It’s my pleasure to announce boarding has started for all passengers departing on our tour of Stellaris: Season 10, with non-stop service to the Nomads expansion alongside the Stellaris 4.4 ‘Pegasus’ update. Following our first destination, there will be a brief stopover at the Stellaris 4.5 ‘Cygnus’ Custodian release, after which our cruise will continue to the Stellaris 4.6 ‘Corona Borealis‘ update, featuring Willpower, Scenario Pack 1, and Scenario Pack 2. All passengers are welcome to acquire their ‘Vipra the Vapor’ Species Portrait at the ticketing office now.
The Stellaris 10-year anniversary is coming, and as part of that celebration, we are rolling Utopia, Synthetic Dawn, the Humanoids Species Pack, and most of the Galaxy Edition upgrade into the base game on May 11th. (The e-book, Infinite Frontiers, is being retired.)
Later on in Q2, we’re bringing you Nomads.
Build no borders. Claim no worlds.
The Galaxy is not a trophy to be seized, but a path to be taken. In Stellaris: Nomads, you will survive the void by staying in motion. While the great powers squabble over lines on the map, your civilization has realized a fundamental truth: life flourishes on the move.
Arkships
At the very heart of every nomadic civilization lies its Arkship: a fully mobile capital that replaces worlds entirely. Customize Military, Scientific, or Civilian Arkships with specialized modules, districts, and upgrades as your Empire evolves by traveling through the stars.
Waylines and Contracts
Chart Waylines across the stars, linking your Waystations into living networks of trade, influence, and opportunity. Your strength lies in motion, in presence, in the relationships you build from system to system. Your relations with settled empires don’t have to be antagonistic. Accept contracts, build relations, and perhaps profit a bit on the side.
A New Ambition: Defender of the Galaxy
Building upon the Crisis paths of previous releases, Ambitions are the next step of epic, empire-defining journeys that give you the choice of your ultimate role in the galaxy. In the Nomads expansion, we will transform the Defender of the Galaxy Ascension Perk into a full path that can rival the power of a Galactic Nemesis, Awakened Empire, or End Game Crisis.
Become the Galaxy’s champion by forging alliances, commanding federations and rising through the Galactic Community to assume Custodianship. Lead the fight against existential threats with a unique squadron of hero ships. Ultimate power can be used, and relinquished, for the greater good.
Coming to you hot from Champion’s Forge LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
Stellaris: Nomads contains:
Nomadic Empires
Create empires that are not bound by claiming systems or colonizing worlds. Instead, you will navigate the stars with massive Arkships.
The Arkship: Your capital, your cradle, and your fortress. This massive, fully upgradable wonder replaces traditional Worlds for your empire. Choose between three different options to fully reflect the vision of your government:
Military Class: A mobile flagship designed to project power.
Scientific Class: A roaming laboratory dedicated to the discovery of the Galaxy’s secrets.
Civilian Class: An industrial hub capable of unparalleled resource extraction.
The Wayline Network: Your trail through the void. By constructing Waystations, you create Waylines - lasting interstellar trade routes that harvest resources you can claim with a simple pass through. These routes benefit both you and settled empires, making you the pivot point of mercantile possibilities in the Galaxy.
The Contract System: As a nomadic empire, perform task-driven interactions with other empires to earn favor, resources, and influence. As a settled empire, issue these Contracts and get things done!
New Origins
Voidfarers: The standard origin for Nomadic Empires. A flexible, streamlined start for you to define your own nomadic journey.
Heirs of the Khan: Play as the successor of a murdered Khan, as you evade marauder hit-squads through trickery and bribery until you are strong enough to return to reclaim your throne.
The Sacred Path: Guide a fleet of pilgrims towards ancestral holy sites in a galactic pilgrimage. Your journey is a spiritual odyssey fueled by faith.
Forever Cruise: Manage a society split between a pampered elite demanding new entertainment and sightseeing opportunities from their vista lounges, and an overworked crew keeping the dream afloat.
Nomadic empires support many existing Origins as well.
New Ambition: Defender of the Galaxy
While a Galactic Nemesis (available in Stellaris: Nemesis) threatens the Galaxy, the Defender of the Galaxy will rise and try to save it.
