By Robert Koumarelas
Stellaris players should always prepare and expect the unexpected in the galaxy. Fortunately, ships can be modified to answer any future foe.
While it's not possible to modify civilian ship designs, Stellaris' military ships are highly customizable, and can be the key to attaining victory in many battles, even if outnumbered. Accessing every optional ship class and component will require several expansions and DLC, but each can provide new advantages and methods of winning space battles and, one day, dominating the entire galaxy.
The Ship Designer menu is where players may create, update and customize ship templates and defense stations. If a ship of a design is under construction or being upgraded, the design cannot be edited. Players can choose the Auto-Generate box to continually update ship designs based on the latest technology research. However, it won't take account of the enemies the fleet is facing or may face, so it might choose components that an opponent can counter instead of a less up-to-date component that has proven successful.
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Getting directly involved in ship design is optional and Stellaris can be played without touching this menu often. Still, it's always best to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential enemies and updating or upgrading ship designs to counter them. For example, while shields are effective against most energy weapons, they're vulnerable to kinetic weapons, whereas armor is the exact opposite.
On the right side of the designer,players can select options for different subsystems of the ship. Most of them are required, and it's not possible to design a ship without some version of them, but few of them are optional, having the option to install no subsystem in its slot. These systems include the reactor, FTL drive, computer system, sublight thrusters and sensors. Since nearly every component requires power, keeping the reactor up-to-date or supplied with a reactor booster is highly advised.
Each ship and station are made up of one to three sections, and each section may have its own design. Ship section designs vary based on where they are in the ship, while station section designs are all the same. Each section design has space for a variety of offensive and defensive modules. For example, one station section may be designed to carry a single large weapon or four small weapons. While more expensive and non-mobile, defense stations don't have upkeep costs.
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In-game, weapons follows stats based on its cost to build, power usage, type, damage, cooldown, accuracy, tracking and range. There are also six categories of weapons to install on ships and defense stations including energy, kinetic, explosive, strike craft, point-defense and titanic. Researching upgrades for starting weapons can unlock new weapons to research and install on new designs. Strike craft hangars will launch small spaceships to attack. Like explosive weapons, strike craft ignore shields to cause damage to armor and hull, but can be shot down by flak guns. They typically take enemy fire before the rest of your fleet does, making them useful for both offense and defense.
The Titan Lance is a weapon that can only be equipped for either Titans or station-based Ion Cannons. They're time consuming and costly to build, but their extremely high damage and range within systemsprovidea tactical advantage, as typical enemy fleets won't even be within range to fire back before you've already engaged.
While there isn't much choice in weapons for Titan class ships, they instead have a special core component slot called the titan aura, which can affect both allied and enemy fleets in a pitched battle. A defensive aura gives a buff to allied ships in the same fleet, while an offensive aura applies a debuff to all enemy ships that are in battle with the Titan's fleet. In either case, the distance from the Titan does not matter. While the Juggernaut class ship can't be added to any fleets, it can be equipped with an aura that affects all ships that are in the same system.
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Battleships can be equipped with spinal mounted, extra-large energy or kinetic weapons that do considerable damage at great distances. While not as powerful as the Titan Lance, the fact that they can be equipped on Battleships means they're more widely available for battles. It might be tempting to equip every section of a ship with powerful weapons, but this can leave them equally open to damage from enemy ships. Ideally, ships should be equipped with a mix of weapons and point-defense or flak cannons for defense against incoming missiles and strike craft.
Utility components provide mostly defense against incoming damage, though the auxiliary slots can provide components that provide additional buffs to ships. For example, while shields have inherent regeneration, armor and hull do not. This means that, by default, damaged ships cannot be restored to full fighting capability without returning to a starbase, which limits operations far away from said starbases. Therefore, securing at least one source of hull and armor regeneration is useful, especially for lengthy offensive operations. This can be done by acquiring the regenerative hull tissue or nanobot repair system technology and installing it in the auxiliary slot.
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