Stellaris 4.3 "Cetus" Open Beta now available

Hello everyone!

We would like to thank you in advance for your interest in participating in the 4.3 "Cetus" Open Beta, which we are internally referring to as "The Reckoning". This update will attempt to scale back the Economic and Naval power creep in Stellaris - not necessarily to 3.14 levels - but to a new level we feel is good for the future of the game.

Some things that are important to note:

• This is a Work-In-Progress Open Beta, you may find bugs or other issues that should be reported on the Bug Report forums (be sure you include version number, checksum and a save game or screenshot demonstrating the issue)
• Disable your mods (including UI mods)
• Do not start from a non-beta (pre-existing) save
• None of these changes are considered final, and we will continue to iterate on the changes based on Community Feedback

4.3 ‘Cetus’ Open Beta Patch Notes 2025-12-11

Balance​

• The Dimensional Fleet Astral Action has been adjusted to the reduced general fleet sizes.[list]
• Summons a number of Escorts equal to the number of Astral Rifts you have explored, and Cruisers equal to half that number, rounded down.

[*]

Ship Naval Capacity usage has changed significantly.

• Corvettes: 5
• Frigates: 8
• Destroyers: 10
• Cruisers: 20
• Battleships: 40
• Titans and Bio-Titans: 80
• Juggernauts and Colossi: 100
• Maulers: 4/6/8
• Weavers: 8/12/16
• Harbingers: 16/24/32
• Stingers: 32/48/64
• Most ships (including Space Fauna and Event Ships) in general have 5x the Naval Capacity usage they used to.[list]
• Nanite Swarmers are size 1
• TODO: Teeth of the Eater will likely take Naval Cap while you are not at war.
• Increased base and modified Vivarium capacity to work with new numbers
• Galactic Nemesis Marauding ships have 20% less naval capacity usage than their size would normally require. (Corvettes: 4, Destroyers: 8, Cruisers: 16)

[/list][*]

Titan Perdition Beams and Ancient Ruination Glare now deal collateral damage to other ships.

[*]

Armor and Shields have been rebalanced, and now higher tiers also add a small amount of Armor or Shield Hardening as appropriate.

• These grant (tier - 1)% Armor or Shield Hardening

[*]

Higher tier Ship and Component costs and upkeep have generally been increased.

[*]

Crystal Hull plating now also grants flat damage reduction.

• Crystal-Infused Plating:[list]
• S: 50 Hull, -1 Damage
• M: 150 Hull, -2 Damage
• L: 450 Hull, -4 Damage

[*]

Crystal-Forged Plating:

• S: 100 Hull, -2 Damage
• M: 300 Hull, -4 Damage
• L: 900 Hull, -8 Damage

[/list][*]

Frigates are now faster and sturdier, moving at Destroyer speed instead of Cruiser, have +1 Utility and Aux Slot, and use Destroyer sized reactors

[*]

Base Hull for ships have been adjusted.

[*]

The multiplicative damage bonus Torpedoes and Torpedo-like weapons gain has been reduced to 20% of their former values because ship sizes are 5x larger. (Effectively no change.) The maximum bonus has been increased.

[*]

Many sources of Empire Size modifiers have been reduced.

• The base amount of Empire Size generated by pops has been halved.[list]
• Especially things that reduce Empire Size from Pops down to 0.

[*]

The base amount of Empire Size generated by colonies has been increased to 20.

[/list][*]

Effects and modifiers that granted jobs per pop have been replaced with static job numbers.

[*]

After a review of Unemployment mechanics, we felt that they did not add significantly to the game.

• All unemployed pops now demote to Civilian (or Maintenance Drone, as appropriate) at the end of the month.
• Removed the "Rising Unemployment" event chain.
• Living Standards have been adjusted.[list]
• All living standards now include information for Slaves, just in case you find some way to get them unusual and unexpected standards like Utopian Abundance.
• Happiness penalties on lower living standards now apply to Civilians.

[*]

Removed Demotion Time bonuses as they’re no longer relevant.

[/list][*]

Reduced most job-based sources of research, but also reduced tech costs by half. This indirectly improves space-based deposits.

• Many buildings and modifiers that increased job output have been reduced.

[*]

Most stability bonuses have been reduced to one half to one third of their previous values.

• The intention of this change is to make Stability generally more important and harder to pin at 100, and make things like +1 or +2 Stability effects more valuable.