New Megastructure: The Stellar Cannon
Why simply power a civilization when you could fire at one? This Megastructure allows you to weaponize your entire energy stockpile, discharging it into a devastating beam capable of striking enemy systems across the galaxy.
Nomadic Enclave: Champion’s Forge Live!
Experience the Galaxy’s most extreme spectacles with this nomadic enclave! Answer the call and participate in gladiatorial fleet combat all across the galaxy. The winner gets to hold the Trophy relic and glory until the next tournament, with the losers looking on with envy.
Wanderlust Ascension Perk
New Renowned Nomadic Paragons
New Civics and Tradition Swaps
New Music Tracks by Andreas Waldetoft
OMG, Blorg legs.
Nomads has charted its course and will arrive in Q2 2026.
Stellaris: Season 10 Expansion Pass
Based on the feedback from Stellaris: Season 09, we’re making some changes to our Expansion Pass plans this year. As many of you have noticed, we’re announcing this year’s Season much later than previous years, and instead of four separate releases, we’re planning on bundling them together into fewer release moments. This frees up room for the 4.5 ‘Cygnus’ update to be a dedicated Custodian release, giving us two in 2026.
The Stellaris: Season 10 Expansion Pass is a journey through resilience and movement. Whether you are wandering the stars with Stellaris: Nomads or rooting your empire in the indomitable spirit of Stellaris: Willpower, this year redefines how empires survive, adapt, and conquer.
Stellaris: Season 10 will grant you access to all five DLCs as soon as they become available. Vipra now, Nomads later on in Q2, and Willpower and both Scenario Packs in Q4.
‘Vipra the Vapor’ Species Portrait (Instant Unlock, Now Available)
This exclusive portrait comes with Stellaris: Season 10, allowing your empire to take the form of the elusive Vipra, a necroid species with a menacing aura.
Available immediately upon purchasing Stellaris: Season 10, this portrait features 5 different color variations and ethereal custom animations.
Nomads (Releases Q2, 2026 - $24.99)
Build no borders. Claim no worlds. In Nomads, you thrive inside colossal Arkships that carry your people, your industry, and your ambition across the stars. Move freely through the galaxy, take on Contracts from settled empires, and leave your mark by building Waystations. Nomads blaze a path across the map.
Nomadic Empires: Create empires not bound by claiming systems or colonizing Worlds.
Arkships: New massive space vessel acting as your capital.
New Ambition:Defender of the Galaxy: Rise and save the Galaxy with an exclusive set of Hero ships.
New Origins:Heirs of the Khan, Sacred Path, Forever Cruise, Voidfarers
New Civics:Caravan Masters, Deep Sleep, Void Reavers, Flight Schools, Star Seekers
New Megastructure: Construct a Stellar Cannon and discharge your entire energy stockpile into a devastating beam.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ Take my energy! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Willpower (Releases Q4, 2026 - $24.99)
Shape Minds, Rule the Stars. In the vast expanse of the cosmos, borders are mere lines drawn on a map. Ideas, on the other hand, have no such limits.
Your empire was founded on its Ethics, the convictions that determined its course. Now is the time for those fundamental values to evolve into Ideologies with the power to sway the stars. Introducing Stellaris: Willpower, the expansion that turns your societal beliefs into a galactic force.
Your rule over systems was always just the beginning. The galaxy's minds are the true prize. You will erect monuments and Megastructures that demonstrate what your society and values can accomplish. You truly can become the thought leader of the galaxy.
Adopting an Ideology is not without its risks, however. Left unchecked, it can radicalize colonies and spark insurrection. But when nurtured with care, the right Ideology has the power to sway entire civilizations.
Scenario Pack 1 (Releases Q4, 2026 - $5.99)
Embark on a new set of galactic challenges! Experience curated, high-stakes standalone adventures that push your strategic limits. From a nomadic, roguelike odyssey across the stars to high-octane, combat-focused multiplayer experiences, these scenarios will provide a bold way to play Stellaris.
The Scenarios System will be a free part of the Stellaris 4.6 ‘Corona Borealis‘ update, these Scenario packs provide our take on what you’ll be able to do with it.
Vanguards: A single-player roguelike galaxy-traversing journey where you play as a nomadic empire travelling through a series of galaxies to cleanse evil, gathering spoils and experience on your way.
