Stellaris Megastructures Tier List

i deserve an audience to make certain that he understands its remarkable potential its power to create problems has certainly been confirmed so i'm still in command you'll speak to the emperor about me be careful not to choke on your aspirations director megastructures are late-game technological marvels worthy of the name in this video i'm going to rank them in a tier list please if you have any different opinions let me know in the comments below and i think i want to just start by saying there are two mega structures i'm not going to cover in this tier list that being habitats and gateways they don't really tend to follow the normal formula for any of the mega structures we're going to be looking at today and they don't require the mega engineering technology without any further ado let's dive straight in to the tier list so tier f is the first tier and interestingly i'm leaving that one completely blank i don't think that any mega structure deserves a place in the f tier all of them have some benefit to building none of them are inherently bad and there is no opportunity cost really in having built them except for the fact maybe that you could have built another mega structure or you could have built some more ships so moving swiftly on we have the first tier with anything in it that is the c tier now in the seat here i put these here some of them um in actual fact a couple of these would be lower if it wasn't for the uh benefit that they provide in in building them not just the inherent benefit of the structure i mean but also what they will enable you and your empire to do the first megastructure in this tier is the mega art installation now the first reason it is here is its cost it is one of the more expensive mega structures to build costing 5 000 for the site and then needing an additional 15 000 and 10 years worth of time for the first three stages and you want to finally get the fourth stage out you also need a hundred minor artifacts and ten years that final stage though the fourth stage if you don't have the artifacts that's okay it will still count as completed when you get to stage three and that completion is quite important i'll mention that later on but what does it give us well for each stage it gives us five percent amenities and plus 100 unity at a cost of 10 energy now at the point in the game where you're going to be getting a mega art installation the unity extra output is nice but it's not really going to be that massive you won't be building this installation first you won't be building this second you probably won't even build this megastructure third meaning that because you can only build one mega structure at a time ignoring bonuses from ambitions or a sanctioned perks to increase your megastructure build capacity you're only going to be building and upgrading one mega structure at a time so by the time you finish it and you're getting that plus 300 unity that's not really a big deal that's probably going to be somewhere in the region of maybe as much as 30 40 extra unity possibly as little as five or ten percent of your overall unity output and you will probably have finished all of your tradition so this small bump in unity isn't going to be a big deal yes you can spend it on ambitions but really i can't see it being as helpful as some of the other mega structures we have to look at then there's the amenities bonus plus 15 you can get close to that well for instance let's say you get a resort world you're going to be getting a boost to amenities that's not going to cost you somewhere in the region of 35 000 alloys and 25 years of your time to get to by pumping out just a single resort world though i will acknowledge that reducing the number of pops you need to have working entertainment type jobs or that sort of thing yes could be useful but overall i think the mega art installation definitely deserves its place down at the bottom of the list here in c next up we have the sentry array now this one is a little interesting what it does as you upgrade it is that it increases your hyperlane scanner range meaning you can see the ships flying between hyperlanes and at the max completed level you get to see the entire galaxy as well as increasing your base intel with the advent of the espionage system and of course with pompous purists the power of the century array has been vastly reduced it does cost a total of 45 000 alloys to fully upgrade it as well as 300 influence and 25 years of your life that is quite an investment for something we can do without needing to do any of that from basically the start of the game with our spies one factor that definitely does redeem this megastructure is that you can complete it relatively quickly it only takes five years per stage meaning that from the initial start point it's only 25 years until it's done which is one of the faster mega structures to finish and that's important as in order to unlock the dyson sphere mata decompressor and ring world you need to complete a mega structure because you need to take the galactic wonders ascension perk and completing a megastructure is one of the requirements of that the sentry array does have one hidden benefit though as it will mean that no system in the galaxy will have low intel level a completed sentry array will prevent any space creatures from respawning that is amoeba that is crystalline entities and mining drones all of those space creatures which can be a little annoying if you don't want to take those systems finally in the seat here we have the interstellar assembly now this one is actually a personal favorite of mine from a flavor and role play perspective what does it do well when we fully upgrade it we're going to get plus 40 diplomatic weight in the galactic community plus 50 opinion from all other empires and two available envoys is that amazing well it's definitely very good and if you're playing a game where you really need that extra diplomatic weight to win something in the galactic community possibly becoming the custodian something like that it can be very useful however you can get more diplomatic weight by spending those alloys on for instance ships and being in the supremacist stance it is going to cost you 45 000 alloys and 25 years to fully upgrade this megastructure so it is definitely one of the less useful megastructures i would say