We've just released the Arctic Dragon Hunter Pet! This magnificent creature has blue skin, blue eyes and spits a stream of freezing air. Check it out by watching the video below or press M to get yours. Click here to watch the video.If you're looking for a nice cold-themed outfit to match the look of your new pet, be sure to check out our ongoing Fire and Ice sale[www.pathofexile.com]! We'd recommend wearing the Arctic Crystal Armour Set, the Arctic Crystal Cloak or the Arctic Wings with the Ice Character Effect. Thank you for your support!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceO4DvlHImkRoads are the lifeblood of any city, so the layout and design you choose will shape the way you build your city. Use these tips from Pres to create realistic layouts that will help you get the look and feeling you want for your city, and design tips to make them look good!Be sure to subscribe for more Cities: Skylines content![pdxint.at]Follow Pres HERE!

We've added horse equipment, Crafting, Inventory, Map and Death screen improvements and various other fixes, balances and improvements ...

• Added grass.distance convar (range 100-200, default 100)
  
• Added headlerp convar (adjusts head snapback speed after alt look)
  
• Added headlerp_inertia convar (smoothens the head snapback motion after alt look)
  
• Added admin refillvitals console commands (fills health, calories and hydration)
  
• Added admin heal console command (same as calling hurt with negative values)
  
• Resdesigned death screen
  
• Can now place a marker on the map
  
• Added screen mode (Fullscreen exclusive, Fullscreen Borderless, Windowed) option to Screen settings
  
• Added FPS Limit slider to Screen settings
  
• Shift-middle mouse drag to split a third of an item stack
  
• Right click the item split bar to type an exact split amount
  
• Middle/shift-middle mouse click the splitter bar to set it to half/third
  
• Left click and drag your inventory screen player model to spin it around
  
• Right click a Quick Craft icon to remove it from the crafting queue
  
• Right click an item in the crafting queue to move it to the start of the queue
  
• Added a Crafting Favourites system
  
• Added keybinds to drop a single/full stack of the the currently selected/active item to the Inventory settings section
  
• Added "unable to repair" reason chat notifications
  
• Added Tesla Coil
  
• Added Horse Wood Armor
  
• Added Horse Roadsign Armor
  
• Added Horse Shoes
  
• Added Saddlebags
  
• Horse breeds actually impact horse statistics
  
• Added Ammunition information panel
  
• Added Electrical wire flow indicator
  
• Added double door skins
  
• Fixed lerp convar exploit (now admin / dev only and clamped to a sane range)
  
• Fixed exploit to disarm landmines from any distance
  
• Fixed exploit to free underwater loot crates from any distance
  
• Fixed exploit to interact with excavator from any distance
  
• Fixed bullet impact glow effect not following vehicles after impact
  
• Can no longer drag/throw items when you're wounded
  
• Can no longer combine world items of non-full condition to get a free repair
  
• Consumable item information panel no longer shows default values the first time you inspect one
  
• Minor Hapis Island fixes
  
• Fixed campfire description
  
• Fixed recycler description
  
• Fixed errors when entering site B (Hapis Island)
  
• Fixed scrap transport helicopter oil rig exploits
  
• Fixed APC crates falling through the ground
  
• Disabled status effects in god mode
  
• Disabled food and hydration depletion in god mode
  
• Disabled radiation poisoning in god mode
  
• There's now a small 0.75 second buffer when the Quick Craft list refreshes to help prevent miss-clicks
  
• Added an Electrical category to the crafting screen and re-categorised all electrical items
  
