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Stellaris
Stellaris
4.4.2|Jun 16, 2026
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Stellaris 4.4.2 hotfix released (42fe)

2/5 Minor

Forever Cruise situation speed and difficulty scaling reduced alongside a doubled contract grace period and numerous stability crash fixes.

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Key Changes

  • 1Reduced Forever Cruise situation speed and difficulty scaling
  • 2Doubled contract grace period to 24 months for passenger satisfaction
  • 3Fixed multiple crashes related to Waystations and combat ship calculations
  • 4Resolved the Defenders of the Galaxy achievement bug
  • 5Fixed UI crashes when hovering ethics tooltips

All Changes

⚖️Gameplay Balance(3)

  • nerfForever Cruise: Reduced the rate of the Forever Cruise situation speed on all difficulties.
  • nerfForever Cruise: Significantly reduced the amount that the Forever Cruise situation increases based on game difficulty.
  • buffPassenger Satisfaction: Doubled the grace period after completing a crew or passenger contract to 24 months.

🐛Bug Fixes(2)

  • fixDefenders of the Galaxy: The Defenders of the Galaxy achievement should now be completable.
  • fixGame Setup: Fixed overlapping and missing items in single player game setup (Beta branch only).

🛠️Stability(10)

  • fixWaystations: Preventing a waystation UI from crashing in some cases.
  • fixMain Menu: Fixed a crash that could occur when changing the animated main menu background from the in-game settings screen.
  • fixAI: Fixed a crash that could occur while the AI was evaluating which contract to take on.
  • fixWaystations: Fixed crashing on 800p and lower resolutions when clicking on Waystations.
  • fixCombat: Fixed combat crash when calculating ship design states involving null-object placeholders.
  • fixCombat: Fixed crash when escaping combat as an enemy is destroyed.
  • fixAnomalies: Fixed crash in spawn_random_anomaly when orbital fleet has no ships.
  • fixUI: Fixed a crash that could occur when hovering an empire's ethics tooltips, including after that empire was destroyed.
  • fixEmpire Setup: Fixed a crash that could occur when hovering ethics tooltips in the empire setup screen.
  • fixCombat: Fixed a potential crash when opponents were deleted in mid-combat.

📅Coming Soon(1)

  • changeOpen Beta: More comprehensive changes are planned for the upcoming weekend's Open Beta.

Summary

Gameplay Balance

This hotfix primarily targets the 'Forever Cruise' mechanic introduced in the Nomads update. The speed at which this situation progresses has been reduced across all difficulty levels, with a significant reduction in how much game difficulty scales the situation's intensity. Additionally, players now have more breathing room between contracts, as the grace period for passenger satisfaction has been doubled to 24 months.

Stability and Bug Fixes

The 4.4.2 update addresses over ten distinct crash scenarios, ranging from UI interactions with Waystations and ethics tooltips to complex combat calculations. It also restores the ability for players to complete the 'Defenders of the Galaxy' achievement.

← Older[Dev Team] stellaris_test updated with 4.4.2 (checksum 38b9)Jun 15, 2026

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