Arcade: A multiplayer experience with streamlined, custom economies, focusing on space battles and shipbuilding.
Scenario Pack 2 (Releases Q4, 2026 - $5.99)
Rewrite the rules of engagement! This Scenario Pack flips the script of how Stellaris is normally played, making you the threat and aggressor. Whether leading an ultimate extra-dimensional invasion or battling your friends in a race for dominance, these scenarios offer a fresh, distilled way to play Stellaris.
Unbidden: Play as the Crisis in a single-player experience, and attempt to invade an advanced, late-game galaxy as the Unbidden.
King of the Hill: Stellaris gameplay focused on a small but fair map to challenge your friends in competitive experiences as you try to dominate the galaxy in a few hours of intense expansion wars.
Welcome to this week’smonth's year's Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread!
This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions for things that you are confused about and answer questions to help out your fellow star voyagers!
Tell us if you have modded your game when you ask a question here. There are lots of fantastic Stellaris mods and many of change how the game works.
Game Guides
[under construction]
Places to See
Don't forget to double-check the official community-maintained Stellaris Wiki if there's something you're curious about. Bear in mind that Paradox pays for the hosting but the community is in charge of the content so some stuff might be outdated or inaccurate.
Are you curious about which DLCs to buy? The Steam version has a DLC subscription that gives access to the DLC library for $10USD per month (less in bulk). There are also regular deals - check out IsThereAnyDeal and the DLC section to see where the best prices are (or were). If you are playing multiplayer then only the host needs to own the DLCs.
Tried generating higher. Anything above 25000 crashed immediately during generation. 10-25k would not respond after a couple of hours when I got to generating map graphics. 7500 nearly made it after an hour, but crashed at the end of generation. I think the higher it goes, the increase in generation time is exponentially higher. I could try again, but 6000 seems to be the limit where I can generate something in about 30 minutes without problems. Running the game itself remains to be seen and will likely need addition performance tweaks. Could start crashing after a few years for all I know. I may or may not turn my PC into a galactic crucible and burn the Milky Way. If I do, I'm sorry. Using Immersive Galaxy and Skybox, with the quadrants removed patch for the map and system background. Using Real Space 4 too.
No mods, file check in Steam showed nothing, antivirus showed nothing. All DLC except nomads. For scientific purposes i restored ring section, colonized both and build planetary ring, game did not crush, so i suppose that's just a new feature?
(Sorry for the poor image, I had to take the picture of his screen with my phone.)
I was talking to my father about his run on Stellaris and he promptly showed me a species that he has poor relations with. Yes, they are fanatic xenophobes and no my father did not personally create them. Now my question for everyone is has anyone else encountered the space KKK?
Out of everything in Paradoxs game catalog, Stellaris is the game with the most potential for spin-off titles.
Like, imagine if you got to play a colony management simulator like Anno, but on a planet wide scale on a newly colonized planet with a variety of different species with different needs.
Or a spy management Sim where you infiltrate a tribal world and try to figure out how their society and culture work.
The artwork in the game gives off the vibe of the in-game universe being expansive and full of diversity and wonder. And I just feel as if you can't really portray that in the form of a giant spreadsheet simulator with pretty pictures
With the introduction of the Infernals pack we got a variant of molten worlds that were habitable. But with the toxoids we just got a origin that adds "toxic" blockers to regular planets. And with psionics we got cool worlds that should be habitable by psionics. Why not make a habitable variant like Noxious for toxoid or smth.
Suddenly, in a painful moment of clarity, the nature of our existence is laid bare. A multiverse where thousands of galaxies like our own are locked in endless cycles of conflict.
It begins, it ends, and then it begins again. Each time with trillions of lives hanging in the balance.
"So it is-and so it shall always be."
I am one of those roleplay lovers who try to make each run feel like an actual History. Even if half the time I just observe the simulation running on its own, or in the backhround, and making sporadic tweaks, I usually try to push every run to its limits. Previously, many such attempts failed because of PC overloads or me losing interest/having other matters to attend to, but with some of the newer content, namely Shroud DLC, and AI to debug saves, it's been a lot of fun!
Share your longest RP stories - both that of Empires and leaders! I'll start with the last screenshot of my previous grand simulation, which lasted to 2685 and collapsed shortly after, and my current oldest leader - who I snatched from the clutches of death and who is still in power in 2810, at 658 years old.
