Sci-fi grand strategy game Stellaris has received a new set of changes, as revealed in its 4.3.3 update patch notes, including the addition of naval capacity and command limit sliders to its advanced galaxy settings menu.
The smaller update builds on the chunky 4.3 Cetus patch, which went through a lengthy open beta stage that helped “avoid many of the major issues that often follow a release,” allowing Paradox to largely focus on “continued bugfixing and some balance adjustments.” in subsequent patches.
Stellaris 4.3.3 Update Patch Notes
As part of the aforementioned balance tweaks, Stellaris’ 4.3.3 patch makes Voidworms less of a nuisance on the Civilian and Cadet difficulties while increasing the efficiency bonus of several buildings by 10%.
Below, you can find the full Stellaris 4.3.3 update patch notes, as shared by the developer on the Paradox forums:
Improvement
- Added Naval Capacity and Command Limit sliders to Advanced Galaxy Settings.
- These range from x0.5 to x5.0 and are multiplicative with all other modifiers in the game. (Warning: Increasing Naval Capacity will have late-game performance and balance implications. Changing Command Limit will have balance implications.)
- The Naval Capacity slider does not change the Naval Capacity hard cap of 9999 or Command Limit hard cap of 1000.
Balance
- Increased the bonus on a number of buildings that provided 5% efficiency bonuses to 10%.
- Affected Buildings: Slave Processing Facility, Orbital Slave Processing Hub, Administrative Complex and its many variants, Data-Driven Theorem Facility, Distributed Design Center, and Metallurgical Research Lab.
- The Cyborg version of Learning Algorithm now grants +1 effective leader skill level instead of +1 councilor level.
- Vaults of Knowledge now grants +1 leader trait pick. The Memory Vaults building no longer provides unity, but instead grants +1% Monthly Unity per Destiny trait. Its energy upkeep now also scales with Destiny traits.
- Planned Polymorphism bonus has been reduced from 15 to 10%.
- Soldiers, Battle Thralls, and Warrior Drones now provide the same Naval Cap (4) for the same upkeep (1 alloy).
- The Thrall World modifier now also reduces Alloy Upkeep of Soldier Jobs (i.e. Battle Thralls) by 25%.
- The Lavafalls planetary modifier now provides 0.2 alloys per 100 thermoforger instead of 0.02.
- The Evaluator job has been added to the list of Influential Jobs.
- Increased the Lifespan bonus from the Luminary trait from Under One Rule from +40 to +60, so they are more likely to survive to Ascension.
- Weakened Voidworms on Civilian and Cadet difficulty.
- Empire-designed Space Fauna defensive components are now scaled to be 80% of Bio-ship components.
- Space Fauna Crystalline Plating now also includes the damage reduction effect. Increased their hull modifiers to match the standard variants. The Space Fauna XL variant gives even more of both.
- These are massive buffs and may require additional balancing if we overshot the mark, considering Space Fauna gain additional bonuses from rarity.
- Removed some mutations from Frenzied Voidworms (on all difficulties) due to these changes.
Bugfix
- Planetary Automation should now reliably work. (If it’s not doing anything, it’s often due to the Prevent Deficit Construction setting.)
- Automation will once again build districts, and will build buildings or districts that do not directly add jobs (like Mineral Processing Plants or City Districts) if they are in the build list for that type of colony.
- Reduced the number of civilians necessary to trigger Automation checks to 50.
- Planetary Automation is generally recommended for colonies focused on a single resource and not critical planets like your capital or special worlds. We recommend selecting the Planetary Designation manually and disabling the “Prevent Deficit Construction” toggle.
- Starbases no longer receive double armor nor propagate their armor to all of their defense platforms.
- WARNING: By fixing this bug, some of your Starbases may be much weaker than they were before! Be prepared to fortify the border!
- Fixed a bug that was preventing exceeding your Naval Capacity from applying the penalty to ship upkeep.
- Fixed housing reduction from virtual trait not applying to individualist machines.
- Fixes the soundtrack CSV metadata for the Original Game Soundtrack and standardizes file naming across mp3/flac formats. The CSV had incorrect track ordering, wrong track names, and missing qualifiers for bonus/alternate takes. File naming was inconsistent between formats and across discs.
- Fixed Imperious Architecture not providing bonus to the Reassembled Ship Shelters or the Hive Capital Buildings
- Fixed an issue where the AI would lock itself into buildings two fortresses over and over
- Fixed an inverted trigger on the Telepathy technology
- Adjusted the trigger for the Extradimensional Experimentation planetary decision so it cannot be enacted if you’re missing a Data Driven Theorem Facility
- Fixed the logic for Artisan stations being destroyed. They will no longer claim to be destroyed forever when they still have stations around.
