I think one of the most important milestones in my journey as a sci-fi aficionado was when I first laid eyes on the Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.
It was the moment I realized that immense man-made structures like transatlantic tankers and skyscrapers would be quickly overshadowed by the megastructures of the future, once we expanded beyond our planet and didn’t have to deal with pesky limitations like gravity.
Stellaris plays into this fantasy through Megastructures – colossal constructions that take years and an inordinate amount of resources to complete, but bring ridiculously large bonuses to your society.
If you’re as fascinated by the possibilities of industry and engineering in our starbound future as me, you’ll be hungry for even more galactic-scale superstructures to showcase the might of your empire.
And you’ll find lots of ideas in these amazing Stellaris mods.
The Three Gorges Dam in China took 12 years to build. Mount Rushmore took 14 years to sculpt.
A giant alloy ring with habitable landmasses surrounding a star in the middle of outer space? Give us 2-3 years.
Normally, Megastructures in Stellaris take several decades to be completed – but with the MBS mod, that number can be reduced by quite a bit.
This mod adds three new very expensive edicts capable of reducing the time needed to build megastructures by a lot. The first boost, costing 20,000 energy credits, is already good – but if you have 100,000 credits to spare, your projects will be done in no time.
I know death is inevitable for squishy organics like ourselves, but a small part of me continues to hope that we’ll create the fountain of youth before I’m past my expiration date.
Given how much humans care about not perishing, I find it hard to believe that we’ll be conquering other star systems without having found a way to defeat our oldest enemies: aging and death.
The Resurrection Device megastructure is the answer to my prayers.
This four-stage construction will extend your leaders’ lifespans and increase population growth – and upon completion, you’ll be able to bring back dead leaders to life to preserve their skills and experience.
As a Stellaris player, you start looking at sci-fi storylines from an empire-building perspective.
The next time you watch Star Wars, you might find yourself looking at the Galactic Empire’s Death Star or the First Order’s Starkiller Base and think to yourself, “damn, why can’t I have one of those?”
Well, with the Star System Cluster Range Weapon mod, you can.
The mod introduces a massive military megastructure known as the Fantasmagoria Truth (you can tell it’s a Japanese mod). This moon-sized cannon can shoot down entire fleets at the ridiculous range of three whole star systems.
One of the most troublesome situations in Stellaris is playing a pacifist empire and getting locked out of adequate expansion by your own local allies.
What am I supposed to do now? Go on hunger strike until they transfer the system to me?
A great alternative is to build a gateway to another galaxy with the Galaxius mod.
Once completed, this megastructure lets you manage an outer galaxy colony from the comfort of your own home system. You can absorb systems, colonize planets, and even build more megastructures!
Regrettably, you’ll never visit this new galaxy, but it’s still a fantastic way for your empire to keep growing despite your geopolitical struggles.
Everyone in the sci-fi community knows what a Dyson Sphere is, but have you heard of Dyson Swarms?
Building a steel sarcophagus around a star to harvest its energy can sound a little heavy-handed to some. A nice alternative is to construct a Dyson Swarm, which is basically a collection of smaller habitats and installations orbiting a star without completely encasing it.
This mod allows the construction of Dyson Swarms with solar stations, zero gravity labs, and habitable environments.
You can even choose to start the game on a Dyson Swarm!
With these many awesome megastructures – in addition to the already cool vanilla ones – you start getting an itch to just cover every system in your empire with them.
No Limitations: Megastructures helps you achieve that by removing the balance-oriented limitations put on megastructures by the team at Paradox.
For example, you can now build two megastructures in the same system, and you won’t have to settle for just one of each megastructure in your empire.
You can even build a Ringworld around a star with a Dyson Sphere! It makes no scientific sense, but it sure looks bad-ass.
A much more balanced alternative is the Resource Mega Structures Adjustment mod, which gives you the chance to build multiple Dyson Spheres and Matter Decompressors – at a steep cost.
In exchange for removing the regulation that only allows a single one of these megastructures to be built by a single empire, the mod greatly increases the costs of building them.
For example, each stage of the Matter Decompressor project used to cost 12,500 alloy units.
Now it costs 5,000 unity and 12,500 energy credits on top of the alloys.
Don’t get me wrong, you can still break the balance if you play the long game – but for the average player, this can be a really fun addition for an empire that believes in building tall instead of wide.
Finding an abandoned gateway in your empire can be an incredible boon for your civilization that’ll let you extend your reach far beyond your immediate vicinity.
Still, it’s kind of inconvenient that you can’t choose where the rest of the gateways are. I’ve had games where my gateways only lead to hostile empires, for example, which rendered them almost completely useless except for traveling within my own borders.
The Foreign Gateway Construction mod helps you revitalize your gateway network by building all-new gateways in systems owned by your allies.
In the end, the gateway will be theirs to keep – but you’ll get a lot of utility from it. Think of it as investing in foreign infrastructure!
Darth Sidious and Darth Vader couldn’t have built the Death Star without first taking control of the galaxy. In a way, it was the resources of the Galactic Empire that enabled its construction.
Imperial Projects adds a similar event to Stellaris.
If you manage to unite the galaxy (or subjugate it) into the Galactic Imperium, you’ll gain access to five new megastructures your society couldn’t dream of before gaining control of over half the galaxy.
These megastructures include the Virulent Biolab, the Tiyanki Incubator, and the Empyreal Hyperlane Beacon.
I won’t go into details to avoid spoilers, but just the names of these constructions should give you an idea of their potential.
Gigastructural Engineering is a must-have mod that dominates the custom megastructure playing field by introducing an incredible 44 new powerful megastructures to Stellaris.
I can’t get into the details for all 44 of them, but one look at some of their names should paint a clearer picture:
As you can see, these new megastructures range from military applications to research facilities.
The mod also features new origins, crisis, and even achievements based on these massive constructions.
Watch out, though. Because the AI has been improved to use these megastructures very effectively – so don’t expect to just steamroll them without a fight!
Nelson Chitty is a Venezuelan expat living in Argentina. He’s a writer and translator passionate about history and foreign cultures. His ideal weekend is spent between leisurely playing games of Civilization VI and looking for the next seinen anime to marathon.