I'm about to start a new game as a Remnant empire, with some RP of them having a grudge against the Fallen Empires. Natrually this will eventually lead to war. Unfortunately, I've never been very successful in defeating them, even when I put their strength as low as possible. In my most recent game I could handle a small fleet, but whenever I attacked their space directly it always ended in defeat. So I'll take any advice that'll help me build a fleet that came win against the Fallen Empires.
I have a load of hours in Stellaris but haven't played in years. I've been reading James S A Corey's new books and it's made me want to try and make a Carryx empire on Stellaris.
I was keeping up to date on DLC when I played so I have everything up to Overlord but nothing since (other than the toxoid species which I have somehow). Should I go for season passes to get the rest? Or just get a couple of the best ones? I'm not trying to spend $200 lol.
What are the go-to mods these days? I remember liking Gigastructural Engineering before. Thanks!
So I've just had one of my pre-FTL species gain space travel and naturally they asked for the system, and after seeing that I currently have a size 24 planet there I naturally declined.
But I chose the middle option to not relinquish the system but not to take direct control of their planet, never chose it before and didn't know what it really did.
Next thing the cheeky volcanic bastards decided to close their borders to me i.e. MY borders so I did the same which seemed to instantly collapse their empire and pass ownership of their planet to me, a very tasty size 23 volcanic world. A very fortuitous event one must say as we're currently going through a bit of an energy/alloy crisis
But my question is, it still says it has the Empire Capital modifier while my actual original capital is still a Trade Capital (for galactic market noms) so was wondering if this would be permanent if for instance I didn't touch planet designation? Will it eventually go away?
Grabbed a few screenshots from today's video on YouTube. Not a developer, I wanted to note each Chamber of the new Galactic Halls. They are kilo structures and they can move.
R5: Very high nanite yields with tier III Civilain Arkship, 20+ Astro-Miner districts, Astro-miner civic, and Planetary Reprocessor module. I am set on harvesting nanites for some time (it will provide enough materials to build a few fleets before I need more).
I had the great Khan spawn right next to my vassal I've had since the beginning of the game (in gold). I sent my fleets down there to protect them and killed a Khan fleet while they were mid planetary invasion, killed the starbase, killed their army after they won the invasion and returned to orbit, and my vassal sent his own land army to retake the planet. Only, the starbase never converted ownership. It remains at zero health and in khan control and it is invincible. It's the one red system in gold space in the image. I was about to reload an old save when I noticed that a third party empire had sent a fleet down to deal with the Khan, that fleet got stuck attacking that starbase, and won't move on. They're endlessly orbiting it trying to kill it. That starbase also just happens to be a really great choke point, with no real way around it. So I left my fleet there and left the bug in, and now as you can see it's collecting more and more fleets. Everyone sending their fleets down to deal with the khan has to go through this system to get there, and they get stuck bombing this invincible starbase, and now there is 66k firepower that is staying in this system instead of splitting up and getting killed. The other empires on the khans other sides are my rivals, so I can sit here and hold this system and let him eat them until the Great Khan inevitably gets his throat slit by some general. Lol.
Every since the latest changes Steam made to their systems my Stellaris launcher can't connect to Steam anymore. Verifying the integrity of the game files does nothing. Does anyone know what else I could try?
I shit you not, the AI formed a 3 empire federation in the first 20 years and then declared war on me. I hadn't done anything to upset them but exist. THE FUNNIEST PART IS THAT NONE OF THEM ARE XENOPHOBES. Like what did I do for that kind of treatment?
I recently started playing again, last time was 3 years ago. I don't know when they added it, but this is incredible, I can now use my starting 3 vettes to scout the terrain! Holy crap this changes the early game. Thank you so much devs.
I was trying to play a Fanatic Materialist - Xenophobe with synthetic fertility all was going well until the Xenophile FE came over to break my legs and came back several times to kick me while I was already down.
They kept forcing humiliation on my empire and twice in a row they declared war on me without a prompt which of course just meant I’d lose my science leaders I had leading the technocracy… I absorb the vassal I’m pretty sure was causing the issue but they still came back to force humiliation. My purge policies have been tuned to what they want and they still won’t leave me alone, is this a xenophobe problem or something else?????
