penalty to diplomatic weight.
• Namelists Hive Mind 1 and Hive Mind 2 now feature names unique to each ship size (Corvette, Destroyer, etc.).
• If you don't use Consumer Goods and conquer a planet with factories on it, they will be removed.

Balance

• Ships now gain 5 exp per day in battle instead of 1.
• Doubled the base unity output of telepaths.
• Unified effects for Citadel of Faith, Auto-Curating Vault and equivalent buildings.
• The Shroudwalkers have learned their lesson, and will no longer teach any Fanatic Purifiers about the Shroud. The Fanatic Purifiers will have to look for another origin now.
• Bulwark Battlewright aura now provides 0.25% hull regen per day.
• Bulwark Watch network effect no longer spawns too many armies. Instead it increases planetary stability by 5.
• Being an overlord now imparts a -1000 penalty when attempting to subjugate other overlords diplomatically.
• The Ministry of Science and Vigil Command now have an empire limit of 1.
• The upkeep of Overlord Beholder jobs now scale with the tier of the Bulwark subject (and thus the increase in the defensive platform cap).
• Reworked the Ministry of Science holding. It no longer provides increased research speed for the overlord depending on the number of science ships in orbit of the subject's planet. Instead it now gives subject researchers (or calculators or brain drones) research output for the overlord, with an appropriate increase in upkeep.
• The Orbital Assembly Complex now increases the effects of modules built on the planet's orbital ring.
• Habitation Modules provide +0.5 building slots.
• Orbital Shipyards gain +1 Shipyard capacity.
• Orbital Anchorages provide +2 Naval Capacity.
• Planetary Defense Guns and Batteries support +1 Defensive Platforms.
• Halved the hull and armor regen provided by Regenerative Hull Tissue, Nanite Repair System, Nanobot Cloud, Mercenaries, and Devouring Swarm. This will also affect the regeneration of leviathans and other entities that make use of these ship components.
• Retrofitting ships will no longer pay out the resources left over after the retrofit costs have been applied.
• Effects that granted modifiers to ship upgrade costs have been replaced with other modifiers. It should no longer be possible to be in a situation where it is cheaper to build empty ships and then upgrade them than to build the intended design right away.
• Significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to build Ion Cannons.
• Reduced weighting for clerks as pops seemed to really want to work as them instead of miners.
• Merc dividends no longer give ships when the patron is near or above their naval cap.
• Moved bonus resource storage for silos from tech_global_production_strategy to tech_construction_templates.
• If you declare a force ideology war on an empire, all non-gestalt overlords and subjects that are called into the war will also be subject to the force ideology effect.
• The Traditionalist faction in empires with the Teachers of the Shroud origin now approves of following the teachings of the Shroudwalkers.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the notification message for forced approval of a negotiated agreement (due to lack of influence) saying the proposal was declined. Note that this fix is only applied to the english localization and will be applied in other languages in a future patch.
• Fixed ETA not being displayed in the fleet view.
• Progenitor Hives can now lease fleets without them being debuffed.
• AI will now no longer stop all colonisation during lategame crises. (Its instruction to not attempt to colonise and instead focus on war now expires in the midgame)
• The Khan should no longer be hostile to mercenaries.
• The Khan no longer counts as a Satrapy and thus can invade planets.
• Admirals no longer abandon their post on leased fleets.
• Planetary automation will no longer seek to build gene clinics if you are a synthetically-ascended empire.
• Fixed issue where planetary automation would upgrade Necrophage Centers of Elevation (which is often undesirable as it may lead to you running out of necrophytes)
• Newly colonized planets will now have their planet automation turned on if they are in an automated sector.
• You can no longer build an orbital ring around a planet with a destroyed orbital ring.
• When an orbital ring is destroyed, the planet owner now gains ownership of the ruined ring immediately.
• The Salvagers no longer introduce themselves to void dwelling empires as soon as they finish researching any technology.
• Mercenary fleet contracts can now be terminated after vassal has been integrated.
• Added missing localization for Imperial Fiefdom opinion modifiers.
• Traditions will now be properly transferred to vassals created from sectors
• Fixed "Proceed" button in the vassal agreement terms renegotiation menu sometimes being inactive when it shouldnt.
• Fixed template with an unnamed flag causing issues when loading affected game saves from previous versions.
• Fixed modifying a species (via the species modification interface) applying default species rights instead of the rights of the species you were modifying (particularly painful if default rights were assimilation)
• Fixed possibility to set gender specific ruler titles, for example King and Queen.
• Fixed some issues with display of leader names.
• Corrected Message in the Canopy archaeology site outcome options.
• You can no longer declare wars of vassalisation against Inward Perfectionists.
• Fixed relay network modifiers being removed after specialist vassal levels up.
• You cannot use a secret fealty wargoal if you are at war with the overlord of the empire that has sworn fealty to you.
• Expel Corporation wars now close branch offices on your planets and those of your subjects belonging to the targeted MegaCorp.
• The Manifesti faction now use their faction icon.
• Pacifier colossus weapon can now target machine and hive worlds.
• The Traditionalist faction in empires with the Teachers of the Shroud origin now approves of following the teachings of the Shroudwalkers.