• Added a Favourites category to the crafting screen
  
• Cleaned up some ambient and foliage sounds
  
• Updated bear sounds
  
• Updated pressure pad sounds
  
• Updated collectible resource sounds
  
• Cleaned up barefoot footsteps a little bit
  
• Evened out and increased attack helicopter rotor sound volume
  
• Electrical wires now have normal mapping and a 3d look
  
• Spas-12 has a slightly higher fire rate
  
• Shotgun slugs are more accurate and do more damage
  
• Shotgun slugs have a closer damage falloff
  
• M92 has a slightly slower fire rate
  
• Simple Sight is now a default blueprint
  
• M39 swapped with L96 as bandit camp
  
• Bradley loot table improved
  
• Bradley is more vulnerable to HV rockets
  
• Bradley top turret has been enabled
  
• Excavator yield increased by 30%
  

Hi everyone!I’m Eladrin, Game Designer on Stellaris, and I’m one of the newer members of the Stellaris team. I joined the team during the development of Ancient Relics, and it’s been a blast. It was awesome meeting so many of you at PDXCON, and getting to hear so many ideas and excellent stories directly from you.Back in Diary 152 and Dev Diary 153, Grekulf mentioned some of the Summer Experimentation that we did - but in today’s dev diary I wanted to talk about one of the things I worked on during the summer - game mechanics for the Lithoids. The Lithoids Species Pack is very sedimental to me. When I wanted to dig deeper into the systems and get my hands dirty in the code, I looked at the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” list, and saw “...Lithoids ate minerals instead of food?” up near the top. This seemed like a solid foundation to start with, and a gneiss stepping stone to get my feet on the ground that fit my apatite - it seemed like a pretty simple change after all.Okay, I’ll stop with the rock puns.There are fifteen Lithoid portraits (and one new machine portrait), some of which have appearances that resemble some of the other phenotypes so you can do some interesting things with Syncretic Evolution.
Look at me! I'm a sparkly space unicorn!The ships use a beautiful asymmetrical crystal design. Remember that the colors of your ships reflect your flag. You can use this to your advantage to make a pretty sweet looking fleet.
This is my favorite Titan in the game.There’s also a Lithoid Advisor Voice. I may have stopped with the puns for now, but there’s no force in the universe that can stop the Lithoid Advisor.Changing the Lithoids to consume minerals was simple enough, but we also wanted to embrace the sci-fi trope of slow growing rock beings living in inhospitable climates. We started by giving them a massive boost to habitability which they still retain today, and a much larger pop growth penalty than they eventually ended up with. For flavor they receive a bonus to Army Health, and we increased their leader lifespans (but have their leaders start somewhat older as well).Every little change leads to several more, however. If a species eats minerals instead of food, their homeworld should start with extra mining districts and no agricultural districts built. In fact, if a species evolved to eat rocks, their homeworld should probably by mineral rich and food poor. But wait, what about if they’re a Syncretic Evolution species, or if a Rogue Servitor wants to start with pet rocks? What about if they want to be a Devouring Swarm?Many minor changes came along with what started as a simple economic change. Just a few examples include the Lithoids being tragically unable to be declared the most delicious species in the galaxy if there are any alternatives, loosening restrictions a bit on Bio-Reactors, modifying the Fleeting trait to be -25 years for Lithoids instead of -10, and a handful of Tradition changes. We also added a few Lithoid specific traits that allow them to generate small amounts of special resources every month.After many rounds of qualitative feedback and a huge number of playdays, we ended up with the following as the Lithoid species trait:The large habitability boost that Lithoids receive allow them to colonize worlds that would be marginal for other species, allowing them to work around their slower pop growth speed. Empires with a Lithoid primary species also begin with Lithoid Monolith blockers on their homeworld that can be removed at a large mineral cost for an additional Lithoid pop. (A Lithoid specific Origin in Federations modifies these a bit, and… we’ll talk more about that in another Dev Diary.)
So very sleepy.The Lithoid trait is automatically applied to any species that uses a Lithoid portrait. For the Xenophiles out there, Half-Lithoids generated by Xeno-Compatibility follow this rule as well, so if the portrait is a Lithoid it will consume minerals instead of food, produce minerals when purged, and so on.We’ve exposed this ability so modders should be able to similarly add phenotype forced traits to species they create by adding trait = "trait_lithoid" to the species class entry. (Replacing the Lithoid trait with their own custom species trait, of course.) I look forward to seeing what you do with it.As for the Lithoid Devouring Swarm… They don’t have precisely the same motivations as a regular Devouring Swarm. While they will still press organics inhabiting the worlds they take into nutritive paste for the Bio-Reactors, their hunger is a bit more ambitious. Renamed Terravores, they operate largely the same way as a regular Devouring Swarm, but once off their homeworld they have an additional planetary decision to consume the habitable worlds of the galaxy, leaving devastated husks in their wake:
Are you going to eat that?Terravores are barred from Terraforming (and thus do not have access to Hive Worlds) and cannot clear the devastation they leave behind, but other empires can clean up after them, though it takes a major effort.Modders will now be able to change the name and description of a civic out for another based on species class, similar to how traditions can be swapped.I’m quite pleased with how the Lithoids turned out, I think they're a real gem. I hope that you all enjoy it just as much.In a few hours the free 2.5.0 patch will be up and the Lithoids Species Pack will be available for shale, so pick it up, rock out, and leave the galaxy gravelling at your feet!#################################################################
######################### VERSION 2.5.0 ############################
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# Balance
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* The Pop Growth Reduction for Bio-Trophies now actually reduces their growth rate. Driven Assimilators now apply their organic growth penalty as a multiplier the same way as Rogue Servitors do, and is now also 50%
* Defensive Platforms placed on Outposts now provide 2 points of Piracy Suppression for their system. The Great Game tradition from the Supremacy tree now also reduces the cost to build Defensive Platforms by 33%###################
# UI
###################
* Shift+clicking on ship count in the Fleet Manager now adds ships up to the nearest unit of ten, using ctrl fills up to the template max size (for realzies this time)
* The Shared Burdens civic will no longer appear by itself in the civics list when you select Gestalt Consciousness ethics but have not yet selected Machine Intelligence or Hive Minded authority
* Added a notification when one empire guarantees the independence of another###################
# AI
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* Automated building now checks that upkeep cost is covered by income###################
# Bugfixes
###################
* Fixed wrong save file being loaded from the resume button in the launcher, caused by a conflict between local and cloud saves
* Fixed the game complaining about mods not being in UTF8-BOM3 for no good reason
* Fixed a potential crash in AI when evaluating market values
* Fixed cases where planetary events could fire multiple notifications
* Odd Factories no longer sometimes block pops from getting purged, because you monsters should be free to purge whatever you want
* Mod load order is now the same as the order in which the mods are displayedYou can also read this Dev Diary and comment on our forums, here[pdxint.at].