- The Specialist Training tradition now properly works for Gestalt empires
- The Take Point tooltip now properly explains that it is only active during wars
- Updated the pop buying Numistic Order event to 4.0 pop numbers
- The White Hell anomaly will now properly add a physics deposit.
- Fixed the modifiers from the Psionic Disease event. They now grant Medical Worker bonus workforce.
- The Synaptic Lathe no longer turns into a broken planet after being destroyed by a Star Eater
- The Ragged Flags planetary modifier from the pre-ftl plague situation now has a duration and will eventually expire
- Fire cult modifier now has localization instead of an empty string
- Fixed the planet killer component “Planet Smelter” (Infernals DLC) not having a cooldown or charging-time
- Removed tech_federat\342\200\216ion_code.dds from the game, filesystems not supporting UTF8 has some issues with it (should not be there either)
- Fixed cases of the Cyborg trait not being added to Driven Assimilator rulers
- Fixed Tier 6 Battleship reactor having incorrect resource costs
- Fixed AI empires being unable to build Bioships due to missing shipyard starbase type condition
- Updated the tooltip of the Ministry of Culture selling event to 4.0 standard
- Fixed the Thought Pre-emption edict increasing job upkeep instead of reducing it
- Fixed Aerospace Adaptation upkeep modifiers not being correctly applied and removed via the Biogenesis event chain
- Fixed Missing localization when manually using Hyper Relays
- Fixed Terraforming for Gestalt AI initiating concurrent hive/machine worlds terraformings leading to economic struggles
- Fixed Permanent Employment civic producing zombie pops stuck as Specialists or Elites with no valid job
- Fixed incorrect conversion percentages displayed in Trade Policy tooltips for Consumer Benefits, Marketplace of Ideas, Trade League, Holy Covenant, and Mutual Aid
- Augmentation Bazaar and Corporate Vampires are now mutually exclusive
- Fixed Sentinels or Prethoryn Scourge-occupied planets retaining their purge type permanently after the Scourge is defeated.
- Adjusted AI Unity budgets so they won’t always hold a third of their Unity in reserve just in case they get a Shroud blocker.
- Guardian Matrix now also receives the Colony Empire Size penalty reduction all other Sovereign Guardian civics got in 4.3.2.
- Crime Automation now increases jobs 10 at a time (or reduces them 1 at a time) to hit the “sweet spot” faster to better avoid crime events.
- Tier 0 shields no longer grant an army bonus. That’s only intended for techs you actually research.
- Sapient, Autonomous, and Precognitive Siege Computers now both have +80% Damage vs. Starbases and Bombardment Damage. (Precognitive Siege Computers retain their Tracking bonus, the other two retain their Evasion bonus.)
- Non-Gestalts on Shattered Rings now have access to the Generator World colony designation
- Fixed starbase hull/armor regeneration bonus applying incorrectly.
- Resolved an issue causing nested tooltips not to stick
- Voidworms will now eventually stop bombarding a planet. Previously, if they could not find a good route home, they’d abort that order, see this delicious planet right next to them, and go for another round.
- Voidworms will use Experimental Subspace Navigation to get home if absolutely necessary.
AI
- Fixed the AI’s tendency to send fleets into much stronger forces.
- Edited AI economic plans and budgets to work better with the 4.3 ruleset.
- Improved AI weighting and decision-making around Urban Districts.
- AI now realizes that Wilderness Harmonic Cores and Singing Cliffs produce Unity, Moltguts produce Alloys, and Threadways produce Trade.
- The AI will no longer infinitely build three Strongholds on a planet, only to immediately destroy them and start building them again.
- Fixed an issue where ships using the Swarm or Siege combat computers would repeatedly break off their attack runs and return to fleet formation when engaging enemies with significantly longer weapon ranges. Swarm and Siege ships now correctly pursue and maintain close-range combat even when the enemy fleet is maneuvering at long range.
- Ships actively engaged with an enemy vessel no longer disengage simply because the enemy fleet flagship has repositioned during the fight. A ship will now only break off its attack if it has drifted far from the specific target it is engaging, rather than reacting to unrelated fleet-level movement elsewhere in the battle.
Stability
- Fixed more rare threading issue with modifier names using wrong memory model for synchronization in threaded context.
- Fixed an OOS between win and non-win machine when using a picket computer during a fight
- Fixed division by zero in particle system propagating NaN down the system and then exploded in CTD
- Fixed faulty logging of invalid/corrupted assets causing stack error resulting in CTD.
Work on Stellaris 4.3.4 is already underway, with the Custodian team primarily focused on bugfixing and AI, while the programming team targets multiplayer stability.
For the latest gaming news, follow GameWatcher on BlueSky, check out our videos on YouTube. We sometimes include affiliate links in our posts, which grants us a small commission, thank you. Please support independent Games Media. ❤️