• Changed Subjugation War Terms to no longer apply invalid terms for Subsidiaries (such as integration allowed).
• Become the Crisis Bring into the Fold wargoal now respects your subjugation policy.
• Become the Crisis Bring into the Fold wargoal now causes subjugated empires to become subsidiaries if the BtC empire is a megacorp.
• Empires that are Brought into the Fold by a Scion now correctly convert to the Scion preset (as do their subjects).
• Subjects that bounce between vassal/subsidiary and protectorate states should now correctly gain the protectorate bonuses whenever they become a protectorate.
• Subsidiaries created via subjugation war now inherit the base subsidiary agreement restrictions.
• Fixed slave armies not being trainable.
• Splitting Imperial Fiefdom Overlord can no longer cause systems with shared ownership of planets.
• Hive-minds that reform into having the Memorialist civic no longer need to restart the game to build galactic memorials.
• Implemented the Subterranean Nation modifier directly into the origin so any empire that inherits the origin will gain the modifiers.
• Subterranean/Mantle Dwellers now correctly have the Cave Dweller trait.
• Fixed Terravores claiming that they could build Organic Sanctuary holdings.
• The tooltip for Habitat Administration buildings now lists the effects of colonist jobs for Void Dwellers.
• The job description of colonists now states that they can provide minerals instead of food.
• Fixed megacorps creating more megacorps from wars in some cases where the origins of the newly created empires weren't set correctly.
• Signs of the Locus now checks for the correct diplomatic stance. In addition, it now checks your border policy as well.
• Strongholds no longer benefit from Resistance is Frugal
• Borderless Authority and Personal Oversight correctly increase the number of subject holdings overlords can build.
• Fixed "Shroud Stench" planetary modifier lacking an icon
• Updated tooltip for how to unlock branch office buildings.
• Resized and moved the upgrade button for orbital rings.
• Fixed a tooltip in the Situations interface showing erroneous information ("outcome in -65 months") if the Situation was ticking down
• Fixed some issues with the setup of the starting Ring World in advanced AI empires
• Fixed Gestalt Empire Governors Skill tooltips saying Crime instead of Deviancy
• Fixed incorrect description string variable in the "Atmospheric Nanobot Dispersal"
• Fixed Emergency Election button showing two Unity symbols
• Mercenary armies now properly spawn at the client capital.
• Pressing ESC during mercenary diplomacy should now bring you back to the main menu or close the diplomacy window.
• Tactical advice against the gray tempest is only available when the gray tempest is triggered, not just when the L Cluster is opened.
• Patrons can no longer recall fleets that they themselves are hiring.
• Mercenary admirals now have suitable loc for their profession.
• Fixed some cases where our tooltip system would unnecessarily generate "all of the following must be true" (when there was only one condition)
• Fixed incomplete information about what Telepaths do when looking at buildings that provide them
• Mercenary Enclaves are no longer listed as Honorbound Warriors in the contacts list.
• Fixed incorrect tooltip when scrapping robots during the alloy deficit situation
• You can no longer force ideology on gestalt empires by declaring war on their subjects.
• Fixed issue with some of the modifiers of modules not applying to the Starbase.
• Fixed Insidious Ophidians event chain accidentally removing the "Poor Quality Minerals" permanent planetary modifier.
• Fixed a case where specialist subjects leveling up could end up disabling relay network effects.
• The Spiritualist Fallen Empire has figured out what Star Eaters are and will now Awaken if you use one to blow up one of their holy worlds.
• Fixed new districts sometimes not appearing after the Superfluous Terraforming Equipment event.
• It is no longer possible for Overlords to transfer more science than they generate to their subjects.
• Fixed not being able to order ship construction in Mega Shipyards after they had been conquered.
• Fixed broken tooltip for destroyed orbital rings.
• Medium Crystal Plating no longer displays the tooltip for the Bulwark Battlewright.
• Mercenary Captains no longer display unlocalized text.
• Fixed the tooltip for the tier 3 orbital ring requesting the wrong capital building.
• Fixed the message response icon on diplomatic notifications blocking click input on the lower half of the notification.
• The No Holding text in the agreements tab is now yellow instead of placeholder pink.
• Fixed missing prescripted empire leader names.
• Fixed ship building buttons in Mega Shipyard view being cut off

Game Stability related fixes and changes:

• Fixed multiplayer out of sync caused by FLEET_ORDERS
• Fixed crash occurring when viewing a system destroyed by a star eater that contained a quantum catapult and simultaneously opening the load menu.
• Fixed crash due to invalid-read CQuantumCatapultFleetOrderButton::IsValid
• Fixed crash due to invalid-write CPlanet::RepairSavegameClearInvalidAndNullDeposits
• Fixed crash from having a subject with 0 empire size.

Modding

• Overlord Holding buildings and Branch Office buildings now support empire_limit = { }
• Added is_human_species scripted trigger if you want additional portraits to be considered humans.
• Added on_fleet_lease_started/ended on_actions for more friendly mod compatibility.
• Fixed load order issues with check_modifier_value.
• Fixed localize_with_value_key and min_mult in scripted modifiers.
• Added GetOriginName localisation command (to clarify an error log).
• Added "has_subject = " trigger to go with has_overlord.
• Greatly improved scope error logging for event targets and script values.
• Added on_starbase_disabled on action and stopped firing on_starbase_destroyed when a starbase is only disabled.