Generals!

The fourth and final Feature Breakdown video for Arms Against Tyranny is out NOW over on our YouTube channel!
This one spotlights the new Military Industrial Organizations feature, as well as the upcoming changes to Support Companies!

Make sure to check out the video!


[discord.gg]

Attention Vanguard, 
The Deathless calls once more, letting loose legions of warclones for another trial of ground combat. The latest First Strike playtest kicks off at 12:00 UTC on 25 April and runs until 12:00 UTC on 29 April, opening the doors to EVE Vanguard for the curious and competitive around New Eden. As in previous First Strike events, the playtest is open to all Omega warclones as a part of Founders’ Access.  FOUNDERS LAY A SOLID FOUNDATION
As Vanguard descend in droves, rest assured that not only are you doing your part in the fight for corruption or suppression in New Eden, but also contributing to the ongoing development of the game. EVE Vanguard is a uniquely collaborative effort, with our Founders being instrumental in pointing out areas for improvement, and testing the latest additions as they are implemented. We will continue to collect feedback from players to improve and build upon a solid foundation.   TO THE VANGUARD GO THE SPOILS 
In the upcoming deployment, as in previous ones, there are serious rewards on the line.  
Collecting 1,000 biomass as a member of a squad will be rewarded with the Condor Arkombine Arisen SKIN, completing 25 contracts will net you the Augoror Arkombine Arisen SKIN, and reaching the top 10 leaderboards for successful extractions will see handsome PLEX rewards. Keep in mind that more than 5 friendly fire kills over the course of the playtest will disqualify players from any of these rewards.  Leaderboard Rank PLEX Reward 1 3,000 2 2,000 3 1,500 4-5 1000 6-10 500
Completing the challenge of acquiring 1,000 biomass counts toward a longer-term challenge which will culminate in unique rewards in June. To unlock the big reward, you need to complete at least four of six challenges, so make sure you don’t miss out.  BECOME A FOUNDER 
As in the previous First Strike playtests, the doors to Vanguard will be open to players with Founders’ Access, meaning the only requirement to join the event is to have Omega. For those who haven’t already, this is the perfect time to upgrade, as both the EVE Store and the New Eden Store are offering a bundle including 14 days of Omega access and the Revelation Navy Issue Arkombine Arisen SKIN for a limited time, giving anyone interested in jumping into EVE Vanguard an unmissable opportunity.  KEEP EVOLVING THE WARZONE 
EVE Vanguard is a collaborative effort between developers and players, and your participation is invaluable. We look forward to seeing you in the First Strike April playtest, and continuing to work with you toward the creation of the ultimate FPS experience within the EVE Universe.  
Make sure you tune in to CCP TV[twitch.com] for the Live2Feet stream from 14:00-16:00 on Friday 26 April, which will feature EVE Vanguard. 

