If you've ever wanted to have a citizen of the Stellaris universe staring at you from across the room, now's your chance!Stellaris and Makeship have teamed up to bring this war criminal adorable Starfish Plushie to life -- but only for a limited time.
If not friend, why friend-shaped? Get your very own Stellaris Starfish plushie on Makeship[www.makeship.com]!

*Suit of armor not included*Make sure to assimilate this fanatic purifier into your empire while you can[www.makeship.com]!Specifications:
Eyes: 4
Arms: 6
Inches: 11.5
USD: $29.99
Galaxies Ruined: All of them! Read more

by EladrinStellaris is having a free weekend! Tell your friends!
Play Stellaris for free this weekend!We’ve asked the Dev team for some tips to help new players out during their first steps out into the wondrous unknown. Some Tips From the Devs

• Don't forget to unpause the game, but don't be afraid to pause it again if you need time to think. - Eladrin
  
• The different options in empire creation aren’t created equally, some empires will be more powerful than others, but regardless you’ll get more enjoyment out of the game by playing what you find fun (or what you find the idea of to be fun) without looking up the “perfect build”. - Alfray Stryke
  
• Buildings don't produce Resources, Jobs produce Resources! Just because you've built a shiny new Research Lab doesn't mean there's anyone working there. Click the Population tab to learn more! - OK_Television_391
  
• Stellaris has mid-game and end-game crises that you might not be able to defeat on your first try. Each defeat makes your eventual triump...

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Dear Stellaris Fans,Our latest and greatest version of the game, the 3.12.5 patch, is now live and available for download.This patch brings further fixes and tweaks and wraps up our 3.12 + The Machine Age release cycle.
Please find the patch notes below. 3.12.5 PATCH NOTES
Improvement

• Obsessional Directive empires that control a black hole now get an option for safe and secure storage for their commodities.
  
• Reworked how Fallen Empires view empires trying to match their technological level. Unless you're a Scion, any FE level tech you acquire will accrue a stacking opinion penalty with them, that is doubled for the materialist Fallen Empire.
  
• Added new building icons for the Sensorium and Simulation Sites and their upgrades
  
• Species list will not longer show founder species from various contacts that do not even have any presence on any of the planets.
  
• Megastrutures that are supposed to be built outside the gravity well will not be displayed in the list whilte trying to build one on top of...

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by EladrinHello everyone!This week the 3.12.4 hotfix (which fixed a crash related to non-latin letters in usernames) has been deployed to non-Steam platforms.Today I’ve got a preliminary list of changes for the 3.12.5 patch, which we currently have planned for Tuesday, June 18th. 3.12.5 "ANDROMEDA" PRELIMINARY RELEASE NOTES
Improvement

• Democratic Crusaders no longer hate Worker Coops for being Oligarchies
  
• Obsessional Directive empires that control a black hole now get an option for safe and secure storage for their commodities.
  
• Reworked how Fallen Empires view empires trying to match their technological level. Unless you're a Scion, any FE level tech you acquire will accrue a stacking opinion penalty with them, that is doubled for the materialist Fallen Empire.
  
• Added new building icons for the Sensorium and Simulation Sites and their upgrades
  
• Species list will not longer show founder species from various contacts that do not even have any presence on any of the planets.

Balance

• Construc...

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by EladrinHi everyone!The 3.12.3 “Andromeda” patch was released this week, with the following changes:
3.12.3 “ANDROMEDA” RELEASE NOTES Feature

• Added tradition agendas for Modularity, Nanotech and Virtuality
  
• Some megastructures (mostly kilostructures) can now be dismantled if you have the technology to build them and are not at war.
  
• Solar system tooltips now show the arc furnace and habitat potential of a system, if you meet the construction requirements for the megastructures

Improvement

• Added heir titles to Mortal Empire and Bandit Kingdom governments
  
• Added missing heir titles for Imperial governments
  
• Added more character names to the Cyberpunk list
  
• Added tooltips to the Transformation situation to summarize the different ascension paths in the event that you make a choice of which path to select.
  
• Awakened fallen empires now can use the daedalus seal relic.
  
• Completing the Synthetic Fertility event chain will now grant additional robot modification trait points and picks and award a un...

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by EaldrinHello everybody!Last week we released 3.12.2 to the public, and since then we’ve been working on further post release support. Today we’ll be going into some of the things we’re planning for a 3.12.3 release. Currently we’re looking at next Thursday as the tentative release date, but we’ll keep you posted.
Selected Changes and Improvements from the Changelog Following the deluge of feedback from the release of The Machine Age, 3.12.3 will include the following changes:

• Selecting the “physical” path for Synthetic Ascension will unlock the advanced machine traits from the Modularity path for Machines.
  
