Stellaris 4.5 'Cygnus' Open Beta updated (bfcc) Notes (7th July 2026)

• Trade League federations now provide free, automatic Commercial Pacts between all member empires.
• Trade League federations now also provide free, automatic Wayline Pacts between all members. (Requires Nomads)

• Added a toggle and selectors in empire creation so you can select your map border and fill colours independently of your flag color.
• Ship Color can now be selected independently from flag colors in Empire Creation.
• Color swatches in the species creator's flag editor and ship-set selector now show the name of the selected color on hover.

Improvement​

• Regular Empires can now cancel accepted contracts after 20 years, with a notification sent to the operator.
• The Dyson Swarm "best systems" list will now always show a variety of systems with different resources, so if you have a dozen physics deposits, they won't hide all of your energy systems. All "best systems" finders now show up to 12 systems.
• Added new event options to the Forever Cruise situation stage events, allowing players to accept temporary economic penalties to affect the situation's direction.

Balance​

• Strike craft and missile defensive modifiers now also affect strike craft and missiles launched from starbases and defense platforms.
• The Cybernetic species trait now provides an additional +5% Job Efficiency.
• Hive minds which encounter genetic defects during cyberization can now choose a cyberisation policy.
• Scientific Arkships now have +5% Deep Scanning Success Chance per Tier
• Your Trade Policy now converts the trade value gained from Commercial Pacts and Branch Offices, just like the rest of your trade value (previously this trade was not run through your policy).
• The "The Collective Self" technology now grants +1 Envoy.
• The "Federation Code" technology now reduces Diplomacy influence upkeep by 25%.
• Increased base knights upkeep by .15 alloys and .15 consumer goods
• Increased soldier alloy upkeep for arkship military zones by 0.1
• Rogue Servitor Forever Cruise Passengers now provide an additional +1% Complex Drone Job Efficiency on top of the base Gestalt bonus.
• Consecrate World changes:
• Consecrate World can now be declared on a curated set of worlds tied to your empire's origin and traits (such as Gaia and relic worlds, and origin-specific worlds like toxic, shrouded, rift, or arc-furnace worlds).
• Reworked the Consecrated Worlds reward — consecrating worlds now grants a deterministic, empire-wide bonus to Unity, Amenities, and Spiritualist Ethics Attraction that scales with the number of Consecrated Worlds (+10% / +20% / +40% at 1 / 2 / 3), replacing the previous randomized per-world outcome.

Bugfix​

• AI and auto-complete ship designs no longer leave weapon or strike craft slots empty after upgrades or power rebalancing.
• Fixed auto-generated ships occasionally receiving two sections in a single section slot.
• Role-based section selection always resolves a valid section, so screen and point-defense ships receive the correct section.
• Harbinger Crystalline Growth Regulators can no longer grow crystals on strike craft that have been launched, and modifiers that increase the armor and/or shields of strike craft no longer render strike craft functionally immune to damage.
• Missile and torpedo armor and shields are now correctly applied in combat, so point-defense no longer ignores them.
• Fixed Gospel of the Masses additional trade value not applying to your branch offices.
• The Branching Out modifier from the Cyberization situation now gives +10% Trader Job Efficiency.
• Automated starbase, waystation, and orbital ring designs now fit armor instead of shields in systems or on stations where shields are negated (pulsars, X-ray binaries, turbulent nebulae, and cloaking modules).
• Fixed Deep Scan uncovering anomalies and archaeology sites far less often than the intended 7% and 3% chances.
• Sero the Younger's Habitable Deep Scan can now uncover resource deposits, anomalies, and archaeology sites instead of only pre-sapients.
• The success chance of Sero the Younger's Habitable Deep Scan now correctly diminishes with repeated scans of the same world.
• Deep Scan resource caches now correctly scale with the Advanced Xenostudies resolution instead of A Voice for All.
• Federation members can now form Commercial Pacts with one another, matching Research Agreements.
• Free and automatic Research Agreements between Federation members now correctly benefit from Research Sharing from Agreements modifiers and satisfy faction demands for having Research Agreements.
• Fixed federation members losing their existing Commercial Pacts with one another when forming or joining a federation. Members of non-trade federations now keep their pacts, while Trade Leagues replace them with the free federation pact (This only applies to Commercial Pacts between federation members).
• Fixed pop and country ethics being permanently and progressively wiped across the galaxy during play.
• What makes a man turn neutral? A lust for gold? Power? Or an error in the pop ethics randomizer?

AI​

• AI empires adopt a fleet doctrine and weapon/defense preferences matching their personality.
• Auto-generated ship designs are now fully regenerated when new technology is researched, allowing them to adopt newly unlocked weapons and switch weapon families.
• AI empires research weapon technologies matching their preferred weapon type more eagerly.
• AI empires research armor or shield technologies in line with their defensive preference.
• Sneak-attacker empires are more likely to research cloaking technology.
• The AI no longer selects battleship, ember, or Stinger XL sections before it has a usable XL weapon.
• The Stinger artillery section is no longer unconditionally preferred over its line section.
• AI empires now fit psionic shields when they can afford the zro, instead of always avoiding them.
• A shortage of one rare or strategic resource no longer blocks the AI from using weapons and components that rely on other rare resources.
• AI empires with stealth fleet doctrines now correctly install cloaking devices on auto-designed ships.
• Psionic shields are no longer equipped on stealth ships that lack psionic cloaking.
• Fixed AI not handling events if they don't have an idle science ship with a leader.
• Fixed AI not declaring war if their naval capacity is too high.

UI/UX​

• Waystations now show the amount of resources collected every month.
• Improved Waystation stockpile tooltips.
• Overlapping list boxes are now properly centered
• Policies are now grouped into collapsible categories (Military, Diplomacy, Economy, Research, Society), with a traffic-light header on each category indicating whether all, some, or none of its policies can currently be changed.
• Added a button to collapse or expand all policy categories at once.
• Military policies can now be reviewed and changed from the Fleet Manager, and research policies from the Technology view.