[*]

Most job efficiency modifiers have been reduced.

[*]

Some production modifiers have been turned into job efficiency modifiers.

[*]

Ethics Changes:

• Authoritarian:[list]
• Worker Production bonus is now Worker Job Efficiency.

[*]

Egalitarian

• Specialist Production bonus is now Specialist Job Efficiency.

[*]

Pacifist

• Reduced Empire Size from Pops bonus to -10%/-20%.

[/list][*]

Many sources of Unity production have been reduced.

[*]

Bubbles (and other misnamed variants) no longer uses up Naval Capacity

[*]

Many traits that reduced Housing usage have been rebalanced.

[*]

Increased base naval capacity to 40

[*]

Rebalanced Naval Capacity techs

[*]

Increased the power usage of Torpedoes and Energy Torpedoes on standard ships

[*]

Colony Designations now universally add Job Efficiency to their appropriate Jobs.

[*]

Planetary Ascension now increases the Designation effect by 10% per tier instead of 25%.

[*]

Obsessional Directive now grants +15% Artisan Drone Job Efficiency, and increased Consumer Goods storage. The Commodities Consolidation situation now grants Artisan Drone Job Efficiency and adds Unity production to Artisans (instead of all Unity).

[*]

Ascension situations now progress slower.

• Exceptions: Synthetic Fertility and Endbringers. Tick-tock.

[*]

Resettlement costs are now the same across all strata. (Since demotion is now immediate at the end of the month, this prevents an undesired element of micromanagement where you would want to fire any pops you wanted to resettle.)

[*]

Anchorages now give +5 Naval Capacity, +3 with a Naval Logistics Office.

[*]

Special planetary deposits are now 4x more common.

[*]

The Subterranean Contact Zone now provides job swaps for traders or logistic drones.

[*]

Removed inappropriate researcher jobs from planetary features which provided them.

[*]

Made some unique planetary features more interesting.

[*]

Subsidy Edicts now grant +20% or 10% Efficiency and +0.5 Trade Upkeep

[*]

Readjusted bonuses from Genesis Guides civics

• Halved the modifiers from the Genesis Preserves
• Added an on action to remove the Preserves if you reform your government
• Reduced rewards from colonising from 500 Unity and 25 Influence to 250 Unity and 5 Influence
• Reduced rewards from uplifting from 1000 unity to 250 Unity and 5 Influence
• Ensured that a Genesis Preserve is created only if one does not already exist.
• Unity from Jobs modifier from the Genesis Monument is decreased to 10% if you don't have the civic
• Updated various checks to check for all variants of the civic instead of just the version for regular individualist empires
• Set the strata for newly spawned pre-sapients to actually be pre-sapient instead of No Category

[*]

Adjusted some more upkeep reductions on buildings to match the new economic model.

[*]

More strategic resource production has been moved to the strategic resource producing district specializations. Significantly reduced the amount given for free by the strategic resource deposits without the specialization.

[*]

Tankbound Production Overseers now generate 2 Engineering Research instead of Unity, and grant +2% efficiency and +200 Amenities. They are only granted by Urban districts (or as Clerk swaps).

[*]

Automation Building Changes:

• Assembly Patterns and Construction Templates are now Tier 2 and 4 technologies.
• Automation Buildings are now job specific, and no longer increase their upkeep based on district count.[list]
• Automated Worker or Simple Drone Jobs increase their upkeep by 4 Energy per 100 jobs.
• Automated Specialist or Complex Drone Jobs increase their upkeep by 8 Energy per 100 jobs.
• Automated Elite Jobs increase their upkeep by 12 Energy per 100 jobs.

[/list][*]

Fallen Empire Buildings:

• Are now Planet Limit 1 and automate 25% or 50% of relevant Specialist jobs or 75% or 100% of relevant Worker jobs. These are the only sources of Specialist automation in the new economic system.[list]
• Exceptions:[list]
• Dimensional Replicator now produces 10 of each Strategic Resource, Dimensional Fabricator now produces 25 of each Strategic Resource and 5 of each Rare Resource
• Sky Dome / Empyrean Dome, Shrinkspace Depot / Extra-Dimensional Depot functionality remains the same.

[/list][*]

Adjusted costs, upkeep, and build times of Fallen Empire buildings.

