Hello Stellaris: Console Edition Fans!
Expansion Pass Four, Federations, and the free 2.8.1 Update is less than two weeks away!
I’m also happy to announce we are starting weekly Console Edition Streams! Later today at 2:30 PM CEST we will be streaming the first-ever look at Federations and Stellaris 2.8.1 for Console Edition. You can catch the stream on the Paradox twitch.
I know I said last week we would be talking about new Megastructures, and the Juggernaut, however, I was recently sent a document from Tantalus outlining Console Edition-specific quality of life improvements... And well, to be honest, it’s too good not to share. So today we’ll be talking about Console-Specific QoL improvements that are included in the free 2.8.1 “Butler” update coming on June 17th, alongside Federations.
New improved Tutorial
The original tutorials are awkward to follow and hidden in a submenu that new players might not be able to find easily. Tutorials now remain on screen in the bottom-left corner, and we’ve updated some of them for the 2.8 release. Previous tutorials are shown in the Outliner, if you need a reminder of how to accomplish previous tasks.
Galaxy Map Radial Menu
You can now select fleets and other objects directly from the galaxy map. Hovering over a star and holding X (on Xbox) or Square (on PS4) causes a radial menu to appear, with an entry for important objects (Fleets, Planets, Megastructures, etc) that are in the system. Selecting an object from this radial menu will bring up that object as if you’d clicked on it from the system view. We’ve included lots of extra information in this menu, as well as some shortcuts for selecting All Fleets or All Transports.
Galaxy map
We’ve also made the icons on the map clickable as well, this allows for faster checks of wormhole connections or jumping to a system owner’s diplomacy page.
Outliner Improvements
We’ve also noticed that some of you (and some of us!) have a difficult time finding Megastructures that have started construction. To make it easier on everyone, we’ve added Megastructures as a new category in the Outliner. The outliner will show the type of megastructure, the system it’s located in and its current upgrade status.
Empire Creation
In order to improve the flow of empire creation, empire tabs will now be colored based on if the specific tab is blocking the game from proceeding to galaxy generation. In addition, the trait option no longer needs to be revisited when changing species, origin, or ethos that add or remove traits. The game will auto-select the correct trait based on species, saving you having to go back and “look” at the Species Traits in order to remove a species-specific trait.
Galaxy Generation
We’re aware the game can get quite slow on previous generation hardware with certain galaxy configurations, and some players might want to avoid those options to improve performance. We’ve added another line to the Galaxy Size (Large) and Xeno-Compatibility (On) tooltips: This setting may have a negative impact on game performance.
It’s important to note that 2.8.1 does come with other “under the hood” performance improvements as well, and based on our internal testing runs faster than 2.6.3 on previous generation hardware, although your experience may vary depending on galaxy settings and your specific hardware.
![warning].png](https://forumcontent.paradoxplaza.com/public/715104/warning].png "warning].png")
Renaming Vassals and Heirs
We know you love renaming things! The Government tab now allows the Ruler and Heir to be renamed by navigating to the bottom-left corner and selecting Rename. There is also an option to rename a Vassal at the time it is created from a Sector.
Multiplayer voice chat self-mute
In the voice chat menu in-game, when the player is viewing their own options, we’ve added a tooltip to explain the player is muted. We have also added a button to mute your own microphone from the voice chat menu, similar to how other players can be muted.
Searching Systems
While searching known star systems, the list now defaults to showing all known systems, with the text box still available to filter the list, and the ability to skip forwards/backwards a page at a time using the shoulder buttons. The flag for the owning empire is now also displayed in the list. Display results also list System - Planet as appropriate.
Trade Routes
When in Trade Routes mode, the cursor now displays trade information for every system (not just trade hubs). This allows you to see a detailed breakdown of the trade going through a specific system on that trade route, including losses to piracy.
The Console Edition “Butler” 2.8.1 free update also comes with a host of fixes for other crashing and out-of-sync issues, as well as many other bug fixes for issues that have cropped up since the 2.6.3 update. We hope you’re all as excited for these changes as we are, and we can’t wait to give you your first glimpse at 2.8.1 and Federations this afternoon at 2:30 PM CEST on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!