We've just released the Settlers of Kalguur Mystery Box, a new mystery box without duplicate microtransactions! Each of the microtransactions in this mystery box has visual behaviour that interacts with your gameplay. Check out the contents of the box in the video below! There are 21 microtransactions that you can find in the Settlers of Kalguur Mystery Box. Each of these microtransactions has a varying number of thematic variations, and you'll never receive a duplicate copy of a variation that you have already opened. For example, if you open one variant of a microtransaction, you may later receive another variant, but you'll never get a duplicate! Check out the full details at {LINK REMOVED}http://pathofexile.com/mystery-box

We've just released the Settlers of Kalguur Mystery Box, a new mystery box without duplicate microtransactions! Each of the microtransactions in this mystery box has visual behaviour that interacts with your gameplay. Check out the contents of the box in the video below! There are 21 microtransactions that you can find in the Settlers of Kalguur Mystery Box. Each of these microtransactions has a varying number of thematic variations, and you'll never receive a duplicate copy of a variation that you have already opened. For example, if you open one variant of a microtransaction, you may later receive another variant, but you'll never get a duplicate! Check out the full details at {LINK REMOVED}http://pathofexile.com/mystery-box

Capsuleers, The ongoing insurgencies are only intensifying, and a decision has been made to keep Vanguard forces on the ground longer. To that end, YC126.11.28 Groundbreak is being opened up to free access and extended until 12:00 UTC on 12 December. This means all access barriers are being removed, allowing all warclones to join, no codes or subscriptions required. In addition, Vanguard contribution to system corruption and suppression in the cluster will be increased over this coming weekend, so make sure to take advantage of this boost while it lasts. If you have been waiting in the wings, now is the perfect time to go boots-on-the-ground in EVE Vanguard, the in-development sci-fi MMOFPS set in the EVE Universe. Furthermore, if you have friends you want to play with, they can now join you planetside for free. Make sure to check the system requirements[evevanguard.com] to ensure you have a good experience, and remember that the game is still in early development, so your participation and feedback can help shape its future.  REWARDS IN SPACE AND ON THE GROUND Besides the glory associated with valor on the battlefield, participating in the current operation comes with additional rewards, in EVE Online and EVE Vanguard. Omega clones who go boots-on-the-ground will receive a crate containing one of 16 Arkombine Arisen SKINs, four of which have not been released before.* To be eligible, you need to deploy in EVE Vanguard for more than 10 minutes. The reward crate will be claimable in the New Eden Store from 23:59 UTC on 13 December.  Additionally,  as warclones who spend more than one hour on the ground during the event will receive a stunning new gun skin, Seykal Fury, at a later date.  *Alpha players who earned their reward before 12:00 UTC on 5 December will also receive their crate at 23:59 UTC on 13 December.  LEARN MORE[evevanguard.com]https://store.steampowered.com/app/1872800/EVE_Vanguard/

