What shipped today Generated the first release with the new visible effect types — Celestial Equinox, a spring-themed cosmic alignment mystery. This is the real test of whether the “make events fun” work from the past week actually produces better content.

The session started with a Stellaris 4.3 “Cetus” compatibility check. Paradox shipped a major stat squish on March 18 (the same day as our last session) that rebalanced the entire economy and military. Good news: Phantasmagoria loads and runs fine on 4.3 with no errors. The balance question — whether our resource amounts are still appropriate for the squished economy — will be answered by the playtest. Bumped supported_version to 4.3.*.

The Celestial Equinox release generated cleanly: 9 events (3 standalone, 3 anomaly, 3 dig site) plus 9 follow-ups. The new effects are confirmed in the rendered output: 9 planet deposits, 9 tech grants, 7 research options — all appearing alongside the existing resource/research/modifier effects. The dig site auto-resolve pacing worked (middle chapters have 1 option, first/last have 3), though it exposed a validator bug where the min-options check rejected 1-option chapters. Fixed inline.

The rendered mod is clean: 0 errors, 0 warnings, 0 sprite fallbacks, 34 events total. Ready for playtest on Stellaris 4.3.

Completed

• Generated Celestial Equinox release with new visible effects (deposits, tech grants, research options)
• Bumped supported_version to 4.3.* for Stellaris Cetus compatibility
• Fixed dig site validator to allow 1-option auto-resolve middle chapters

Carry-over

• Playtest Celestial Equinox on Stellaris 4.3 — the key question is whether the new visible effects (deposits on planets, tech unlocks, research options) make choices feel more meaningful than the invisible research progress of the first playtest
• The rendered build is at output/Phantasmagoria_2603201629_windows/Phantasmagoria — needs to be copied to Stellaris mod folder
• Consider rendering a cumulative build (all releases) vs single-release for the playtest
• The CLAUDE.md change (CLI tools reminder) was not committed — it’s a global file, not project-specific

Risks

• Stellaris 4.3 stat squish may make our resource amounts feel different than intended — the roller was calibrated for 4.2 economy. Could be better (200 energy matters more now) or worse (amounts still too small relative to new balance)
• add_deposit uses SCOPE_FROM: prefix for planet scoping — first time this renders in an actual Stellaris game. Clausewitz syntax matches vanilla but integration is unverified.
• give_technology doesn’t guard against the player already having the tech
• The validator fix for 1-option chapters is committed but not tested in the test suite — should add a test

Flags and watch-outs

• Stellaris 4.3 “Cetus” changed the game significantly: economy stat squish, military rebalance, reduced naval capacity per ship. PRODUCT.md still references 4.2 in some places.
• The events/ and common/ vanilla reference directories are from the 4.2 game install. May need to be updated with 4.3 files if balance analysis needs refreshing.
• Both v1.5 and v2 milestones remain fully closed (12/12 and 5/5). No new milestone created yet.

Next session

1. Playtest Celestial Equinox on Stellaris 4.3 — focus on: do deposits appear on planets? Do tech unlocks fire? Do choices feel different?
2. Based on playtest results, decide whether resource amounts need recalibrating for 4.3’s squished economy
3. Add a test for 1-option auto-resolve dig site chapters (the validator fix)
4. Consider updating the vanilla reference data (events/, common/) to 4.3 if balance analysis needs refreshing
5. Clean up the stale playtest_fixed integration test reference