Off the back of its recent Plantoids DLC release, Paradox has launched a series of developer diaries which outline where Stellaris is headed next. Via its Heinlein 1.3 patch—set to arrive in October—the Swedish 4x-meets-grand strategy specialists will focus on “addressing community feedback” as it installs a “large number of interface and quality of life improvements” moving forward.
For example, exploration, while remaining important in the early stages of campaigns, can be automated in mid-late games by way of researching new technologies. “We've said previously that we don't want the automation fully automated away,” explains Paradox. “Though we know that there are are people who want automation options from the very start, we believe that there is always a cost involved in automating core parts of the game experience.”
Rally Points will provide a more efficient way to manage newly built ships. Ultimately, this means you’ll be able to mark any star and war fleet you own as a rally point—meaning that when warships are first constructed, they’ll seek out the nearest rally point instead of hanging around their planet of birth, and will in turn automatically merge with the nearest fleet.
“In addition to changing how newly built ships behave, rally points also alter the 'return' order given to ships—instead of returning to the nearest spaceport, they will return to the nearest spaceport marked as a rally point,” says Paradox. “If no spaceport is marked as a rally point, they go to whichever one is closest, as before.”
The Heinlein patch will also rework Strategic Resources, and will also introduce an ‘expansion planner’ interface that let makes colonisable planets easier to spot—as well as locations for building resource and/or observation stations on. “[This] is currently planned to be a tab in your empire screen,” explains Paradox. “Where you can filter by what you are looking for and easily see the best candidate planet for whatever it is you are looking to do.”
Stellaris’ Heinlein patch 1.3 is due at some point in October, with more of this developer diary series expected in the coming weeks.
In other Stellaris news, a hotfix was issued earlier today aimed at Xeno Integration and special project research. Full details on that can be found this way.