[/list][*]

Fallen Empires now gain +100% Automated Workforce Efficiency

• Awakened Empires gain an additional +500% Automated Workforce Efficiency

[*]

Soldiers are now Specialist (or Complex Drone) jobs with 1 Alloy upkeep.

[*]

Polytechnic Mentors now grant Miners engineering research. The bonuses they grant have been reduced to +0.1.

[*]

Naval Capacity:

• Naval Capacity values adjusted.
• Anchorages now have Trade Upkeep equal to the Naval Capacity they are providing.

[*]

The Nano-Corpses deposit now yields alloys, not rare crystals.

[*]

The Mountain in the Sky deposit from the Gravity Storm has been rebalanced, but allows construction of a unique district specialization.

[*]

The Aquaculture district specialization now provides 50 jobs of each type, not 75.

[*]

Anglers no longer produce additional food.

[*]

Anglers and Pearl Divers are now swapped on wet worlds, regardless of district specializations.

[*]

Factions have 50% reduced output during the first ten years of the game (when factions normally do not exist).

[*]

Parliamentary System now grants +20% Faction Output but has +50% disapproval for unmet demands.

[*]

Increased base Unity production of empires from 5 to 10.

[*]

Civics that provide politician job swaps (Technocracy, Merchant Guilds, Exalted Priesthood) now provide additional jobs to relevant buildings.

[*]

Overtuned origin no longer has early access to genetic ascension.

[*]

The bonus pop growth and amenities provided by Genomic Researcher jobs from selecting Cloning traditions and choices during Biomorphosis have been moved to the Genomic Research Facility building. The amount of amenities granted has been increased to 500.

[*]

Rebalanced all council positions that gave flat resources to jobs.

[*]

Dark Consortium Civic now has a beefier Dark Matter Deposit on game start.

[*]

Pass on Edicts. Many now affect Efficiency.

[*]

Knights are now considered Soldiers instead of Bureaucrats and Researchers.

[*]

Strong, Very Strong, and Weak traits now also affect Soldier efficiency.

[*]

Adjusted effects of Commander and Scientist governors.

[*]

Battle Thralls now get a bonus to Soldier efficiency.

[*]

Disruptors now start with 50% shield and armor bypass at tier 1 which increases to 80% at Psionic Disruptors. They now also deal +25% damage against shields.

[*]

Increased Unity production and Consumer Goods upkeep of Politicians.

[*]

Commander Starting Level civics: Swapped Commander XP Gain for Commander Upkeep Reduction on Distinguished Admiralty. Added Commander Upkeep Reduction to Warbots and Strength of Legions.

[*]

Machine Capital Buildings (tier 2 or higher) now also add Coordinator jobs.

[*]

Reduced the power of the council positions for Chosen civics.

[*]

The Corporate Authority now has +1 Envoy instead of +1 External Leader Pool.

[*]

Clustered Capacity (Virtuality) now gives +75% Virtual Pop Job Eff and -10% per Colony. (Was +175%, -25% per Colony)

[*]

Cybernetic Traits no longer have energy upkeep.

[*]

The Cybernetic and Limited Cybernetic traits now swap half of the base food (or equivalent) upkeep for energy upkeep.

[*]

Media Conglomerate now gives early access to factions, but replaces faction unity output with trade output.

[*]

Rebalanced many species traits

• Erudite[list]
• +30% Researcher job efficiency -> +20% Researcher job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[/list][*]

Fertile:

• +30% Pop Growth Speed -> +20% Pop Growth Speed[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[/list][*]

Vat Grown:

• +33% Organic Pop Assembly -> +25% Organic Pop Assembly[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[/list][*]

Existential Iteroparity

• +30% Pop Growth Speed -> +20% Pop Growth Speed[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[/list][*]

Numistic Administration:

• +33% Trader job efficiency -> +25% Trader job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[/list][*]

Dark Matter Engines

• +40% job efficiency -> +20% job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[*]

Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.02 Dark Matter -> 0.03 Dark Matter

• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more

[/list][*]

Living Metal Augmentations

• Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.01 Living Metal -> 0.03 Living Metal[list]
• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more

[/list][*]

Biomimetic Assembly:

• +50% Replicator job efficiency -> +20% Replicator job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[/list][*]

Matrix Trading

• +50% Trade job efficiency -> +20% Trade job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: Number too big

[*]

Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.01 Rare Crystals -> 0.02 Rare Crystals

• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more

[/list][*]

Mote-Powered Tools

• Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.01 Volatile Motes -> 0.02 Volatile Motes[list]
• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more

[/list][*]

Exotic Fuel Consumption

• +10% job efficiency -> +10% Specialist & Complex Drone job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: General nerf and harmonisation with the next trait

[*]

Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.04 Exotic Gases -> 0.05 Exotic Gases

• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more

[/list][*]

Volatile Mote Reactor

• +30% Habitability -> +10% Worker & Menial Drone job efficiency[list]
• Rationale: General nerf and harmonisation with the previous trait

[*]

Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.02 Volatile Motes -> 0.05 Volatile Motes

• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more and harmonisation with the previous trait

[/list][*]

Rare Crystal Exterior

• +20% Metallurgist job efficiency -> +30% Habitability[list]
• Rationale: Flavour text makes this more appropriate for habitability

[*]

Upkeep per 100 Pops: 0.02 Rare Crystals -> 0.05 Rare Crystals

• Rationale: Makes the cost matter more and harmonisation with the previous traits

[/list][/list][*]

The Arcology Project and districts on Ecumenopoleis now cost alloys instead of minerals

[*]

Partial pass done for some advanced authorities. These will continue in future Open Beta drops.

• Dictatorial Cybervision now grants a flat Cyborg job efficiency bonus and scaling Stability for Enforcers.
• Physiological Transcendency now gives +2 Unity per 100 Politician jobs instead of +3 Unity per 100 Elite pops.
• Dictatorial Cybervision and Homogenous Submission now give Governing Ethics Attraction instead of Authoritarian ethics attraction.

[*]

Reduced difficulty based scaling on the Grey Tempest and Khan. Roaming Tempest fleets may not always have a Mothership on lower difficulties. (Garrison fleets are unchanged.)

[/list]

Bugfix​

• Removed remaining references to pre-4.0 strategic resource harvesting jobs that were converted into job swaps.

AI​

• AI empires will now prefer to have three or fewer underdeveloped colonies before colonizing the next one. (Underdeveloped is defined as having under 1000 pops.)

UI​

• When using Observer mode, Mercenary Enclaves no longer appear in the regular empire list, they're at the end classified as "Minors"
• Unemployment information in the central bar of the planet view has been replaced with information on planet Denizens (Civilians or Maintenance Drones)

Modding​

• Added faction_demands_met_mult and faction_demands_unmet_mult which affect faction approval or disapproval of met or unmet demands.

Where to leave your feedback?

We’d like feedback on what you think of these changes. Where have we gone too hard, what do you like, what have we missed, and so on. As I’ve mentioned, this is still an early build and we’ll be iterating on it until it releases. If (and when) you find something that’s grossly out of line with the rest of the game balance, let us know so we make sure it’s looked at.

Is the challenge level appropriate? Are there more sliders that we should add to galaxy generation, or changes we should make to the base game difficulties?

We've done up a feedback form so that we can get everyone's feedback in the one place, you can find it here.

Please note: This feedback form will be changed for each Open Beta update to ensure we're getting the latest information. Feel free to fill it out every time it comes out.

How to Opt-In

We just put the first part of the 4.3 ‘Cetus’ Open Beta branch up on Steam as "cetus_open_beta". We plan to update this branch again next week.

To access a Stellaris beta, go to your Steam Library, right-click the game, and select "Properties". From there, choose the "Betas" tab, and in the "Beta Participation" dropdown menu, select the "cetus_open_beta" beta branch from the list.

Thank you for playing Stellaris, and thank you in advance for your feedback on the upcoming changes for Stellaris 4.3 "Cetus"!

---

A Note for Linux Users:

The Linux binary at the moment requires a openssl 4 enabled version of curl, this is not provided by Steams base environment, we are currently addressing this.
You can either try and run Stellaris directly if your system has this provided for you or use proton to run the windows version

Run Stellaris directly:

• Right click Stellaris in Steam and select "Properties..."
• Goto "Installed Files" tab and select "Browse..." (this should take you to where Stellaris is installed)
• Find the file "stellaris" and double click it

Run thru Proton:

• Right click Stellaris in Steam and select "Properties..."
• Goto "Compatability" tab and tick the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" checkbox
• Select "Proton 10.0-3" or a suitable version ( https://www.protondb.com/app/281990 for help)
• Update the game and press "Play" in steam