Stellaris 4.5 “Cygnus” is entering its final sprint: developers are already putting together release candidates and showing off preliminary patch notes. At the same time, it’s clear that this update has a record number of fixes in the entire history of the game.
The main change will be the new pop band system. Now, the population will no longer be divided directly along moral and sectarian lines: each group will receive a percentage allocation based on their respective beliefs. Therefore, legacy saves are incompatible with 4.5, and residents’ morals and factions will change noticeably more frequently. At the same time, related mechanisms have also been redesigned, including control and the attraction of various ideologies.
Developers have also expanded automation tools. There will be fleet doctrine affecting autonomous ship design and technology research, as well as separate weapon and defense preference settings. The Federation will gain access to free trade and research agreement laws, and the Nomads will have access to new features, including cosmic generation and the updated Storm Chaser system.
In addition, players will be able to individually select the colors of borders, territories and ships, Dyson swarms will be improved, space station weapons will be redesigned and some new options for situation development will be added. Exclusive Harvest Rights are temporarily removed from version 4.5 – this mechanic requires additional balancing. At the same time, the list of fixes has exceeded the total number of fixes in the two previous record-breaking Stellaris patches 2.0.2 and 3.0.1.
Read the full list of changes here.
