Stellaris

Paradox has pushed a fifth update to the Stellaris 4.5 'Cygnus' open beta branch, authored by Eladrin and published under the handle PDX_ladydzra. The patch is comparatively broad, touching UI presentation, station design, faction politics, and psionic leader traits.

What changed

Starbases & stations

Starbase, Orbital Ring, and Waystation weapon modules are now weapon-type-specific — covering lasers, mass drivers, swarmer missiles, particle launchers, psionic torpedoes, scourge missiles, and several strike-craft hangars — each gated by the matching weapon technology and automatically upgrading to the latest tier.
The Starbase Weapon Preference policy gains Explosive and Strike Craft options; automated station designs build modules matching the chosen preference, or follow the fleet's Weapon Preference when set to Match Fleet.

Factions

Overall pass to faction and ethic attractions, improving behaviour for small pop groups and concurrent factions.
Promoting or suppressing a faction now affects its attraction.
Factions sharing ethics can be promoted and suppressed independently.

Psionic & special empire balance

The Cradle of Souls maximum-intensity aura surge no longer builds defence platforms; instead it distributes Trust, Favor chances, Loyalty (subjects), Cohesion (federation members), and a crime/deviancy-reducing "Cradle's Serenity" buff to the patron's colonies. The passive starbase fire-rate bonus is removed.
The Instrument and Cradle Chosen psionic leader traits now grant applicable bonuses to Gestalt and Nomad empires rather than slave-workforce, faction, and friendly-territory bonuses those empire types could not use.
Nomad empires can now benefit from Composer of Strands, Whisperers in the Void, and End of the Cycle Greatest Patron accords, with Arkship-appropriate rewards.

Other

Flag emblems are now correctly centred within the Empire's Flag hexagon frame.
Adaptive Evolution approach effects will display as active situation effects rather than only appearing in a tooltip.

Taken together, the patch meaningfully expands viable playstyles for Nomad and Gestalt empires while giving all players more granular control over automated station armament.

Paradox has released Stellaris 4.4.5, codenamed 'Pegasus', available now on Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Store.

What changed

The headline addition is a Resource Abundance slider in galaxy settings, ranging from 'Scarce' to x5 in 0.25 increments. The patch notes explain that x1 approximates the resource levels of v4.3, while x5 reproduces the denser 4.4 distribution; the default is set to x2. The developers acknowledge the framing is "a little confusing."

Fleet and construction automation received significant expansion:

Waystation Voidlure modules added for Waystations and Arkships, with the Arkship variant allowing right-click luring of space fauna to a specific system.
Fleet automation now offers per-action options; Nomad Arkships and Logistic Ships can fine-tune Harvest, Strip Mine, and Deep Scan behavior in granular detail.
Automation settings can be saved as defaults per ship type and applied fleet-wide; each fleet retains its last-used settings.
Construction Automation gains options for Mining Stations, Research Stations, Observation Posts, and Special Projects.
An Explore automation order has been added to Arkships, which will attempt to navigate to Points of Interest.

On the quality-of-life side: Space Fauna now disable Waystations rather than destroying them (re-enabling on departure or death); the Details map mode cycles through three states instead of two; and the game will recalculate species rights on save load.

A fallback event has also been added to the CFL tournament to prevent fleets from becoming permanently unrepaired if the event runs past three years.

Taken together, the patch trades a blunt resource overhaul for a tunable one — a meaningful concession to players who found 4.4's abundance either too sparse or too generous.

Should you look into this?

Our coverage

Stellaris 4.5 'Cygnus' Open Beta Update 5 Refines Starbases, Factions, and Psionic Balance

What changed

Stellaris 4.4.5 'Pegasus' Adds Resource Slider and Deeper Fleet Automation

What changed

Stellaris 4.5 'Cygnus' Open Beta 2 Arrives Early with Save-Breaking Pop Overhaul

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