by EladrinHello everyone!Today we’re going to take a glance at the Trade and Logistics changes coming in the Stellaris 4.0 ‘Phoenix’ update, then check out some new portraits. Trade and Logistics
Trade as a Standard ResourceThe Trade system introduced in the Stellaris 2.2 ‘Le Guin’ update was raised as an especially frequent point of confusion for many players. UX issues around disconnected trade stations combined with some quirks of being a modifier based system (like ignoring habitability) made some of it unintuitive. The system had a major impact on performance as well, so while examining Stellaris for optimizations, we decided that we wanted to revamp the system.In 4.0, Trade will become a standard advanced resource, generally produced in the same way as before, but will follow all of the standard rules around resource-producing jobs. The Trade Routes system has been removed - any produced Trade will be immediately collected like any other normal resource.
We’ve done some cleanup to the top bar while we were in there.Logistical UpkeepHello, Gruntsatwork[forum.paradoxplaza.com] here, with Eladrin’s UI wizardry done, I shall step in to reveal some of our trade secrets to you.The majority of your trade upkeep will come from 2 sources in the new system.First, local planetary deficits will carry a small trade upkeep, a fraction of the missing resources value on the galactic market. This represents the logistical effort required to commandeer freighters to supply a world that is not self-sufficient and therefore requires resources to be transported in from off-world. Mind you, this will occur in addition to normal deficits, if your entire empire is not capable of supplying those needs either.In short, your planets will either satisfy their own local needs, or require trade to offset the logistics cost.The second major trade upkeep will come from Fleets. Any fleets currently docked at one of your starbases have no trade upkeep.Once your fleets start to move they will gain a small Trade Upkeep, representing the logistical efforts required to support them. This small upkeep will increase if your fleets are in hostile territory – that is territory owned by another empire you are at war with, as supplying them becomes so much more dangerous and space insurance coverage is no joke.In the future, logistical upkeep could potentially be used to counter-act Doomstacking, for example by scaling upkeep with the number of ships in a fleet, dividing by the number of fleets, fleets per system etc, we have no concrete solution yet, but welcome your thoughts.With these new sources of trade upkeep, it is of course important to mention that we will also introduce a new trade deficit. Like Unity, this will not create a Deficit Situation but a country modifier that persists until the deficit is dealt with. Running a trade deficit will reduce advanced resource production (alloys, consumer goods, unity, and research) and all ship weapons damage.Stockpiling Trade and Using Trade in the MarketOur intent is for Trade Policies to continue to exist going forward. Currently, we expect to have half of your net Trade income (after paying Logistical Upkeep) converted to other resources using your Trade Policy, plus any that might otherwise overflow your storage. Some of the current Trade Policies may be tweaked a bit. The rest will go into your resource stockpile as an advanced resource.In addition, the galactic market has been adjusted so that its primary trading resource is Trade. As such, energy is now available on the market as a standard resource. The energy storage cap has been brought to the same level as minerals and food, while Trade’s storage cap has been set to 50.000 at the base level.As we are in the middle of implementation, we are adjusting this as we receive internal feedback and will continue to do so when it is time for our open beta.We will be keeping a close eye on the value of trade as a resource. If necessary, we’ll keep turning the dials to ensure it is an actually interesting resource to focus on.For modders, the main market resource is set as a define and can be switched to something else.Gestalt Empires and TradeRejoice, friends of bugs and bolts, for you too will be able to enjoy the benefits of trade starting with 4.0.As part of the Phoenix update, Gestalt empires will be able to collect trade like normal empires do, from both jobs and deposits.In contrast to normal empires, Gestalt empires will rarely do so with Traders and Clerks, instead their most basic drones, maintenance drones for example, will create trade in addition to their normal resources and modifiers. In addition, they will also have access to Trade Policies, to enrich their common wallet.Of course, with benefits come drawbacks, and so Gestalt Empires will also deal with the logistical upkeep for local planetary deficits and Fleets that are not docked and/or within hostile territory. The Galactic Market will of course also accept gestalt trade as its main resource.In the future, we are also considering Megacorp Gestalt Empires, for your corporate drone needs, but whether we will have time to do that for 4.0 or later remains to be seen.Corporate Branch Office UpdatesFor Branch Offices, we have a plethora of improvements ready for your enjoyment, courtesy of our ever industrious Mr.Cosmogone.Branch office buildings are now all limited to 1 per planet and now give more appropriate jobs to the host planet. They also increase local trade production based on those jobs and their corporate resource output is in turn increased by local trade.Most Corporate Civics now also give bonuses to a specific branch office building, increasing its trade value bonus and receiving Merchant jobs on their Capital from it.Numerous changes have been made to Criminal Syndicates:

• Criminal Empires 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 have had their crime value set to 25 and give one Criminal Job alongside a regular Job.
  
• 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.

Balance-wise, these buildings are more impactful, so branch office buildings now cost influence, and branch offices now take up 5 empire size instead of 2.Oh, and we have also allowed Megacorps to open branch offices on other Megacorps... The influence cost is doubled when built on a planet owned by another Megacorp.Mammalian PortraitsThanks, Gruntsatwork. Now a message from Content Design Lead CGInglis[forum.paradoxplaza.com]: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!
Glass of milk, standing in between extinction in the cold, and explosive radiating growth…
The Gremlin
A regal Hippopotaxeno
My, what big teeth you have.
The secrets of enlightenment are waiting. Next Week
Next week we’ll start talking about how Pops will change and might pull up the new Planet UI. Since the branch itself is still very full of placeholders, we’ll be using the design mockups while explaining the changes.See you then!