Life is short, and nobody has time to wait for Paradox to drop the next content pack to return to the game. So it’s time to turn to the modding community. Just as minor mods are meant to polish your experience, plenty of massive expansions, overhauls, and total conversions will make you feel like it’s a brand-new game. Let me show you some of the best!
15. UI Overhaul Dynamic
Check Out This Mod UI Overhaul Dynamic leaves nothing untouched in its pursuit to deliver the most comfortable user experience. This comprehensive remodel of the user interface adapts every element to your screen resolution, increases the size of menus, and makes everything easier to navigate. With this installed, you’ll have space for more information on-screen without needing to scroll down, so you can easily consider every alternative and data point when making decisions.
14. Stellaris Fresh Start
Check Out This Mod Stellaris Fresh Start is the way to go if you’re interested in a vanilla-flavored overhaul that’ll give you something new to chew on. This mod leaves most of the game’s basic systems intact while introducing 40 new civics and 32 new tradition trees to create a new “balance.” Something I also love about this mod is the top-notch humor hidden in the flavor text for some of these new civics and traditions. For example, you can feed your population Lab-Grown Food that’s totally not Soylent or ban robots because “dey took er jobs.”
13. Production Revolution
Check Out This Mod You must have noticed how slow the game can get as the years go by. This is mainly due to the AI micromanaging where their citizens work and live. Apparently, the AI runs a citizen-by-citizen check every month to determine the best role in the empire, which takes a lot of processing power. Production Revolution is an overhaul of the economic system that takes micromanagement out of the equation. Instead of individual workers, you now have a “Manpower” resource (based on your pops) that gets spread among available jobs. This doesn’t just streamline the economy for the AI, but also for you, helping you focus on other aspects of gameplay like exploration, diplomacy, and combat.
12. Anime Galaxy
Check Out This Mod Since this is the internet and 4X grand strategy sci-fi epics are firmly in the realm of geek culture, I can assume at least half of you have a soft spot for Japanese animation. If you belong to that group of Anime enthusiasts, you’ll find a lot to love in the Anime Galaxy mod, which promises to turn your Stellaris into a sci-fi waifu simulator. The mod replaces every portrait for every race – including leaders, workers, slaves, and robots – with anime characters. Of course, Curators, Caravaneers, and Fallen Empires are also given a makeover. There are badass warriors, adorable moe blobs, and everything in-between!
11. Twilight Imperium
Check Out This Mod Twilight Imperium is a fantastic board game. In it, you strive toward galactic conquest as one of several societies like the Emirates of Hacan and the wormhole-traveling Ghosts of Creuss. In other words, it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a Stellaris board game before Stellaris: Infinite Legacy comes out. Well this mod flips that idea by letting you play Stellaris as if it were a Twilight Imperium video game. It introduces 17 prescripted empires based on the board game that’ll let you create a 100% Twilight Imperium galaxy by choosing one and forcing all AI to spawn as the rest. You’ll also find new civics, traits, origins, and events straight from Twilight Imperium lore.
10. Stargate Universe Reborn
Check Out This Mod Stellaris has a lot in common with Roland Emmerich’s Stargate – mainly the high likelihood of hostile aliens showing up and trying to extinguish your species at any point in time. If you want to make them even more similar, I’d suggest the Stargate Universe Reborn mod, introducing everything you need for a distinctively Stargate-flavored playthrough. This isn’t just a species pack with some cool shipsets. Because SUR also features new origins, traits, civics, megastructures, and custom events based on the well-loved military sci-fi franchise.
9. Balanced Space Warfare
Check Out This Mod Something that needs a lot of work to reach its full potential in Stellaris is combat. Battles are determined almost exclusively by your fleet size, and it doesn’t make much sense to waste too much time designing your ships and fleets. Balanced Space Warfare shatters this status quo by dramatically transforming the balance of space combat, forcing you to consider the composition of your fleet, the size of your ships, and your specific loadout against each enemy. One of my favorite additions is “Spec Ops” ships, such as Corvettes that can self-destruct or capture enemy ships and “healer” vessels able to repair your fleet without visiting a shipyard.
8. Stellaris Evolved: Alpha
Check Out This Mod Stellaris Evolved is an ambitious overhaul that’s still a WIP – but it has a lot to show for itself even at this stage. The mod features numerous additions to all areas of the game. This includes a complete rework of civics, technologies, buildings, and jobs. It also upgrades the tradition system with advanced trees and new ascension paths. You’ll notice some excellent additions to Ringworlds and Ecumenopolises and a new terraforming mechanism that can make even barren worlds useful to your empire. As I mentioned before, the mod is a WIP, and the author has many significant updates planned. We’ll keep an eye on this one, and so should you!
