Hi all, Jamor here. I'm filling in for Wiz this week, as I want my Game Director to focus on post-launch support for Cherryh, our biggest update yet.

Today's dev diary is about 2.0.2_beta: the new build available as an optional beta for Steam users right now (note for Paradoxplaza Launcher users: we're using Steam as our beta testing platform at this time, if you want to try it out please use the Steam key that came with your Plaza purchase).

When we made 2.0, we knew that the scale of changes would be huge, and therefore I budgeted a larger than normal amount of dev time for post-launch support. The objective is to absorb and process player feedback, and perform bug fixes as well as balance tweaks and general improvements. There are almost as many unique play styles as there are Stellaris players out there, and our objective is to hit a good balance point for the maximum number, which you can then further tweak to your own preferences with the new game customization options.

2.0.2 is planned to be a "rolling beta", meaning we will continue to update it at intervals when we have new tweaks/fixes that we want to push to you. Your feedback on it will be crucial for determining the content of the final, official version, so please continue to play and tell us how it goes.

We especially want to make sure we get War Exhaustion/Status Quo Peace right, so that it produces believable and satisfying war results for the greatest number of people. As such, the initial changes in this patch are experimental and we'll continue to iterate on them throughout the test period. Please don't hesitate to give us your constructive feedback.

You can read the Dev Diary in full here [forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Hi all, Jamor here.

Thanks again for all your valuable feedback on 2.0/Apocalypse. Any update this size is going to have a lot of moving parts and we've been taking the time since release to target some high-value fixes. In the interest of getting them in to your hands sooner, I'm doing a 2.0.1 hotfix right now.

REST ASSURED, WE ARE NOT DONE WITH POST-LAUNCH SUPPORT FOR 2.0

Every patch balances completeness with speed, there are more fixes coming when we have time to implement and test them.

Here's the contents of this patch:
Fixed processing/grid amalgamation/livestock purge types being broken
Fixed a bug where a fleet split from its parent would forget the previous hyperspace jump and get stuck in systems with FTL inhibitors indefinitely
Fixed several out of sync bugs in multiplayer
Fixed some missing/broken localization in various languages
Fixed upgrading ships wrongly having their XP deleted
Fixed some UI visibility issues on certain screen resolutions
Fixed misleading costs displayed for building mining/research stations
Fixed Admirals being unassigned from a fleet during combat
Fixed FTL inhibition effect not being removed when you downgrade a starbase
Again, let me assure you that this is just a small package of severe/fast to fix things that I want to get in your hands sooner rather than later. Larger, more comprehensive support will continue in the coming weeks. We know how massive the changes wrought in 2.0 are and your feedback will continue to be critical to make it the best possible experience. Thanks.

We are super stoked for Apocalypse and we are both inspired by your excitement and grateful for your continued support. We love that we have such a great community, and for that reason, we wanted to share something awesome with you and give something back!

I just wanted to let you guys know that we had 4 posters designed specifically for this expansion and we wanted to offer them up to you as a high-quality download for you to do what you will with them (they make a great desktop background, just saying!).

You can find them here [forum.paradoxplaza.com]

We hope you enjoy them.

Roll on tomorrow - who else is excited for release day? :)

1.9.1 beta has been out for a few days now and looks good. It hasn't introduced any new critical issues and contains a number of desirable bug fixes, so I've rolled it out live as the official version now. Make sure you're opted out of any beta versions, and you'll get the update automatically. You may need to restart Steam to force it to check for updates.

Here's a list of the fixes:

- fixed broken tile graphics in colonization and resettlement screens
- fixed issue where the humanoid frontier outpost model was incorrectly swapped with the mammalian one
- reverted a previous GUI fix that caused anomaly windows to display blank or cut off
- fixed issue with human preset and custom empires not spawning at all, as well as the Space Platypus, because that's a travesty
- fixed off-center turret positions on military stations
- fixed the Technocrat VO name not displaying properly in the voice selection screen in Spanish and Russian
- fixed some low-repro possible crashes
- fixed the Plantoids Species Pack being rendered with remarkable brevity in the launcher as simply "Plantoid"
- fixed a crash that happened when you shift-select a fleet and a spaceport, then try to click on the spaceport in the list of selected items

We'll be taking a bit of a break for the holidays and to continue work on the future stuff mentioned in our dev diaries. Stellaris has made great strides in 2017, and we're just getting started: 2018 is going to be massive. Stay tuned.

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about new interface functionalities for navies in the 2.0 'Cherryh' update that we collectively call the Fleet Manager. Please note that the interfaces shown in this dev diary are early WIP versions that have not yet seen an artist's touch, and will look very different in the finished product, meaning that feedback on their look/layout is pointless at this stage. Thank you!

Read the Dev Diary in full here [forum.paradoxplaza.com]

One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind - The Humanoid Species Pack is now available!

Featuring a selection of new portraits, ship models, voiceover sets for VIR & music expand your takeover of the Galaxy the humanoid way.

Find out more here [www.paradoxplaza.com]

You can read the 1.9 patch notes in full here [forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about two topics: Technology in the 2.0 'Cherryh' update, and the release of the Humanoids Species Pack that is coming out today and will be available for purchase around 15:00 CET.

Humanoids Species Pack
We already covered the details of the Humanoids Species Pack in Dev Diary #95, so rather than repeating myself, I am simply going to post the changelog, along with a short excerpt on the new prescripted empire, the Voor Technocracy, that we modeled on the 'loading screen aliens' and which are coming in the species pack along with the portraits, ships, city graphics, new advisor voices and music.

Read the diary in full here [forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Read about it here. [forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Hello everyone and welcome to another Stellaris development diary. Today's dev diary is about the 2.0 'Cherryh' update, and will delve into the long-awaited topic of Doomstacks, combat balance and some changes coming to ship design and components.

Doomstacks
'Doomstacks', the concept of rolling all your ships into a single stack in order to be able to beat your opponent's single stack has long been a popular discussion topic on these forums. It's a fairly common design problem in strategy games owing to the principles of force concentration outlined in Lanchester's Laws: A larger force engaged with a smaller one will not only win the battle, but take disproportionately less casualties. In other words, if a 13k force engages a 10k force (all components being equal so there's no other factors at work), the 13k force will not only win, but will inflict far more than 1.3x the casualties on the inferior force that the superior force inflicts on the lesser force. This, combined with the high decisiveness and lethality of combat in Stellaris (and many other strategy games) means that bringing an inferior force to battle is always a no-win situation: Not only will you lose tactically, you will also lose strategically, as whatever damage you inflict on enemy is outclassed by the damage they inflict on you in turn.

Read the Dev Diary in full here[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

Live Broadcast: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive - 15:00 CET

Live Broadcast: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive - 16:00 CET

This week's Dev Diary is live and is all about the Humanoids Species Pack!

Read it in full here. [forum.paradoxplaza.com]