• Selecting the “virtual” path for Synthetic Ascension will unlock the Virtual Economic Policy from the Virtuality path for Machines. (Though the policy has been rebalanced.)
  
• The unique planetary features added from the Transformation situation are now kept when turning a planet into an ecumenopolis or restoring a shattered ringworld.
  
• Synthetic authorities have been rebalanced.
  
• The ...

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Strap in to your acceleration couches, this one's a going to be a big one. - EHello there!I’m Anton, the Art Manager & Producer on Stellaris, and I would like to welcome you all to this absolute monster of a Dev Diary we have prepared for you!I just want to use this opportunity to mention how amazing it is to work with these fantastic artists on a day to day basis and how extremely proud I am of the team.
We managed to do a lot for this DLC, more than we’ve done for an expansion or DLC ever before.In fact the total logged art work time (I just looked at our stats in JIRA) for The Machine Age is over 2 years and 41 weeks.Truly spectacular. Great job Team!In the last The Art of The Machine Age dev diary[forum.paradoxplaza.com], we showed you (and talked about the process of) a lot of what we had been doing - but far from it all.So get comfortable, take out your favorite snack and get ready to look at a lot of art. Almost everything we did for The Machine Age will be showcased - but first,... Read more

Stellaris Game Director Eladrin here!Earlier this week we released our major expansion for the year and the first “episode” of Stellaris: Season 08 - The Machine Age. The team has worked tirelessly on this expansion, with some (admittedly rough) estimates putting the amount of work that went into this expansion somewhere on the order of 20 man-years. Stellaris 8th Anniversary Trailer The Stellaris team and I are overwhelmed by the Community’s response to The Machine Age. We’ve been watching our Community channels closely over the past two days, looking for both the things that you like, and the things that you dislike about the new expansion. But today, we just want to stop for a second to say: Thank you! Thank you for being part of our Community, for playing Stellaris, for the support you’ve shown us over the past eight years, for being excited when we get it right, and for letting us know when we’ve got it wrong.As an anecdotal example of this, we recently did an AMA on /r/Stellaris ... Read more

by EladrinHello everybody!The 3.12.1 "Andromeda" release with The Machine Age has gone well, but we have some more bugfixes and stability improvements that didn't quite make it into the release version.Since this is a holiday-shortened week in Sweden, we won't be releasing these to the live build until next Thursday. In the interim I've asked the team to put up a Steam Open Beta using the stellaris_test branch with the following changes: 3.12.2 "ANDROMEDA" OPEN BETA RELEASE NOTES Bugfixes

• Added additional checks to prevent fully virtual pops from being created on the lathe
  
• Fix for Hive Mind background unaligned
  
• Fixed Sectors released by Individualist Machines having the wrong ethics
  
• Fixed virtual pops sometimes being created while planets are being colonised
  
• Fixed weapon and strike craft range calculations in ship behavior.
  
• If an active relic gets removed the relic cooldown is now reset.
  
• The paradox titan will now appear correctly in the ship view
  
• Updated Resort Workers, Clerks and Cyb...

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by EladrinHello everyone!It is almost time to upgrade our existence. The Machine Age is coming.Here are the preliminary release notes: The Machine Age Expansion Features The Machine Age[pdxint.at] contains:

• Individualistic Non-Gestalt Machine Empires[forum.paradoxplaza.com]
  
• Gestalt Machine Intelligence Empires (also unlocked by the Synthetic Dawn Story Pack)
  
• Three new Origins[forum.paradoxplaza.com]
  
  • The Technophants and Haruspex of the Cybernetic Creed will guide their flock to the perfect union of flesh and machine.
    
  • A doomed species races against extinction to reach the virtual world in Synthetic Fertility.
    
  • Originally designed to build mighty constructions in space, the Arc Welders must utilize that advantage to the fullest to overcome the deficiencies of their homeworld.
• Six new Civics[forum.paradoxplaza.com]
  
  • Genesis Guides - This society is devoted to the creation of emerging species. As the stewards of evolution's potential, they allocate portions of their worlds to safeguard the d...