7. Guilli’s Mods
Check Out This Mod Guilliman is a bit of a legend in the Stellaris modding community, thanks to amazing mods like Guilli’s Planet Modifiers and Features and Guilli’s Exploration and Expansion Tweaks. By themselves, each of these mods upgrades a different aspect of Stellaris. Planet Modifiers and Features introduces an immense planet variety and many surprises on every celestial body, while Exploration and Expansion Tweaks makes exploration a more immersive and involved process. Add Guilli’s Technologies to the mix, and you have an almost complete overhaul of the game. Playing with all of them enabled feels like a significant step-up from vanilla.
6. Star Trek: New Civilizations
Check Out This Mod Star Trek is one of the biggest and most beloved sci-fi franchises in history. And it’s one of the building blocks of geek culture worldwide. ST: New Civilizations is a massive conversion bringing numerous galactic empires from the Star Trek universe to Stellaris so you can live long and prosper among the Romulans, Klingons, and Cardassians. The mod also features a staggering 650 unique ships spread across 80 graphic styles based on Star Trek cultures. There are also 160 new species with varied clothing, multiple new events and crises, and engaging new mechanics based on Star Trek lore. On the technical side, this mod streamlines the economic system for a faster late-game and revamps the entire technology progression to help you focus on your Star Trek roleplaying.
5. Star Oath Project
Check Out This Mod Next up, we have an in-depth rework of the leader system with a significant dose of anime goodness. Star Oath Project introduces hundreds of new leader traits for all leader types, but that’s only scraping the surface. This mod also makes managing your leaders more engaging by giving you more control over their development. SOP has a great UI that’ll let you access each leader’s skill trees and spend skill points like you would in an RPG. Additionally, you can change a leader’s portrait or even bring them back from the dead.
4. Aesthetic Cinematic Gameplay
Check Out This Mod Those interested in making Stellaris a more visually appealing experience can’t go wrong with Aesthetic Cinematic Gameplay. ACG focuses on making space combat a big show that’ll draw your attention beyond keeping an eye on your fleet’s health bar. Bigger explosions, flashier lasers, and many other additions make your ships look bad-ass in and out of combat. In addition, this mod changes the UI to a dark blue color palette and introduces a lot of content to make space combat just a bit more interesting beyond the visuals.
3. Beyond the Relays
Check Out This Mod Fans of the Mass Effect franchise have been clamoring for more adventures in the Mass Effect universe ever since ME: Andromeda disappointed everyone, leaving a big hole in our hearts waiting to be filled. Beyond the Relays offers an all-new perspective on the conflicts of Mass Effect’s Milky Way, letting you explore and attempt to conquer the galaxy as the Asari Republics, Turian Hierarchy, Salarian Union, or the Systems Alliance – among several others. The mod doesn’t stop there, though. It’s a total conversion featuring custom shipsets, new buildings, multiple ME-themed crises (like the Reapers), and even a fully-functional Mass Relay network.
2. The New Era – A Total Conversion Mod
Check Out This Mod Not every total conversion is based on a popular media franchise. The New Era is a 100% original take on Stellaris, bringing a wholly transformed experience with a unique focus and much different pacing. This mod places you in an earlier era of galactic conquest. You’ll start out as a primitive species just making their way out into space and slowly advance toward the Era of Empires. You’ll have to grapple with a new tech tree, a completely reworked economic system, redesigned planet development, etc. If you’re looking for something truly different, this is it.
1. Star Wars: Legacy of the Old Republic
Check Out This Mod After spending most of May 4th playing Star Wars: Legacy of the Old Republic, I can confidently say that it’s the best total conversion mod for Stellaris. This custom adventure drops the player in the middle of an unstable galaxy ravaged by the Great Hyperspace War and Great Sith War, 4000 years before the Battle of Yavin (AKA the assault on the Death Star). You can choose one of 37 prescripted empires, or create a new one with one of 50 species from the Star Wars universe. You’ll notice new civics, origins, and lore-accurate namelists that’ll take your immersion to the next level. This mod is packed full of content, including shipsets, events, crises, and a gigantic galaxy full of lore-accurate systems based on the Star Wars Legends continuity.