though of course this is all down to personal preference and just like the sentry array this one is one of the fast megastructures meaning we can rush it and complete it quite quickly in order to be able to unlock dyson spheres and mata decompressors and if you're enjoying this video please eclipse that like button okay now we've reached the b tier these are definitely useful though not critical to the success of your empire what have we got in here well the first one is the ring world i've recently done a video on ring worlds actually and how you can use them and i did show off the fact that taking a single ring world segment you can end up outputting somewhere in the region of i think it was 4 000 technology points per month which is simply bonkers so why on earth has it ended up in the b tier well in order to get to that stage not only do you have to build the ring world which requires setting up the frame and the construction site that's 15 000 alloys as well as a good number of years around 18 years you then have to complete one of the segments that's another 10 000 alloys and 10 years of your time and then once you've completed the segment you get no measurable output straight away because you've created a habitat a habitable world for your population you then need to colonize it and fill it up with pops that is why i've pushed it down to the b tier in addition to that you can't build this one early on because you have to take the galactic wonders ascension perk meaning you have to first complete another mega structure in the beginning okay if you find a ruined ring world site you could complete a segment straight away and in that case very good that would that would be an a if you find the ruined ring world site i would say but if you are not repairing a ring world segment if you're constructing from scratch i think this is definitely b tier simply when viewed from the perspective of the amount of time it takes you to get the maximum impact from this mega structure unlike all of the rest of them which give you a bonus as soon as you finish construction and the other mega structure in the b tier is the strategic coordination center now on the surface this seems like a fantastic mega structure plus 150 naval capacity plus six star based capacity plus 12 defense platforms and plus 15 sublight speed those are the bonuses when you invest 50 000 alloys and around 35 years of your time when you fully complete it why is it ended up in the beta well that naval capacity you could get that much much more easily by building just one or two habitats at the cost of 3 000 alloys and putting a few pops on them and turning them into fortress habitats and fortress worlds the star based capacity that's definitely useful although there is a repeatable technology for that and the increase in defense platforms is kind of meh unless you're running some sort of uh unyielding build where you've taken the ascension perk as well eternal vigilance to increase the defense platform cap and it's important to note here that you can stack the bonuses from unyielding are a percentage modifier and the increase in defense platform cap is a base increase meaning that these are kind of multiplicative and you can end up with a bonkers number of defense platforms on a single star base however that will not protect that star base from being completely eviscerated by a horde of battleships in the late game from the edge of the system that then leaves the final bonus of this megastructure which is the increase in sublight speed to be quite honest i think that's actually one of the best parts of this mega structure it is very hard other than a one relic an edict and uh increasing your technology level to increase the speed of your ships a plus 15 bonus to your speed can be very useful in a tactical situation without that i might have actually pushed this down to c tier given the bonuses are easier to get elsewhere and don't take up your megastructure build slots and if you have a different opinion if you disagree with this list so far or something i'm going to say in it or you agree or you just want to tell me something write it down in the comments below i'm going to spend at least the first few hours after this video goes live and i'm going to make sure to come back and go through most of the comments if not all of them so please write to me and i will respond in the first few hours all right we have reached the a tier now in this tier these are mega structures you will want to build when you can we're not quite in the st yet this is not the best of the best but these are phenomenally good mega structures that you are almost certainly going to want to build what is the first one here the dyson sphere now i'm going to add a little caveat here if you are running a trade-based empire you're probably not going to need a dyson sphere because all of your debts and loans and trading and commerce and capitalism will substitute the energy you're going to be getting from one of these dyson fees it's a little crazy but honestly that's my findings there this is definitely very useful for a non-trade-based empire that wants to put its population that were working things like technician jobs and push them into research and alloy jobs but what does it do well it takes you a grand total of 55 years to fully complete assuming you've not got any bonuses and 55 000 alloys but once you do complete the dyson sphere you will gain access to the energy of a star and that's apparently equivalent to 4 000 energy credits per month nothing to be sniffed at you can run a large number of ships on 4000 energy credits per month one dyson sphere in the late game is usually enough to mean that you never have to worry about energy again the dyson sphere does require the galactic wanders ascension perk and that's why it's not an s tier it does take a little while to get this megastructure operational and it does cost a lot and that's why i've kept it here in the a tier though it is beautiful it's um well it's one of the great fantasies of a lot of science fiction writing building a dyson sphere is the pinnacle achievement of many civilizations in uh popular science fiction writing and it does mean the transition from a type 1 to a type 2 civilization on the kardashev scale all right next up we have the science-based megastructure and that is the science nexus for every level you're