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by EladrinHello everyone!Today the art team will show you some of the amazing stuff coming in The Machine Age[pdxint.at] on May 7th. It's available for pre-purchase now, on its own or as part of Stellaris: Season 08[pdxint.at].I'll turn it straight over to them! The Art of the Machine Age (Part I) Hello!My name is Felix and I’m one of the concept artists working on The Machine Age ascension pack for Stellaris. In this dev-diary, we’re very excited to present some art from the new playable species and shipsets that are coming with the DLC. A ton of work has been put in by everyone on the art team, and we’re thrilled to finally be able to show you some!
Portraits Reactive portraits
For the Machine Age, we decided the current system needed improvement to achieve the experience we wanted for ourselves and the players. This resulted in, among other things, an improvement to our portrait system that now allows you to see your species' cyberization progress through several stages. We have also... Read more

by EladrinHello again!The Machine Age will be arriving on Tuesday, May 7th, and is available for pre-purchase on its own or as part of Stellaris: Season 08.Stellaris: Season 08 includes all of this year’s major Stellaris releases at a 20% discount, plus includes the Rick the Cube machine portrait as an immediate unlock. I do a quick rundown of the things that are in it in this video: Today we’re going to look at the new Become the Crisis path, Cosmogenesis. Becoming the Crisis Back in Nemesis, we introduced the Become the Crisis[forum.paradoxplaza.com] Ascension Perk, which let an empire choose to embrace their darkest impulses, manipulating and concentrating fluctuations in the Shroud created by horrific acts in a bid to ascend to a higher existence.That Crisis, now renamed Galactic Nemesis, accumulated a resource called Menace by committing evil deeds in order to advance through its crisis path.Cosmogenesis has a bit of a different philosophy. Where the Galactic Nemesis operates thr... Read more

by PDX-LokeHello!Our latest and greatest patch, 3.11.3, is now live and ready for download.You will recognize this changelog from that of the open beta we made available a few weeks back, just one more crash fix has been included.Please find the patch notes below. STELLARIS 3.11.3 "ERIDANUS" PATCH NOTES Improvement

• The Plasmic trait can now be removed from species if you want to clean up your species tab.

Bugfixes

• Fixed global ship designs country type restriction so awakened empires are not allowed to use ai transports
  
• Fixed refugees happening every day instead of every 90-180 days
  
• Fixed secondary species in random empires not having a habitability trait.
  
• Fixed the Abandoned Gateway event not taking into account ruined gateways from the Galatic Doorstep and Imperial Fiefdom origins
  
• Fixed the accidental nerf to Civilian difficulty
  
• Fixed the Luminary Bloodline not being inherited
  
• Fixing council positions not being kept for Gestalt Consciousness empires after adding civics.
  
• Made removal o...

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by Eladrin Hello Stellaris Cube-munity!Today’s dev diary looks at the civics and “kilostructures” in The Machine Age, as well as looking at a 3.12 “Andromeda” feature - Auto-Modding.As with all of our previews, some of this is still in development, so there are still some placeholder icons and some details may still change before release. (Which is good, since it lets us incorporate some of your feedback.)
The Civics of The Machine Age Let’s go through each of the new civics that are coming in The Machine Age in detail.Guided Sapience civics
The Guided Sapience civics focus on coexistence with natural or created pre-sapient species and the environment around them. Their homeworld and Genesis Ark colony ships uplift some of the most promising local wildlife to pre-sapient status, creating a Genesis Preserve that increases Society Research and Unity.The bonuses from the Genesis Preserve are doubled on Gaia worlds.
Not listed in these screenshots, but other “hostile” civics like Devouring S... Read more

by EladrinHello again!Today we’re looking at some general gameplay changes being made to Machine Empires, Individualistic Machines, and the new Machine Ascension Paths. Some of these still include placeholder assets, and values will continue being adjusted until release.Take it away, @Gruntsatwork[forum.paradoxplaza.com]. Machine and Synthetic Gameplay Changes History Traits
One of the first things you’ll find in The Machine Age when creating a Machine empire are the history traits we’ve added for Machine species. These 0 point traits let you choose a little more of your backstory - these define your original purpose.Were you originally created as Research Assistants, Conversational AI chatbots, Workerbots, or perhaps a domestic servant Nannybot meant to make life easier and pass the butter? Six backgrounds with relatively minor bonuses are available for you to choose from. These are available to both gestalt and individualistic machines.You’ll find a handful of other new traits or vari... Read more

by EladrinHello everybody!Today, we’ll go through the three Origins, Ascension Situations, and advanced government Authorities in The Machine Age expansion. The Cybernetic Creed Rejoice, for the The Machine Age beckons!It's your digital prophet, Gatekeeper, dialing in to decode the mysteries of The Machine Age's upcoming Origins.Embarking first on our divine odyssey of silicon and the soul, I will introduce you to Cybernetic Creed, a spiritualist fast track to Cybernetics. Your spiritualist pops and leaders will start with the Ritualist Cybernetics Trait, representing your people's long dedication to attempting the perfect fusion of flesh and steel.

