Stellaris has captivated the minds of gamers for almost a decade now. Stellaris mods welcome both seasoned spacefaring veterans and newcomers into the world of limitless possibilities of the universe.
While the base game still offers an amazing experience, the Stellaris modding community has taken it upon itself to introduce a plethora of excellent mods to enhance Stellaris’ gameplay.
This article covers some of the best Stellaris mods I am sure will enhance your gaming experience and redefine how you play Stellaris. Let’s start by understanding Stellaris’ gameplay.
Stellaris Mods’ Gameplay
For newcomers, Stellaris is a real-time grand strategy video game created by Paradox Development Studios. The space-themed game was released on May 9, 2016, and was published by Paradox Interactive.
Its gameplay involves becoming a leader of one of the interstellar civilizations set up in several galaxy types in the distant future. As such, you play as the government of a species with the option of exploring other civilizations with unique ethics, traits, and agendas—you can choose to colonize, engage in warfare, trade, or engage in diplomacy with them. The ultimate goals of this game are:
- Hoarding resources and technological supremacy
- Galactic Conquest
- Peaceful coexistence or absolute destruction
What are Stellaris Mods?
Stellaris allows players to create custom content or modifications, otherwise known as Stellaris mods, to enhance their gaming experience. The modding process involves modifying vanilla files (base game files) to change the base game’s behavior. The motive for modding Stellaris ranges from one player to the other. Some mod the game for personal use, while others modify it for public use.
How Stellaris Modding Community Has Impacted Stellaris Game
The Stellaris modding community has played a significant part in making Stellaris one of the best grand strategy games today. Modding intentions like better language translation, shameless cheating, additional events, major overhaul, and better maps are some of the reasons for Stellaris’ success.
The modding community has allowed gamers at all levels to enjoy new gameplay mechanics, customized Stellaris experience, and improved visuals. Some modders have even overhauled Stellaris files completely to enhance their gaming experience.
Where To Get the Stellaris Mods You Want After Upgrades
After creating mods, the modders usually distribute them to different sources to allow Stellaris enthusiasts to download and install them with the click of a button. Some developers also use these sources to crowdsource content that will potentially end up in a game.
The popular sources you can download and install Stellaris mods are:
- Paradox Mods or automatically using Paradox Launcher
- From Steam Workshop Steam’s Client application
- User Modifications forums
The Best Stellaris Mods to Try Out Today
The modding community is always active, so Stellaris lovers should expect more major mods in the future. But until then, they should consider installing the following Stellaris mods to enhance their Stellaris experience.
1. AlphaMod 3.3 Stellaris Mod
AlphaMod 3.3 is the mod you need to check out if you want to immerse yourself in the world of Stellaris fully. AlphaMod is considered an overhaul but is more of an expansion of several Stellaris features and content. This includes ships, buildings, and governments.
The mod regularly updates its components so that players don’t get bored exploring the changing universe full of wonders. In doing this, AlphaMod 3.3 ensures gamers have more choices to help them achieve whatever goals they may have, deal with in-game challenges, and increase the replayability of Stellaris.
2. !! K !! Realistic Camera Mod
As the name suggests, the objective of !! K !! Realistic Camera mod is to make the camera more realistic, which means it’s not a graphic enhancement. Nonetheless, it’s a crucial mod that allows you to zoom out without restrictions and look around wherever you want.
With this Stellaris mod, the Free System Camera Control will give you full free camera control in galaxy view. Besides, with an increased Field of View from 35 FOV to 70 FOV, you are sure to immerse yourself in a more realistic depth of the changing galaxy, especially when you close the horizontal plane.
Another feature you are bound to love in this mod is the fact that when in a battle, the mod allows you to make orbit lines disappear when you start zooming in. This is particularly interesting for players who value the usefulness of the orbit lines in the game but hate seeing them when in a battle.
Last but not least, it allows you to observe the glow in the darkness and even get close to the sun without getting burnt.
3. UI Overhaul Dynamic Stellaris Mod
The Stellaris modding community is happy that the game can now adapt smoothly when switched to higher resolutions. In the past, gamers would have trouble viewing the user interface.
UI Overhaul Dynamic mod can accommodate 1920 × 1080 and 2560 × 1440 resolutions, with UI scaling usage. It allows users with 3840 × 2160 to go up to 2.0 on the UI scaling. In most cases, resolutions below 1920 × 1080 require UI scaling below 1.0.
However, some players feel that it would be best if every window didn’t fill up the entire screen, a problem I am sure will be fixed very soon if not already addressed.
