Best Stellaris Mods

Key Takeaways

• Stellaris mods range from enhancing graphics to expanding gameplay mechanics for a fresh experience.
• Mod examples include better AI, larger galaxies, epic space battles, and new species traits.
• Experimenting with mods like Gigastructural Engineering can add realism and hours of gameplay.

As a grand-strategy game, Stellaris receives a lot of support from the developer, Paradox Development Studio, and the community themselves, thanks to the mod support that the developers have been giving to support the longevity of the game. Moreover, the game’s unique nature of being graphically beautiful while also narrative-driven made it possible for the community to develop numerous mods.

Some of these mods range from simple graphic enhancement and new narrative events to fantastical additions that add numerous new features such as structures, new crises, and ship designs. To compensate for the complexity of the game, some mods also overhaul the user interface to facilitate easier interaction with the game.

Updated November 7, by Andrew McLarney: Due to the sheer complexity of gameplay in Stellaris, a player can go through endless variants of the game with new space empires as rivals and brand-new crises to face in the latter stages. This can be further enhanced by installing mods. These can range from simple aesthetic modifications to the UI to an overhaul of the gameplay that includes new mechanics. Therefore, Stellaris’ fanatic players are always encouraged to explore some of the best mods that can enhance the game’s longevity and freshness.

15 Yagisan’s Better Stellaris

341 Downloads & 13 Endorsements

Yagisan’s Better Stellaris is an AI and gameplay overhaul that improves a vast array of areas from warfare mechanics and diplomacy to planetary habitation and archaeological sites. Primarily, a number of fixes and tweaks help to streamline various aspects, making them more user-friendly and giving players greater freedom.

There are a few requirements for this mod since it impacts some important political mechanics. The required DLC to get the mod working is as follows: Distant Stars, Nemesis, Federation, and First Contact.

14 Massive Galaxies

7819 Downloads & 263 Endorsements

Though the star systems in Stellaris are fairly extensive already, they can feel limiting to more experienced players with vast territorial empires. The Massive Galaxies mod greatly expands the number of systems per galaxy, allowing them to contain up to 10,000 stars and 5,000 AI empires at once.

This mod greatly helps with immersion and adds a further sense of vastness and mystery to the game world, rather than having it all discovered within a few hundred years. This can also lead to colossal warfare on an unprecedented scale, adding to the stakes and tension of each campaign.

13 Epic Explosions

2624 Downloads & 110 Endorsements

Space battles in Stellaris are already an immense visual spectacle, but they can be enhanced even further with BigBizkit’s Epic Explosions mod. When ships are destroyed in the base game, they will explode in a minor and slightly underwhelming way.

With this mod, a more realistic explosion befitting such fusion-powered ships is detonated, leading to gigantic and colorful explosions. In addition to the visual appeal, it can also help players keep track of how battles are unfolding, with a much clearer indication as to when a ship has been destroyed.

12 RPG Traits

14,725 Downloads & 392 Endorsements

Stellaris is already a deep and complex game, but for veteran players looking to add some additional spice and variability to their playthroughs, RPG Traits will greatly enhance the overall variety of species playstyles.

This mod will add exaggerated traits to aliens and make them far less predictable, which can be equally fun both to play as and to play against. Players can download either a Heavy or Lite version, depending on how much they want to alter the game.

11 SW: Fallen Republic

82,057 Subscribers & 6,493 Ratings

SW: Fallen Republic is a comprehensive Star Wars-themed overhaul that brings authentic planets, factions, and even ship designs from the series, while still retaining the classic grand strategy gameplay of vanilla Stellaris.

Sadly, due to a rift among developers, work has ceased on the mod. However, a team of developers are continuing a similar project under the title of Star Wars: New Dawn. The same team has also worked on a Star Trek overhaul and an additional Star Wars Old Republic mod.

10 Ancient Cache Of Technologies

151,342 Subscribers & 4,093 Ratings

If choosing technologies in the base game of Stellaris is already a headache, then be prepared to have more selection dilemmas, especially in the early game. The Ancient Cache of Technologies mod was created by PeerawatZ, more commonly known as Chirumiru-ShiRoZ. The author enhances Stellaris gameplay by adding several new mechanics for the mod’s subscribers to explore. These range from more than 500 new technologies to new strategic resources for the player to take into account before expanding and taking new territories to their empire.

This mod also enhances existing gameplay mechanics of Stellaris, by adding elements such as new orbital bombardment options and new depths in new tiers of technologies. Ancient Cache of Technologies is the go-to mod for veteran players who are looking to spice up their Stellaris gameplay. Of course, that’s if they are ready to re-learn the game from the basics again and learn all the new mechanics that can be explored.

9 Dark Space

29,670 Subscribers & 997 Ratings

The current gameplay mechanics of Stellaris can start to feel stale due to numerous saved games, for veterans and newcomers alike. Dark Space can be installed as one of the essential mods to spice up a player’s journey to either take control of the galaxy or destroy becoming a Crisis. The mod brings new additions to the game by having multiple playstyles for the players to explore, each of which has its own gameplay mechanics. Players have endless possibilities when it comes to role-playing a unique space empire by becoming the L-Gate Gray Tempests, for example. Dark Space’s subscribers can also use shipsets that were originally reserved for unplayable empires, such as the Unbidden and the Fallen Empires’ shipsets.