Be sure to join us again next week where we will be discussing the New Megastructures and the Juggernaut (I swear!).
Expansion Pass Four, Federations, and the free 2.8.1 Update is less than two weeks away!
I’m also happy to announce we are starting weekly Console Edition Streams! Later today at 2:30 PM CEST we will be streaming the first-ever look at Federations and Stellaris 2.8.1 for Console Edition. You can catch the stream on the Paradox twitch.
I know I said last week we would be talking about new Megastructures, and the Juggernaut, however, I was recently sent a document from Tantalus outlining Console Edition-specific quality of life improvements... And well, to be honest, it’s too good not to share. So today we’ll be talking about Console-Specific QoL improvements that are included in the free 2.8.1 “Butler” update coming on June 17th, alongside Federations.
New improved Tutorial
The original tutorials are awkward to follow and hidden in a submenu that new players might not be able to find easily. Tutorials now remain on screen in the bottom-left corner, and we’ve updated some of them for the 2.8 release. Previous tutorials are shown in the Outliner, if you need a reminder of how to accomplish previous tasks.
Galaxy Map Radial Menu
You can now select fleets and other objects directly from the galaxy map. Hovering over a star and holding X (on Xbox) or Square (on PS4) causes a radial menu to appear, with an entry for important objects (Fleets, Planets, Megastructures, etc) that are in the system. Selecting an object from this radial menu will bring up that object as if you’d clicked on it from the system view. We’ve included lots of extra information in this menu, as well as some shortcuts for selecting All Fleets or All Transports.
Galaxy map
We’ve also made the icons on the map clickable as well, this allows for faster checks of wormhole connections or jumping to a system owner’s diplomacy page.
Outliner Improvements
We’ve also noticed that some of you (and some of us!) have a difficult time finding Megastructures that have started construction. To make it easier on everyone, we’ve added Megastructures as a new category in the Outliner. The outliner will show the type of megastructure, the system it’s located in and its current upgrade status.
Empire Creation
In order to improve the flow of empire creation, empire tabs will now be colored based on if the specific tab is blocking the game from proceeding to galaxy generation. In addition, the trait option no longer needs to be revisited when changing species, origin, or ethos that add or remove traits. The game will auto-select the correct trait based on species, saving you having to go back and “look” at the Species Traits in order to remove a species-specific trait.
Galaxy Generation
We’re aware the game can get quite slow on previous generation hardware with certain galaxy configurations, and some players might want to avoid those options to improve performance. We’ve added another line to the Galaxy Size (Large) and Xeno-Compatibility (On) tooltips: This setting may have a negative impact on game performance.
It’s important to note that 2.8.1 does come with other “under the hood” performance improvements as well, and based on our internal testing runs faster than 2.6.3 on previous generation hardware, although your experience may vary depending on galaxy settings and your specific hardware.
Renaming Vassals and Heirs
We know you love renaming things! The Government tab now allows the Ruler and Heir to be renamed by navigating to the bottom-left corner and selecting Rename. There is also an option to rename a Vassal at the time it is created from a Sector.
Multiplayer voice chat self-mute
In the voice chat menu in-game, when the player is viewing their own options, we’ve added a tooltip to explain the player is muted. We have also added a button to mute your own microphone from the voice chat menu, similar to how other players can be muted.
Searching Systems
While searching known star systems, the list now defaults to showing all known systems, with the text box still available to filter the list, and the ability to skip forwards/backwards a page at a time using the shoulder buttons. The flag for the owning empire is now also displayed in the list. Display results also list System - Planet as appropriate.
Trade Routes
When in Trade Routes mode, the cursor now displays trade information for every system (not just trade hubs). This allows you to see a detailed breakdown of the trade going through a specific system on that trade route, including losses to piracy.
The Console Edition “Butler” 2.8.1 free update also comes with a host of fixes for other crashing and out-of-sync issues, as well as many other bug fixes for issues that have cropped up since the 2.6.3 update. We hope you’re all as excited for these changes as we are, and we can’t wait to give you your first glimpse at 2.8.1 and Federations this afternoon at 2:30 PM CEST on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive!
Be sure to join us again next week where we will be discussing the New Megastructures and the Juggernaut (I swear!).