In this Stellaris mod, most Windows have enhanced height and width to create more space for relevant content. UI Overhaul Dynamic alters the backdrop image, changes the font, and ensures you don’t experience viewing issues.
4. Real Space 3.8.9 Stellaris Mod
Real Space 3.8.9 is compatible with patch 3.8.4 Gemini. It creates a more diverse and atmospheric scenery for Stellaris fans. This Stellaris mod adds a new type of stars and their classifications, including over 100 variations of ternary, binary, and pair systems.
New Stellar types in this game are:
- Regular starts
- Giants
- Hypergiants
- Supergiants
- Dwarfs
As you explore the galaxy, you will notice how realistic the stars are. Besides, the mod features 50 new skins for gas planets, so be sure to experience real science in the game.
5. More Events Mod
You can get More Events Mod on Steam Workshop if you feel the game isn’t interesting enough. More Events Mod is compatible with Stellaris 3.8, with all events designed to be balanced with those in the vanilla game.
However, these events aren’t part of the storyline or something grand. They are aimed at spicing up the game whenever the exploration slows down. The events usually show up while you are busy with the main mission.
6. Immersive Beautiful Universe Stellaris Mod
If you have been looking for a graphics update, then Immersive Beautiful Universe is what you need. The mod is a Spiritual sequel to Beautiful Universe v2.0 with actual photo references from NASA.
Immersive Beautiful Universe is integrated with IBS to enhance the detailing in Stellaris. It changes the appearance of the sky box as per the galaxy’s position in the Milky Way. The color of the core object is designed to determine the skybox hue in this mod.
7. Dedicated Worlds Stellaris Mod
Dedicated Worlds is a mod that lets you focus your planets. You will love this mod if you are the type who likes to go big or go home. The mod is designed to be compatible with all other mods, and there are no changes to vanilla files.
Dedicated Worlds gives you up to nine different worlds, which you can either colonize or dedicate specific developments to give them a unique feel. In that case, you can focus or unfocus worlds based on Agriculture, Mining, Trade, Research, Prison, Recruiting, Fortress, and Government Capital.
For instance, you can have one world dedicated to agriculture while the other for residents living normal lives. It ensures everything runs smoothly.
8. Improved Space Battles (Graphics and Balance)
Improved Space Battles ensures you have access to improved visuals of Stellaris’ in-game space battles. It comes with two standalone portions;
- Improved Space Battles [Graphics]: For the most part, this portion focuses on graphical tweaks, which are mostly cosmetic changes to the game’s weapons.
- Improved Space Battles [Balance]: It contains gameplay changes for balancing and promoting widespread space fighting.
Both portions are designed to work together for an improved Stellaris experience.
9. Star Trek: New Horizons
Star Trek: New Horizons is a total conversion mod developed by Paradoxical Development Group. The award-winning mod is available on Steam Workshop and contains a wide range of civilizations. Here are the important features of this franchise:
- Exploration: Species, Relics, Celestials, Space Entities, Fallen Empires, Crisis, Events, and Pre-Warp Species.
- Governance: Empire, Leaders, Traditions, Policies, Edicts, Economy, Planetary Management, Ships, Ship Designer, Starbase, Megastructures, and Technology.
- Diplomacy: Trade and Warfare.
10. Sins of the Prophets Stellaris Mod
Sins of the Prophets is an overhaul mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion created by Chokepoint Games for Stellaris. It features native support for popular space combat mods, including Aesthetic Cinematic Gameplay, Space Combat Expanded, Stellar Expansion – Voidcraft, and Planetary Assault Army & Ship.
With exciting space battles in this mod, you’ll feel like a god while cruising past galaxies in the direction of war you are confident that you will win.
SotP is compatible with Version 3.1.x, and some Covenant Assets are created in partnership with Homefront.
11. Gods and Guardians (3.0) Stellaris Mod
Gods and Guardians is quite an interesting mod released by Paradox Interactive. As a God sent to guide mankind, you have the power to control the natives and take destiny into your hands. You can either enslave the natives under your reign or destroy other races that are lesser than yours.
Guardians and God’s is compatible with version 3.1. Check it out on Steam Workshop, and be sure to modify your Stellaris experience.
Final Word
Although modders sometimes modify Stellaris for fun, these modifications can significantly affect how you play this game. In fact, some mods have completely changed how Stellaris works, including the rules.
The community of Stellaris modders is quite huge and active, so keep visiting our reviews for newer Stellaris mods and updates here, at vGamerz.
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