The mod also adds countless new unique origins that the players can explore, with some of them lore-friendly enough to the base game’s original storylines. New civics, ascension perks, and powerful megastructures also ensure that each of the player’s saved games is fresh. Therefore, having Dark Space as a mod for Stellaris can get a player to sink more hours into the game, provided that they embrace the changes made.

8 Planetary Diversity

416,656 Subscribers & 12,433 Ratings

With the current collection of planets in Stellaris such as Barren World, Gaia World, and even Shrouded World, players can be sure that they will not be running out of planets to settle and gaze into during any gameplay. Moreover, numerous unique systems translate to more planets to choose from.

However, with the addition of Planetary Diversity, a single planet type can be branched into several other types. For example, an Aquatic World can also be a Hot Aquatic or Cold Aquatic World, enabling more variety for the players to choose from.

7 Real Space

357,085 Subscribers & 10,748 Ratings

Stellaris in itself is a beautiful game. It offers a variety of star systems to look at during gameplay, complete with unique planets and archaeological dig sites to uncover secrets. However, players can choose to enhance their experience further by looking at a realistic depiction of space.

Such things are made possible thanks to Annatar’s Real Space mod. This mod adds many stellar classes such as O-class star systems and cold brown dwarf stars, new stellar types such as supergiant stars, and a plethora of new binary, ternary, and pair star system variations.

6 Diverse Rooms

162,869 Subscribers & 5,548 Ratings

After playing with a galaxy filled with numerous stellar empires, players might notice that some of these AI empires are using the same repeated rooms, even by different Fanatic Purifiers, during their communication contact. This is because there are a limited number of room variations that a random AI can choose from.

With LastLeviathan’s Diverse Rooms mod, players can choose from a plentitude of new room variations; up to 300 more rooms. The mod also enables the ‘hidden’ rooms that are not supposedly available to be chosen by players, as they might be reserved for special events or generated empires.

5 Machine Shipset

207,892 Subscribers & 8,314 Ratings

Even with the current variation of Shipsets that Stellaris provides, the Machine Shipset is noticeably absent for some reason. This limits the player’s choices to certain shipsets that might not fit the machine aesthetic that a robotic species would prefer. Fortunately, AryxCami made a Machine Shipset to address such concerns.

Inspired by the Automated Dreadnought leviathan that roams the galaxy, Machine Shipset offers unique ship designs that match the robotic aesthetic which players of the Hive Mind robotic species would appreciate. This shipset includes unique designs for Colossus and construction ships alike.

4 More Events Mod

348,661 Subscribers & 8,434 Ratings

As a grand strategy game with a focus on narrative writing, Stellaris has many in-game events that will keep the players occupied. Some can leave the players pondering about ethics and morality, while others are simply hilarious and comedic to keep them entertained.

With the addition of Malthus’ More Events Mod, players can expect to encounter different in-game events throughout their sessions, as they will keep finding new events to look out for. This can be a refreshing change of pace, especially for veteran players who might have seen a particular event one too many times.

3 Beautiful Universe v2.0

287,018 Subscribers & 6,731 Ratings

If Stellaris‘ current graphic design is beautiful enough for players to spend half an hour or so to gaze at, further enhancement of the graphic design of the game can make them gaze longer than before. Thanks to Avel’s Beautiful Universe mod, a player can customize these wonderful star systems and galaxy backdrop further.

With references to real-life photos from NASA and various other digital arts such as EVE Online skyboxes, the mod changes the vanilla skyboxes of the game, making it more wonderful to see for players who are rushing a certain technology.

2 UI Overhaul Dynamic

823,713 Subscribers & 17,252 Ratings

Stellaris user interface can be confusing and overwhelming for some players, even veteran ones who have spent hundreds of hours inside the game to find all the proper and powerful relics in the game. This can be overwhelming during the game, especially in the crucial early game that might decide whether an empire can survive the harsh galaxy or not.

With the help of Orrie’s UI Overhaul Dynamic mod, navigation of Stellaris‘ user interface will be easier for both new and veteran players alike. Although the new revamped user interface can take some time to get used to, it is ultimately more intuitive than the vanilla one that the game already has.

1 Gigastructural Engineering & More

451,083 Subscribers & 15,206 Ratings

If the notion of having a Megastructure in space is unbelievable to happen in real life, then a Gigastructure can completely blow a player’s mind if they crave some realism in Stellaris. Elowiny’s Gigastructural Engineering mod enables the player to construct a building capable of wiping a star system out of the map, which is impossible to do in the vanilla game.

The mod also offers a whole new gameplay dynamic with the addition of new unique crises and mid-game structures that can aid the construction of Megastructures in the late-game. With these additions, players can expect to pour more hours into the game without realizing it.