going to get 100 research points in each category and plus 5 research speed bonus so at the total cost when you've completed it off 50 000 alloys and 35 years of your time you'll be getting plus 300 research in each category so plus 900 in total and plus 15 research speed that is fantastic stellaris is a game where the research output of your civilization is critical in order to be able to defeat the enemies around you and fend off the end game crisis so a science nexus actually it's usually even though it's only down here in the a tier and we'll get to why it's in the 80 when you see the s here in a moment but it's actually one of the first mega structures i tend to build and that is mainly because i really do rate this science output it's phenomenal there's some great event chains that you get with this as well that can be quite interesting you can end up uploading the brains of one of your scientists and that can further boost the research output definitely something you want to do it's also a very beautiful mega structure in terms of the artwork at least in my opinion i do very much like this one and the final mega structure in the a tier is the mata decompressor now this one is a mega structure i have to admit i don't build often enough what does it do well per stage it is going to produce 500 minerals meaning once you've completed it at stage 4 it will be outputting 2 000 minerals a month that is enough minerals to deal with most empires alloy productions into the very very late game plus 2 000 minerals is great i i do have to hold my hand up though and say yep i don't build this one enough i usually build orbital mineral platforms to get my minerals or i conquer new worlds this one though means you can play very tall you just need to get your hands on a black hole that can be the tricky part here as well there aren't that many black holes in the galaxy unless you become the crisis and start making your own black holes mata decompresses can be somewhat tricky to build they do cost quite a lot as well to complete this one it is going to cost you a total of 55 000 alloys and 45 years of your time not quite as expensive in time as the dyson sphere but just as expensive in alloy cost when coupled with a dyson sphere a matter decompressor and a dyson sphere basically mean you no longer have to work regular worker jobs in your empire ever again you can get enough food from both the galactic market and orbital platforms usually to be able to set your food needs or just upgrade to synthetic it's pretty simple folks and then you don't even need food and then from that point onwards you've got the mineral and energy income to push all of your pops into alloy jobs into science jobs into the actual resources you need and now we finally get to the est here what have i placed here what is in my opinion the best and most important mega structures that we can get our hands on in stellaris well you if you've done your counting you might notice that there is only one mega structure left to look at and that is the mega shipyard what does the mega shipyard do and why have i placed it in the s tier well it is a very cheap and very fast mega structure to complete it is only going to take you 20 years in total from the initial creation of your site all the way up to completion and 33 000 alloys very very cheap in terms of cost what does it do for us well at its completed stage it gives us plus 20 shipyards on them on the mega shipyard which is very nice that's equivalent to three and a little bit worth of uh fully built out uh shipyard starbases okay that's nice but the main bonus it gives is a plus 100 empire wide ship build speed in the late game when you're coming up against the crisis it can happen that you lose a lot of ships you lose a large number of your fleet but with a mega shipyard that means that your core worlds your core systems as long as they're not attacked and destroyed can keep pumping out ships at a phenomenally fast rate you can get a battleship out in roughly 100 days with the right bonuses if you've got a mega shipyard up and running what that basically means is you have the flexibility to risk your fleets and risk your main ships in engagement that you would otherwise be too cautious to enter for fear of getting them wiped out this is fantastic it is the only mega structure which we cannot replicate the effects of through other means for instance with the other mega structures we could build worlds that produce their outputs for instance with the century array we could do lots and lots of espionage on the other empires to replicate a similar output a dyson sphere could be replicated through trade or simply energy creation the mata decompressor where you could throw up a load of mining orbital habitats the you know i could go through all of these and talk about why yes you could build them because they're great the other megastructures but you could also get around it with the mega shipyard you've got no way of getting around this empire shipbuild speed modifier you also get ability to build titans colossus and juggernauts at the mega shipyard as well without having to spend a massive amount of time on the extra components that you'd need the extra buildings you'd need on your shipyard star bases in order to build those colossal ships and then due to the low time and cost of this megastructure by building it and unlocking it you enable the unlocking of the galactic wonders ascension perk in the cheapest and fastest manner thus unlocking the ability to build your ring worlds and your mata decompressors and your dyson spheres this is the one-stop shop megastructure that you should almost always be building first it is without the shadow of a doubt in my own opinion the best megastructure in stellaris if you'd like to know more about ring worlds how to build them how to maximize your output on them click the video on screen now

Channel: Montu Plays

Views: 267,239

Keywords: Stellaris, stellaris gameplay, stellaris lem, montu plays, montu plays stellaris, stellaris megastructures, stellaris megastructures tier list, stellaris megastructures ranked, stellaris megastructures guide, megastructures, megastructures stellaris, stellaris tier list, stellaris tier list 3.2, stellaris megastructure tier list

Id: VG5YSByzxgQ

Length: 20min 7sec (1207 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 21 2021