Eschew the mundane traditionalist factions of more standard empires for a quartet of Creeds, each a pillar of your economy and spiritual ethos.Though united in their quest for divine fusion, harmony is a rare commodity among the Creeds. Dissonance and debate fuel their fiery passion for transcendence, and often, you will be asked to make cho... Read more

by PDX-LokeHello,Our latest patch is now live and ready for download, fixing most but not yet all of the issues reported from the 'Eridanus' release last week.Please find the patch notes below. STELLARIS 3.11.2 PATCH NOTES
Balance

• The Opener for Domination now gives +5% Worker Output and +5% Slave Output instead of +10% Slave Output so Egalitarians and Xenophiles aren’t sad.
  
• Versatility Operational Proxies now gives +1 Unity production to Maintenance Drones so that Rogue Servitors aren't left out.
  
• Decreased the cost to study (-25%) and pacify (-40%) space fauna.

Bugfixes

• Ensure dead leaders are properly removed from their location so that new leaders can replace them.
  
• Fixed Federation Emissaries and GalCom Delegates not assigning correctly and not being replaceable when dead.
  
• Acquiring the Colonization Drones from the Chemical Wasteland Astral Rift will no longer lead to discovering Noxious Swamps (or other natural blockers) on Habitats (or other planets that shouldn't support these blo...

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by EladrinHi everyone!Today we’ll be taking a look at the state of the game, the upcoming 3.11.2 patch, talk about the Subscription FAQ, look at the Q&A transcript, and give a taste of what’s next.Let’s get to it. State of the Game The Stellaris 3.11.1 “Eridanus” update was released last week, and I’m happy to say that the build appears quite stable crash-wise.The number of crash reports is very low for a release, with approximately 90% of the ones we are getting being due to mods that haven’t been updated. Of these, more than half are specifically related to mods that affect the Galaxy Settings screen. Metrics so far show that Multiplayer seems to be significantly more stable than 3.10.4 as well, though an issue has been raised regarding observer mode causing major performance issues in multiplayer that we're currently looking into.The Custodian Team is currently working on a 3.11.2 update including some of the things that you’ve all reported, preliminarily scheduled for release next ... Read more

by PDX-LokeHello fellow stargazers,The 3.11.1 patch is now live and available for download.Please find the changelog below.Enjoy! 3.11.1 “ERIDANUS” CUSTODIAN UPDATE RELEASE NOTES
Feature

• Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs slider added to galaxy generation. This slider adjusts technology costs based on tier and game difficulty.

Improvements

• Added notification message when new pop settles in zeya (Gaia planet in azilash)
  
• Added the Seedom system.
  
• Allowed conversion between Sovereign Guardianship and Corporate Protectorate civics
  
• Dimensional Locks now forbid access to countries without communications
  
• Every participant in a war now gets a truce with the others after it ends, even if they were on the same side
  
• If you have a colony in a system when pre-FTLs become space faring you can apologize and annex them
  
• Progenitor Hive speed malus and bonuses now only affect military ships, removing the need of science ship escorts
  
• Technology and Tradition costs are now distinct sliders in galaxy setup...

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by EladrinHello everyone!We’ve hit our code freeze, so barring unforeseen circumstances, the 3.11 “Eridanus” update will be released next Tuesday, on February 27th.
Preliminary Release Notes As promised, here are the preliminary release notes. Release Notes prefaced with a ¤ symbol had community involvement from our modders, and I’ve placed changes that have been merged since last week’s dev diary at the end of each section and marked them with a §. 3.11 “ERIDANUS” CUSTODIAN UPDATE PRELIMINARY RELEASE NOTES
Feature

• Difficulty Adjusted Technology Costs slider added to galaxy generation. This slider adjusts technology costs based on tier and game difficulty.

Improvements

• Added notification message when new pop settles in zeya (Gaia planet in azilash)
  
• Added the Seedom system.
  
• Allowed conversion between Sovereign Guardianship and Corporate Protectorate civics
  
• Dimensional Locks now forbid access to countries without communications
  
• Every participant in a war now gets a truce with the others a...

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