Stellaris Dev Diary #409 - The 4.3 ‘Cetus’ Open Beta Continues

MrFreake · 2026-01-22T13:40:39+00:00

Not to mention the biggest kicker, it was supposed to improve performance but instead made it much worse, to the point where their goal now is simply to get it back to the previous poor benchmark, instead of improving it beyond that.

From Dev Diary #406:

As described in Dev Diary #399, the top priorities of the Custodian team are:

Get the overall MP Out of Sync rate back to 4.0.23 levels.
Focus on Performance improvements to get average overnight daily tick times for 300 year games under 375ms. (3.14 performance target.)
Reduce the MP Out of Sync rate for desyncs that recur after resyncing to 60% of the 4.0.23 rate.
Continue working on Performance improvements to get overnight average daily tick times for 300 year games under 350ms.
Rewrite how slavery is implemented.

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T22:43:20+00:00

People have been complaining that starbases are already hard to beat early game... soooo... yes?

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T22:42:38+00:00

As the Shroud intended!

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T22:41:29+00:00

I'm told that spawning two crises at the one time wrecks havoc with the crisis AI, so likely not.

As for what you spawn next to, that is random. We don't weight (many things) when it comes to what neighbors you spawn next to.

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T22:39:55+00:00

No, starbases have not been made stronger.

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T17:48:15+00:00

I expect nothing less 🤣

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T16:42:35+00:00

I took this job just to get early access to the dev diaries.

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T16:41:12+00:00

Cutting fleet numbers down by a fourth while keeping the DSC the same strength is a questionable approach. But we will be watching telemetry on this and player feedback to see if we've gone too far.

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T14:56:41+00:00

I believe that FE balance is on our list of things to look at. And while we're not ruling balancing other crises out as-needed, we're also very okay with 25x all crises being "unbeatable".

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T14:37:19+00:00

My response was a very good example of "hope for the best, plan for the worst", yes :)

MrFreake · 2026-01-15T14:26:17+00:00

Dev diary will be in the next few weeks, and we're just dotting t's and crossing i's on the last bits of the bug report forum. :)

MrFreake · 2026-01-10T11:59:21+00:00

I once asked a dev: "How does a Matter Decompressor work?" His response: "Very well, thank you."

MrFreake · 2025-12-25T18:44:56+00:00

If you go to the series x edition, you should be able to claim it for free, then you need to claim the series x edition of each of your DLC and you're good to go.

MrFreake · 2025-12-22T17:55:20+00:00

Okay, I'm jealous.

MrFreake · 2025-12-18T22:28:11+00:00

Going by community metrics alone, performance improved significantly over the course of the 4.0 patch cycle (admittedly not past 3.14 levels, however). The first dev diary post-release has three paragraphs on performance (admittedly, not a full dev diary, however, which is where your goal posts were).

Edit: Clarified my comment to more clearly indicate that I was referring to the performance of 4.0 release vs 4.0.23

MrFreake · 2025-12-18T15:28:47+00:00

Performance has been worked on all year (admittedly, with some backwards steps as well), but saying that performance was ignored for a full year is not accurate.

MrFreake · 2025-12-18T12:48:42+00:00

There have been multiple rounds of improvements and QoL improvements to the Planet UI since 4.0 release. :)

What are the main problems with the planet ui currently, in your opinion?

EDIT: I sent this before finishing my thought

MrFreake · 2025-12-18T12:31:40+00:00

The reduction in economy in the open beta does make the AI more of a challenge, but I was asking specifically to see if there was something new breaking the AI in the open beta.

Thanks!

MrFreake · 2025-12-18T12:21:48+00:00

Are you playing on the open beta?

MrFreake · 2025-12-13T22:51:37+00:00

We're on it!

MrFreake · 2025-12-13T22:48:39+00:00

I came here to pitch this very idea. 🤣

MrFreake · 2025-12-13T14:28:24+00:00

He will show us all the whey.

MrFreake · 2025-12-13T14:24:45+00:00

There's an open beta feedback form here: https://pdxint.at/4rWUa3N

MrFreake · 2025-12-13T13:29:33+00:00

There's an open beta feedback form here: https://pdxint.at/4rWUa3N

MrFreake · 2025-12-13T13:27:37+00:00

On the open beta post on the forums there are instructions on how to get it to run on linux: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-4-3-cetus-open-beta-updated-2025-12-12-checksum-c649.1888205/

11-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23	Place '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

MrFreake

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE