The slave/robot auto migration is the one and only mod I run. I downloaded the mod when I had a low growth cap (cream from the “types of pop growth” video) game as rogue servitor and all my planets were filling up every few months and I got tired of manually resettling them.
ASpec: "Every single planet having it's own personality ads so much potential" Me, a no sectors, per planet management guy: *Cries in micro management*
@@VeryProfessionalGamer no it's not. it has it's uses. in the late game like when i got 20+ planets, i always use sector management.( i got 2k+ hours experience). but using sector automation doesnt clear away your entire work. you should still check what they are doing time to time.
One thing that I always have (although it doesn't work on the latest version of Stellaris) is a mod called "Carrying capacity" that really takes pressure off the late game. It does this by slowing down pop growth when a planet's available jobs and housing decrease when "Your people come to the cruel realization that their offspring will have limited job opportunities and extremely high rent costs"
I'm sorry you actually have that as a problem? How do you typically play? I have never had this as an issue. Infact the excess population is useful for rapid colonization of new worlds.
The best part of More Events Mod is that the flavor texts are so well written that you can't tell them apart from the original events. Often mods suffer from bad English, making them less immersive but More Events Mod doesn't have that. This mod is worth it all the way.
Another 3 mods that I consider ESSENTIAL are: 1. Unofficial Hive DLC: Forgotten Queens 2. Storypack: The Nyblax and the Collector 3. Complex Origins (this one may screw over an AI or two, but are worth it for players to choose)
You can go around that by starting a ironman game, closing stellaris, then turn on the mods you want, and voilà, you have mods in ironman you couldn't before. Might not work on all mods, but still a lot of them
#0:00 Intro #0:51 Visuals #0:51 Quadrants Fixed #1:33 Pinwheel Galaxy #1:59 Lights borders #2:13 Real Space 3.6 #5:30 Machines Shipset #6:30 Quality of Life Mods #6:39 Tiny Outliner #7:19 More Events Mod #9:17 Dynamic Political Events #11:16 Outro
Spah Gaming yes and its currently on 2.2. it’s actually quite awesome for a console port, but tbh tantalus media is an awesome studio ( who did the port )
I'd also like to add auto-explore for obvious reasons and Ethics and Civics Classic for expanded ethics and civics since that makes it possible to create more flavored empires (I'm a fan of the mod because it makes it possible to create more hashed out governments).
ASpec cares about the community, to the point of NOT doing a Tier list because everyone is doing their mods for free and no monetary gain. PARADOX, hire this man already! ;)
The only must-have mod: Gigastructures, just for systemcraft. Why? Because you can strap engines to a god damn solar system and blast it into your enemies.
Gigastructures is the go-to-mod for best high-end Sci-Fi. After all, once you have subjugated/dominated/purged/etc. the galaxy, what else is there left but to build massive mega/giga/tetra structures for future FTL-civilizations to uncover and wonder what species would have been mad enough to build such outrageous things.
I downloaded/installed/love Tiny Outliner v2. I also let the maker know they have you to thank for me getting it. I love how I went from “2 - 3 pages” of worlds to them all fitting on “1 page”.
I have Gigastructures and Planetaty diversity already, both are great fun. What's the difference between Gigastructures and Megastructural Engineering though?
@@seagullman87 megastructures have the same feeling but on a smaller scale... like making a kuat driveyards clone in game or an artificial moon battlestation for a few examples
1. Quadrants Fix (Circles that visually and not mechanically partition off the galaxy) 2. Pinwheel galaxy mod (visual textures) 3. Light borders (visual) 4. Real Space 3.6 (adds pretty solar systems with new hazards and such) 5. Machine Shipset 6. Tiny outliner (streamlines visual) 7. More event mods 8. Dynamic Political Events Mod (adds flavor - military coup, etc
Awesome list ! Personally, the ones I cannot play without are the "Federation builders ship" and the "planetary diversity" mod (with all of its submods of course)
The At War Suite is great. STL defense boats? PLANETARY WEAPONS? Check. Tactical Ship Sections is another good one. Because why the fuck wouldn't you want L slots on your corvettes? Or hangars on your destroyers?
If you have an AI mod which actually uses the At War Suite and Tactical Ship Sections it is kinda sorta almost balanced. If playing with the vanilla AI it is hilariously unbalanced. If only playing multiplayer, very few things are truly unbalanced.
Thank you for video, it was curious to watch:) Strange but you didn't mention "stellaris ui overhaul dynamic ", it one of the must-have mods as well, in my opinion.
Let's see how many I agree with being "Always enabled"... ++ Quadrants: It looks nice. This comes down to what people find aesthetically pleasing. Most will probably agree with this one. (--) Pinwheel Galaxy: Strictly aesthetic, not sure how many will agree. Makes some galaxy shape diversity. Not really an always imo. +(-) Light Borders: This is also strictly aesthetic, but it helps tone down the visual noise of the game, so some people are likely to agree with the notion stated in the video title. (--) Real Space: Far, faaaar fewer people agree with RealSpace. While it is fancy looking, it is far from an always-enable or must-have. Part of the issue here is other mods have to have compat patches made to recognize all the new planet classes/stars. +(-) Machine Shipsets: People love this ship set, and I agree with it to some extent. I wish the megastructures had graphical culture variants in vanilla, rather than always the same. I will say most people will want at least one modded ship set if they want to have something outside what vanilla offers, at least. ++ Tiny Outliner: Yes. 100%, yes. Shrink it down, keep track of a bit more information, reduce screen clutter/noise due to needless font size and spacing. ++ MEM: Yes. All the yes. So much of the mod-using community uses it. +(-) DPE: I get this one. I especially agree we need some of this in vanilla.
Gigastructural Engineering and the Zenith of Fallen Empires need to be tacked onto the end of this list, just because they offer so much to the game. They basically add a fleshed-out “Late-Game” segment to your playthrough, between the midgame and endgame, all on their own.
Sometimes it breaks immersion a bit. For example, in one of my games, i played as an authoritarian fan. materialist empire. i roleplayed it as having fairly high civil freedoms and nice quality of life but no political representation. there was an event when the leader of the empire was... found helping the poor and there being massive backlash. because according to the mod author, being slightly authoritarian means your empire hates the poor. or when the leader of your fanatic materialist egalitarian democracy is found... being friends with a priest, which creates public backlash. Dynamic political events is good, but really assumes too much about your empire and it's society.
@@georgsgrants9925 Touche. I had a similar experience with my over-modded game playing the lost colony origin. There was an event chain where my species was infact exiles with their limbs lopped of from another species. At the same time, my 'true' homeworld was on the other side of the galaxy. But yeah, it would be nice if the egalitarian leader would do things like holding debate clubs challenging believe in the stability of the authoritarian system. That would be more immersive.
Mods add so much to the game so getting an expert to suggest a core set to start with is very helpful. Would like future addon videos to be related to a set of complementary add-ons (with themselves and this core set) rather than one or two in isolation.
Don't forget that the launcher now (May 2022) has a playset option, allowing you to easily mix/match mods, save them under a specific playset name. At the same time, it allows for easy load order management so if you get issues while trying to fire up the game, a little experimentation usually irons things out.
Thanks for this. I am a first time player and this helps me a lot. Appreciate your guide vids and thanks again for always making guides for newbies like me. I really appreciate that.
I am really missing NSC in this list. Btw, the Machine Shipset mod has extra ship sections which work with NSC =) But i agree on Dynamical Political Events, that is a must have. As is Planet Diversity in my opinion.
This might be a stupid question, but is Stellaris' combat AI robust enough now that all of these hyper specialized ship classes actually add anything to the game? I haven't really played Stellaris in years now, and I only get my fix from youtube, but I did try NSC back then and I quickly found that trying to specialize for anything was useless because a massed ball of battleships was just more effective. I guess the extra options for roleplaying is nice either way, but I'd hardly call it essential if things haven't changed much.
@@diairairship2403 After using NSC, I have found way more fun (and probably better strat) using a mixed fleet with at least one Titan, a few Dreadnoughts, SuperCarriers bathed in Strike Crafts and Fighters, and Battleships as bait. Dreadnoughts are insanely good I think, specially given you can make some full of X type weapons or Two X and a few L weapons, basically main Game Titans but you can spam them like crazy. Also, smacking a Flagship full of L Weapons or a HyperCarry Flagship diversifies tacticts a lot.
@@lvlinty Oh yes, the 3 researchs for the Exploration Cruiser are needless roadblocks, with the others at least they give you a choice about building ships besides spamming the same model over and over, like choicing between a SuperCarrier Carrier or a Carrier with L Slots.
@@revan1911 The AI uses the exploration cruisers at least, i've seen some of them actually firing at pirates or enemies while travelling through/fleeing from a system. In one case a stuck cruiser helped defending the outpost by sitting on top of it while the enemy was trying to conquer the system with a fleet that might have been big enough for the outpost, but not for the cruiser in adition to it :D
Thank you for the list! I actually went and subscribed to all 9 mods while you were listing them as I was looking for a good mod list to spice up my gameplay; turns out you get rather bored of the vanilla stuff after 200+ hours on it aha. Can't wait to start a new game!
My biggest problem with realspace is that it fundamentally changes the universe so much that any other mod which cares about star types does not really work with it.
@@archapmangcmg All those things are overpowered and from Giga. But Giga is not the only mod that restricts activities to neutron stars, or black holes, or A type stars, etc. And the way Real Space adds all its new star types means that all those types of stars are very rare when Real Space is turned on, making the features of those other mods not work as intended. So, yea, what Celwenil Eran said, it's a nightmare for compatibility. The types of compatibility issues that are not obvious when comparing overwritten files or entities.
Other must have mods for me are: Ecology Planetary Diversity Traditional Thinking Any mod that ends with the words 'story pack' Guilli's Planet Modifiers Technology Ascendant Potent Rebellions All of the mods just add so much life to the galaxy.
What would be cool is a program within the game that tallies everything that happened and presented an endgame summary of the timeline of your empire, letting you read through the hundreds of years of your guidance. Add in some charts, who doesn’t love plotted data?
Guilli's Planet Modifiers is great. The null modifiers (ones which don't do anything beyond add to a planet's individuality) are amazing for immersion. A mod that lets warships, even if just corvettes / strike craft because of limits imposed by gravity, be made by planets would be cool. It just feels weird when I capture a system but planets aren't throwing anything but useless army transports at me.
I hope to see some reviews on game-altering mods, such as Giga-engineering, NSC2 and caches of technology? Not necessarily what you would recommend, just a review of what they add.
No mention of Giga-structures mod :P I also have a mod for you to add to the list/try out Aspec: Animated Xenomorph Fixed mod, it's a full species mod with animated portraits, traits, civics, shipset, and several xenomorph origins, each of which starts you on a different type of home-world. Works great when played as a devouring swarm hive mind. My only gripe is that you don't get xenomorph armies from the get go.
achievements compatible: Better nigh lights Tier numbers: tech Tier numbers: Buidlings No achievements: No clustered starts these i run most of my games. unles i want achievements.
I am physically unable to play the game without building tier numbers. I am too dumb and I want the game to tell me how big the complex is. But TIL there exists tier numbers for tech.
mods review review 1 - quadrant fixed - your 100% right looks grate 2 - pinwheel galaxy - hard to say without a side by side 3 - light boarders - looks good but is there a thinner boarders 4 - real space 3.6 - sold me with the proto system ( lot of orange ) 5 - machine ship set - I myself hate having to much choice, but as a random ai fleet. yes 6 - tiny outliner v2 - need a side by side. but anything that makes tabs better is a win. 7 - more events mod - yes please. its own name sells it (is this the one that adds a satellite galaxy event ) 8 - dynamic political events - iffy. I like every play though to be different but also not to difficult to maintain smooth game play 9 - I only notice 8 mods not 9. what did I miss.
I just started Stellaris and I wanted to know what mods are good and I looked this up and was like I recognize that he does a lot of how to stuff for this immediately subscribed
I can recommend to you "Guilli's Planetary Modifiers" adds well More modifiers to the fame as well as 3 new start scenarios and some extra Planetary Mechanics to explore in the galaxy.
Jump gates was the first mod I downloaded for stellaris. You don't know you want it until you try it. All it does is replace the arrows in system maps with jump gates but it really brings the game to life on the system scale.
@Aspec youre pretty close in contact with the Stellaris dev team right (as far as community members are concerned)? How receptive is Paradox/the stellaris dev team to mainboarding ideas from modders?
In my opinion there should be Ancient Cache of Technologies. I love this mod and what it does to fallen empires and other stuff. Chiru if you reading this....i love your mod so much :3
Sadly, RS has little to no compatibility with most mods outside of the small few that actually have compatches for it. I love planetary diversity and Guilli's as well as the ethics alternative mod. 0 compatibility to RS.
Planetary diversity has a patch for RS, gullis planet modifiers does too, or it worked for me, and ethics alternative idk why you'd need real space to work with that patch wise
Real Space has quite a few compatches. RS New Frontiers does not. Still very intensive on hardware, so only for those who really care about pretty lights and textures.
Honestly you can just look up "mod x and mod y patch" on the workshop and a lot of the time there's one that's already been created and working And if that doesn't work there's always taking matters into your own hands and merging mods with a mod manager
Absolutely Necessary More Mods recomendation Planetary Diversity & Space Habitats Gigastructural Engineering Megastructural Engineering Also Real Space New Frontiers
The only problem with gigastructural is that the AI breaks and it turns into "I have an invincible shield!" "Yeah well I have the only gun in the universe that can break the invincible shield!" "But I have a mod that makes it super invincible!"
No Guilli's Planetary Mods? I play on 0.25 inhabitable worlds, but a high number of planetary mods. That means I find more uninhabitable former Precursor worlds, which are terraformable with the final terraform tech. The third stage of expansion last longer: the first wave, after terraforming or genemodding or alien migrations, terraforming Tomb Worlds and formerly habitable worlds and specialty worlds, habitats, and finally megastructures. Point is, every world is unique, there are worlds with natural Wonders on them, and the former Precursor worlds you can find are bananas. I'm pretty sure this is the mod that has Precursor Shipyards too.
I appreciate you for putting out the video with your opinions. I don't agree that the first 3 visual mods are 'must haves.' Number 4-9 are all great mods that I use on almost every playthrough.
Other mods i can highly recommend to Aspec´s list: 1. Gigastructural engineering 2. Plentiful traditions with Lot´s of Traditions (because there can always be MORE) 3. Unofficial Hive/Machine DLC 4. Gulli´s everything essentially 5. NSC2 6. United Sci-Fi Races + United Flags (Because why would you need original portrays, if you can literally have a Portray of the God Emperor of Man as a Race symbol and the Terran Eagle as a symbol? Don´t even try to argue against this one heretic) 7. and for the especially faithful: We are the Imperial Navy (Rebuilt). Cause nothing´s greater than sending out a fleet that looks like a bunch of churches. 8. At War 9. If you like me, love to see your PC sweat like a fat guy in the Gym. Try "Larger Galaxies". 10.000 stars makes even the greatest PC sweat like a pig after 20 years of mountain dew. (That´s also a mod, i would really love to have Aspec react to).
I run a bunch of mods, mostly the star wars ones , this game kicks some ass as a starwars galaxy conquest game, only issue I have is usually the ui is either too zoomed in and I cant click on the bottom row of addons while designing a ship , or after i adjusted the sizing , everything is much too small to enjoy fully.
Encountered several brown dwarf type t systems that would not permit me to build an outpost. Not sure which MOD caused the issue. Then I stupidly started switching the load order of the mods, now the game will not load my saved game (aborts/crashes game each time)... two questions...what is the best load order for the mods, and how do I fix it it so my saved game will load.
My first mod is Colored Map Icons. I got real tired of zooming in searching for worlds with my Jump gates to move my fleets around. Now with the colored map icons, it is quick and easy for me to scan the area and pick out those jump gates.
One Mod that i'd add is "No Leader Level Hardcap" which does exactly what the name says. Removes the Leader Max Level 10 Hardcap of Vanilla so only the Softcap is important (and as you can have a Softcap of more than 10 in V an unmodded game already, the hardcap is just wrong in my opinion).
Does pinwheel galaxy affect galaxy generation, or is it just applying the texture without changing the position of stars? There is a pic on the mod page which suggests it doesn't alter positions of stars, but the Galaxy Generation tag has me confused.
Hey ASpec for your next video idea can you speculate the next dlc? since the diplomatic dlc we all wanted is here already :) I personally think now we need species update… most of them are too bland, too similar especially in the late game Stone species had the right idea but I think it should have been implemented better and extend to all species. Each species should feel different when playing. On the top of my head there are few things that should be in the game: More traits (and more trait slots so the more RP ones can be picked), Trait-related events, more species types (gaseous, undergrounds, microscopic，virus etc) and Special trait/mechanic for each species type, A "crew" slot for ships (load one army on a battle ship to give it bonus, like a species with "quick reflex" trait can give the ship more shooting speed) Planet modifiers showing what environment it has and what creatures they have, all creatures can be uplifted (and be different based on what they were, predators as army, smart ones to research, fat ones to eat, cute ones in zoo)
Can you see about doing a playthrough of you playing with a bunch of game-changing mods on max difficulty? So like the mod that adds a bunch of super constructions ( Can't think of the name) Maybe throw in some mod races like maybe from Mass Effect or Star Trek. But edit the videos down a bit. I'd love to see a super campaign spanning years in the game.
I am working on updating the coloured energy weapons mod from a while ago, its nice when you can have tacyon lances and lasers that match the colour of your empire.
The real must have mod that you forgot: Auto pop migration.
You got your wish
@@midnightrose23 is it already in the game?
@@estebanjaramillo76 Yes, it came with 3.0
Unemployed pops have a monthly chance to automatically resettle to a planet with available jobs and housing
Transit hub says hi
The slave/robot auto migration is the one and only mod I run. I downloaded the mod when I had a low growth cap (cream from the “types of pop growth” video) game as rogue servitor and all my planets were filling up every few months and I got tired of manually resettling them.
ASpec: "Every single planet having it's own personality ads so much potential"
Me, a no sectors, per planet management guy: *Cries in micro management*
I thought sector automation was worse than not managing the sector at all? Or do you have a mod for better sector automation AI?
@@VeryProfessionalGamer That's what I said.. I am not managing sectors, I tend to every planet.
@@m4dalex478 ahh crap sry, wasnt really awake then lol. Damn, im still looking for that sweet sweet Sector automation AI...
@@VeryProfessionalGamer should be better now
@@VeryProfessionalGamer no it's not. it has it's uses. in the late game like when i got 20+ planets, i always use sector management.( i got 2k+ hours experience). but using sector automation doesnt clear away your entire work. you should still check what they are doing time to time.
ASpec. You forgot the best one out there. The advisor voice to rule them all. Your voice!
Abbathur voice
I like femmenine voices for my game, but I'd buy ASpec's voice for a dollar!
@@Soviettiger84 you're like a discount Ursula
Why you stealing my comment
Stole my comment. Asshole.
One thing that I always have (although it doesn't work on the latest version of Stellaris) is a mod called "Carrying capacity" that really takes pressure off the late game. It does this by slowing down pop growth when a planet's available jobs and housing decrease when "Your people come to the cruel realization that their offspring will have limited job opportunities and extremely high rent costs"
I had no idea that this mod existed and it would solve all my problems.
Looks like the devs implemented this in game with the new update
I'm sorry you actually have that as a problem? How do you typically play? I have never had this as an issue. Infact the excess population is useful for rapid colonization of new worlds.
@@irontemplar6222 He's talking about how pops affect performance, not gameplay
Realism
When ASpec says that my empire isn’t an empire of hats.
Laughs in Hive Mind
"Download Dynamic Political Events!"
*Devouring Swarm is confused*
*every specimen of an entire species laughing in the same way at the same time*
@@dinamosflams that sent shivers down my spine just imagining that
The best part of More Events Mod is that the flavor texts are so well written that you can't tell them apart from the original events. Often mods suffer from bad English, making them less immersive but More Events Mod doesn't have that. This mod is worth it all the way.
Another 3 mods that I consider ESSENTIAL are:
1. Unofficial Hive DLC: Forgotten Queens
2. Storypack: The Nyblax and the Collector
3. Complex Origins (this one may screw over an AI or two, but are worth it for players to choose)
Is there a mod that serves as a replacement to the apocalypse DLC
Damn I really wish more were Ironman compatible
Honestly I wish that too, and some mods probably should get cheevo's, such as the gigastructures one
You can go around that by starting a ironman game, closing stellaris, then turn on the mods you want, and voilà, you have mods in ironman you couldn't before. Might not work on all mods, but still a lot of them
Isn't Ironman mode always possible? As far as I know, they only deactivate achievements (which is quite logical).
@@destroyer3729 ooooh, did not know that, thanks!
@@Grothgerek Stellaris doesn't let you launch Ironman with mods, as that mode is directly linked to achievements.
#0:00 Intro
#0:51 Visuals
#0:51 Quadrants Fixed
#1:33 Pinwheel Galaxy
#1:59 Lights borders
#2:13 Real Space 3.6
#5:30 Machines Shipset
#6:30 Quality of Life Mods
#6:39 Tiny Outliner
#7:19 More Events Mod
#9:17 Dynamic Political Events
#11:16 Outro
ONLY this comment is of value, not the video.
Thanks for making us console players even more jealous..
stellaris has a console edition?
Spah Gaming yes and its currently on 2.2. it’s actually quite awesome for a console port, but tbh tantalus media is an awesome studio ( who did the port )
@@SpahGaming Yes, yes it does. It was on console the day it was released. PCs are consoles as well.
*Laughs in shitty Laptop*
The fact it's even on consoles is crazy
Thumbnail was predictable, such a good mod.
I'd also like to add auto-explore for obvious reasons and Ethics and Civics Classic for expanded ethics and civics since that makes it possible to create more flavored empires (I'm a fan of the mod because it makes it possible to create more hashed out governments).
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees, gonna drop this master thesis for a coffee break with ASpec's video, thanks dude
Could do it, had to use it as a Podcast, well, as usual is enough with ASpec ahah
ASpec cares about the community, to the point of NOT doing a Tier list because everyone is doing their mods for free and no monetary gain. PARADOX, hire this man already! ;)
The only must-have mod:
Gigastructures, just for systemcraft. Why? Because you can strap engines to a god damn solar system and blast it into your enemies.
Gigastructures is the go-to-mod for best high-end Sci-Fi. After all, once you have subjugated/dominated/purged/etc. the galaxy, what else is there left but to build massive mega/giga/tetra structures for future FTL-civilizations to uncover and wonder what species would have been mad enough to build such outrageous things.
Peter Caballero nah im just shitposting
@IL NGR Pk Cest écrit en français au début ?
Why is it written in french at the start ?
I swept the swarm with one of those.......it was Glorious!
@@pll3827 You could also try playing other games before descending into ridiculous Stellaris content.
I'm actually really surprised Gigastructures isn't in this list.
Same, who wouldnt want all the goodie goodie gumdrop megastructures.
Imo it's fun and good, but not essential, like the better outliner mod
Nice
Every single playtrough includes the first one ever... That is why both Gigastuctures and any AI mods are not recommended in this video.
And the plushies!
I'd love to see you do a must have mods video for 2022! Which ones are you still playing? Which ones have you picked up and loved? 😀
I downloaded/installed/love Tiny Outliner v2. I also let the maker know they have you to thank for me getting it. I love how I went from “2 - 3 pages” of worlds to them all fitting on “1 page”.
A must for sure
0:29 Mentions there are 9 mods to recommend but later only lists 8 in the video and video description.
Wow, I'm surprised SpeedDial isn't included in here. Such a useful mod that adds quick contact buttons for enclaves, the shroud, and marauders
Does it quick contact with Gray?
More Mods recomendation
Planetary Diversity
Space Habitats
Gigastructural Engineering
Megastructural Engineering
Real Space New Frontiers
I have Gigastructures and Planetaty diversity already, both are great fun. What's the difference between Gigastructures and Megastructural Engineering though?
How are you combining planetary diversity with new frontiers tho?
Don't mind me, just replying so other replies become notifications so I'm reminded to get this mod later.
@@Darkcerve i use both and have no problem
@@seagullman87 megastructures have the same feeling but on a smaller scale... like making a kuat driveyards clone in game or an artificial moon battlestation for a few examples
1. Quadrants Fix (Circles that visually and not mechanically partition off the galaxy)
2. Pinwheel galaxy mod (visual textures)
3. Light borders (visual)
4. Real Space 3.6 (adds pretty solar systems with new hazards and such)
5. Machine Shipset
6. Tiny outliner (streamlines visual)
7. More event mods
8. Dynamic Political Events Mod (adds flavor - military coup, etc
Awesome list ! Personally, the ones I cannot play without are the "Federation builders ship" and the "planetary diversity" mod (with all of its submods of course)
The At War Suite is great. STL defense boats? PLANETARY WEAPONS? Check.
Tactical Ship Sections is another good one. Because why the fuck wouldn't you want L slots on your corvettes? Or hangars on your destroyers?
Some people enjoy balance
@@Damo2690 Its perfectly balanced.
If you have an AI mod which actually uses the At War Suite and Tactical Ship Sections it is kinda sorta almost balanced.
If playing with the vanilla AI it is hilariously unbalanced.
If only playing multiplayer, very few things are truly unbalanced.
@@TrabberShir just about anything is hilariously unbalanced for vanilla AI lol.
Don't mind me, just replying so other replies become notifications so I'm reminded to get this mod later.
Thank you for video, it was curious to watch:) Strange but you didn't mention "stellaris ui overhaul dynamic ", it one of the must-have mods as well, in my opinion.
Let's see how many I agree with being "Always enabled"...
++ Quadrants: It looks nice. This comes down to what people find aesthetically pleasing. Most will probably agree with this one.
(--) Pinwheel Galaxy: Strictly aesthetic, not sure how many will agree. Makes some galaxy shape diversity. Not really an always imo.
+(-) Light Borders: This is also strictly aesthetic, but it helps tone down the visual noise of the game, so some people are likely to agree with the notion stated in the video title.
(--) Real Space: Far, faaaar fewer people agree with RealSpace. While it is fancy looking, it is far from an always-enable or must-have. Part of the issue here is other mods have to have compat patches made to recognize all the new planet classes/stars.
+(-) Machine Shipsets: People love this ship set, and I agree with it to some extent. I wish the megastructures had graphical culture variants in vanilla, rather than always the same. I will say most people will want at least one modded ship set if they want to have something outside what vanilla offers, at least.
++ Tiny Outliner: Yes. 100%, yes. Shrink it down, keep track of a bit more information, reduce screen clutter/noise due to needless font size and spacing.
++ MEM: Yes. All the yes. So much of the mod-using community uses it.
+(-) DPE: I get this one. I especially agree we need some of this in vanilla.
Gigastructural Engineering and the Zenith of Fallen Empires need to be tacked onto the end of this list, just because they offer so much to the game. They basically add a fleshed-out “Late-Game” segment to your playthrough, between the midgame and endgame, all on their own.
I'm so glad you didn't do a tier list. Tier lists are just an annoying trend and I'm glad you didn't follow the trend. Shows you have integrity.
But he did for the origins.
@@mbos14 to be fair, origins being ranked on power/quality is a perfect reason to use a tier list. Not so much listing great mods
Nice to see your favourites!
In my opinion More events mod and dynamic political events are necessary for my immersion.
Sometimes it breaks immersion a bit. For example, in one of my games, i played as an authoritarian fan. materialist empire. i roleplayed it as having fairly high civil freedoms and nice quality of life but no political representation. there was an event when the leader of the empire was... found helping the poor and there being massive backlash. because according to the mod author, being slightly authoritarian means your empire hates the poor. or when the leader of your fanatic materialist egalitarian democracy is found... being friends with a priest, which creates public backlash.
Dynamic political events is good, but really assumes too much about your empire and it's society.
@@georgsgrants9925 Touche. I had a similar experience with my over-modded game playing the lost colony origin. There was an event chain where my species was infact exiles with their limbs lopped of from another species. At the same time, my 'true' homeworld was on the other side of the galaxy.
But yeah, it would be nice if the egalitarian leader would do things like holding debate clubs challenging believe in the stability of the authoritarian system. That would be more immersive.
@Zerebrat Eightyseven Real space New Frontiers does similar from what I can see + Guilli's planet modifiers.
Thanks for these! Looks awesome, while retaining the original gameplay! I still have tons to discover and refining to do!
I want specific rebellions, like militarists having coups because you dont go to war, or companies rebelling because you increased taxes or whatever.
one of my favorites is Aesthetic Borders, which get rid of the clutter with the two color borders
Great video! I was looking for some up to date mods to grab!
Mods add so much to the game so getting an expert to suggest a core set to start with is very helpful. Would like future addon videos to be related to a set of complementary add-ons (with themselves and this core set) rather than one or two in isolation.
That's the idea.
@@A_Spec Thank you. Your content is awesome.
Don't forget that the launcher now (May 2022) has a playset option, allowing you to easily mix/match mods, save them under a specific playset name. At the same time, it allows for easy load order management so if you get issues while trying to fire up the game, a little experimentation usually irons things out.
Thanks for this. I am a first time player and this helps me a lot. Appreciate your guide vids and thanks again for always making guides for newbies like me. I really appreciate that.
I am really missing NSC in this list. Btw, the Machine Shipset mod has extra ship sections which work with NSC =)
But i agree on Dynamical Political Events, that is a must have. As is Planet Diversity in my opinion.
This might be a stupid question, but is Stellaris' combat AI robust enough now that all of these hyper specialized ship classes actually add anything to the game? I haven't really played Stellaris in years now, and I only get my fix from youtube, but I did try NSC back then and I quickly found that trying to specialize for anything was useless because a massed ball of battleships was just more effective. I guess the extra options for roleplaying is nice either way, but I'd hardly call it essential if things haven't changed much.
@@diairairship2403 After using NSC, I have found way more fun (and probably better strat) using a mixed fleet with at least one Titan, a few Dreadnoughts, SuperCarriers bathed in Strike Crafts and Fighters, and Battleships as bait. Dreadnoughts are insanely good I think, specially given you can make some full of X type weapons or Two X and a few L weapons, basically main Game Titans but you can spam them like crazy.
Also, smacking a Flagship full of L Weapons or a HyperCarry Flagship diversifies tacticts a lot.
I personally hate nsc. It adds a lot of pointless tech that clutters progression. I can see the appeal others find.. i just don't care for it.
@@lvlinty Oh yes, the 3 researchs for the Exploration Cruiser are needless roadblocks, with the others at least they give you a choice about building ships besides spamming the same model over and over, like choicing between a SuperCarrier Carrier or a Carrier with L Slots.
@@revan1911 The AI uses the exploration cruisers at least, i've seen some of them actually firing at pirates or enemies while travelling through/fleeing from a system. In one case a stuck cruiser helped defending the outpost by sitting on top of it while the enemy was trying to conquer the system with a fleet that might have been big enough for the outpost, but not for the cruiser in adition to it :D
Literally googled "best Stellaris mods" last weekend. Great video 10/10
Thank you for the list! I actually went and subscribed to all 9 mods while you were listing them as I was looking for a good mod list to spice up my gameplay; turns out you get rather bored of the vanilla stuff after 200+ hours on it aha. Can't wait to start a new game!
Me: *downloads realspace*
also me: wait i lag just looking into nebula systems cause my potato pc
Me *uninstalls realspace*
And mind you thats VANILLA nebula systems
My biggest problem with realspace is that it fundamentally changes the universe so much that any other mod which cares about star types does not really work with it.
@@TrabberShir This. Real Space or Giga?
Hyper Shipyards and Quadruple Ringworlds and, coming soon, Alderson Disks!
Real space is not worth it. It's a nightmare for compatibility.
@@archapmangcmg All those things are overpowered and from Giga. But Giga is not the only mod that restricts activities to neutron stars, or black holes, or A type stars, etc. And the way Real Space adds all its new star types means that all those types of stars are very rare when Real Space is turned on, making the features of those other mods not work as intended.
So, yea, what Celwenil Eran said, it's a nightmare for compatibility. The types of compatibility issues that are not obvious when comparing overwritten files or entities.
Other must have mods for me are:
Ecology
Planetary Diversity
Traditional Thinking
Any mod that ends with the words 'story pack'
Guilli's Planet Modifiers
Technology Ascendant
Potent Rebellions
All of the mods just add so much life to the galaxy.
Yeah! Was waiting on this video! :)
Thanks for the tips!
What would be cool is a program within the game that tallies everything that happened and presented an endgame summary of the timeline of your empire, letting you read through the hundreds of years of your guidance. Add in some charts, who doesn’t love plotted data?
Thank you for your service. I'm archiving this for December.
Guilli's Planet Modifiers is great. The null modifiers (ones which don't do anything beyond add to a planet's individuality) are amazing for immersion.
A mod that lets warships, even if just corvettes / strike craft because of limits imposed by gravity, be made by planets would be cool. It just feels weird when I capture a system but planets aren't throwing anything but useless army transports at me.
I hope to see some reviews on game-altering mods, such as Giga-engineering, NSC2 and caches of technology? Not necessarily what you would recommend, just a review of what they add.
No mention of Giga-structures mod :P
I also have a mod for you to add to the list/try out Aspec: Animated Xenomorph Fixed mod, it's a full species mod with animated portraits, traits, civics, shipset, and several xenomorph origins, each of which starts you on a different type of home-world. Works great when played as a devouring swarm hive mind. My only gripe is that you don't get xenomorph armies from the get go.
achievements compatible:
Better nigh lights
Tier numbers: tech
Tier numbers: Buidlings
No achievements:
No clustered starts
these i run most of my games. unles i want achievements.
I am physically unable to play the game without building tier numbers. I am too dumb and I want the game to tell me how big the complex is. But TIL there exists tier numbers for tech.
the tier numbers are definitely VERY helpful and I really don't understand why they are not part of the game already
@@unlustig1 Exactly
TimeStamp Mods :
1. 0:57 = quadrant fixed
2. 1:33 = pinwheel galaxy
3. 2:01 = light borders
4. 2:20 = real space 3.6
5. 5:37 = machine shipset
6. 6:40 = tiny outliner v2
7. 7:33 = more events mod
8. 9:17 = dynamic political events
thx aspec for the video
You're welcome
TinyOutliner makes my life so much easier, but gigastructures is the must have. It is the end-game insanity that makes thing truly insane and fun.
mods review review
1 - quadrant fixed - your 100% right looks grate
2 - pinwheel galaxy - hard to say without a side by side
3 - light boarders - looks good but is there a thinner boarders
4 - real space 3.6 - sold me with the proto system ( lot of orange )
5 - machine ship set - I myself hate having to much choice, but as a random ai fleet. yes
6 - tiny outliner v2 - need a side by side. but anything that makes tabs better is a win.
7 - more events mod - yes please. its own name sells it (is this the one that adds a satellite galaxy event )
8 - dynamic political events - iffy. I like every play though to be different but also not to difficult to maintain smooth game play
9 - I only notice 8 mods not 9. what did I miss.
I just started Stellaris and I wanted to know what mods are good and I looked this up and was like I recognize that he does a lot of how to stuff for this immediately subscribed
I can recommend to you "Guilli's Planetary Modifiers" adds well More modifiers to the fame as well as 3 new start scenarios and some extra Planetary Mechanics to explore in the galaxy.
Been addicted to this game on console for months, this game alone makes me want a PC
Jump gates was the first mod I downloaded for stellaris. You don't know you want it until you try it. All it does is replace the arrows in system maps with jump gates but it really brings the game to life on the system scale.
I like mods... but I also like getting achievements
We need a cheevo mod
Tiny Outliner doesn't affect Ironman. Not sure about the rest
That's cute. What do you do when you have all the achievements?
^^^
I have 3000 hours played, not a single achievement
The author behind the mod Machine Shipset just wrote: - "I'm working on a large update which completely overhauls most of the models"
What a thoughtfull aproach! Thank you.
@Aspec youre pretty close in contact with the Stellaris dev team right (as far as community members are concerned)? How receptive is Paradox/the stellaris dev team to mainboarding ideas from modders?
In my opinion there should be Ancient Cache of Technologies. I love this mod and what it does to fallen empires and other stuff. Chiru if you reading this....i love your mod so much :3
Well giga structures can always be tailored to a more vanilla style through the in-game menu so it could still be a must install
Sadly, RS has little to no compatibility with most mods outside of the small few that actually have compatches for it. I love planetary diversity and Guilli's as well as the ethics alternative mod. 0 compatibility to RS.
Planetary Diversity works 100% with Real Space, I use them together all the time.
Planetary diversity has a patch for RS, gullis planet modifiers does too, or it worked for me, and ethics alternative idk why you'd need real space to work with that patch wise
the ethics and civics should not have problems with real space... the work at completely diferent places in the game...
Real Space has quite a few compatches. RS New Frontiers does not. Still very intensive on hardware, so only for those who really care about pretty lights and textures.
Honestly you can just look up "mod x and mod y patch" on the workshop and a lot of the time there's one that's already been created and working
And if that doesn't work there's always taking matters into your own hands and merging mods with a mod manager
Nice! Just what my shenanigans and I need. :)
You and me both!
Tiny Fleets goes really well with Tiny Outliner.
Fala bogu neko ko igra ovu igru iz hrv
Been using them since this vid first came put, and it did improve my playability.
I *just* launched Stellaris today after a very long break, and I'm greeted to this. Guess I'll make a new save.
do more streams or vidoes please been playing for years but learned more in the last few days watching while playing lol
is it possible if you could do a revised mods list for 2021 ? most of these are outdated now.
I'd hope the Wolf-Rayets would buff armor-tanked corvettes to ludicrous levels. Being more serious though, those effects are gorgeous.
Absolutely Necessary More Mods recomendation
Planetary Diversity & Space Habitats
Gigastructural Engineering
Megastructural Engineering
Also Real Space New Frontiers
@Zerebrat Eightyseven Exactly!
Without them Stellaris feels like a True Purgatory - Stagnant
The only problem with gigastructural is that the AI breaks and it turns into
"I have an invincible shield!"
"Yeah well I have the only gun in the universe that can break the invincible shield!"
"But I have a mod that makes it super invincible!"
I play alot with a mod called ethics and civics overhual 2.7
whats the name of Megastructural Engineering i cant find it
I would love a tutorial on proper mod mangement with the new launcher.
Load order has been screwing me since 2.6
No Guilli's Planetary Mods? I play on 0.25 inhabitable worlds, but a high number of planetary mods. That means I find more uninhabitable former Precursor worlds, which are terraformable with the final terraform tech. The third stage of expansion last longer: the first wave, after terraforming or genemodding or alien migrations, terraforming Tomb Worlds and formerly habitable worlds and specialty worlds, habitats, and finally megastructures.
Point is, every world is unique, there are worlds with natural Wonders on them, and the former Precursor worlds you can find are bananas. I'm pretty sure this is the mod that has Precursor Shipyards too.
You can find a world that was turned into a banana?!
It's a joke, but actually that would be pretty funny and interesting.
Carrying Capacity.
Hands down.
Also maybe a well made automatic station builder.
I appreciate you for putting out the video with your opinions. I don't agree that the first 3 visual mods are 'must haves.' Number 4-9 are all great mods that I use on almost every playthrough.
Other mods i can highly recommend to Aspec´s list:
1. Gigastructural engineering
2. Plentiful traditions with Lot´s of Traditions (because there can always be MORE)
3. Unofficial Hive/Machine DLC
4. Gulli´s everything essentially
5. NSC2
6. United Sci-Fi Races + United Flags (Because why would you need original portrays, if you can literally have a Portray of the God Emperor of Man as a Race symbol and the Terran Eagle as a symbol? Don´t even try to argue against this one heretic)
7. and for the especially faithful: We are the Imperial Navy (Rebuilt). Cause nothing´s greater than sending out a fleet that looks like a bunch of churches.
8. At War
9. If you like me, love to see your PC sweat like a fat guy in the Gym. Try "Larger Galaxies".
10.000 stars makes even the greatest PC sweat like a pig after 20 years of mountain dew. (That´s also a mod, i would really love to have Aspec react to).
he literally talks about gigastructual at the end.
Guilli`s Planetary modifyers is a really great "get into modded Stellaris" Mod
You have a different definition of must have than I, I think. The only one here that really is must have imo is tiny outliner.
U just got the dreadnought up and running. What a nightmare mixed with a fleet right now during a war.
Downloaded,done!!! Thanks ASpec !!!
I run a bunch of mods, mostly the star wars ones , this game kicks some ass as a starwars galaxy conquest game, only issue I have is usually the ui is either too zoomed in and I cant click on the bottom row of addons while designing a ship , or after i adjusted the sizing , everything is much too small to enjoy fully.
Yes! These are must-haves!
For the testing of GPU heat temp monitoring equipment
planetary diversity is a must have for me it adds just SO MUCH FLAVOR with the dozens of new planet types it adds...
I don't particularly like more Events, due to the fact that by overwriting base districts it breaks a lot of other mods.
2.7 improved district mechanics somewhat so More Events Mod no longer needs an overwrite like this.
I'd recommend Planetary diversity gives you so many more planet types and it looks awesom
Encountered several brown dwarf type t systems that would not permit me to build an outpost. Not sure which MOD caused the issue. Then I stupidly started switching the load order of the mods, now the game will not load my saved game (aborts/crashes game each time)... two questions...what is the best load order for the mods, and how do I fix it it so my saved game will load.
My first mod is Colored Map Icons. I got real tired of zooming in searching for worlds with my Jump gates to move my fleets around. Now with the colored map icons, it is quick and easy for me to scan the area and pick out those jump gates.
I should check this out..
One Mod that i'd add is "No Leader Level Hardcap" which does exactly what the name says. Removes the Leader Max Level 10 Hardcap of Vanilla so only the Softcap is important (and as you can have a Softcap of more than 10 in V an unmodded game already, the hardcap is just wrong in my opinion).
Don't forget Guilli's Planetary Modifiers, Planetary Diversity, and Stellar Diversity. Those are must-haves for me.
i would like to add any and all of Cavily's shipsets they are extremely well done and absolutely beautiful
Does pinwheel galaxy affect galaxy generation, or is it just applying the texture without changing the position of stars? There is a pic on the mod page which suggests it doesn't alter positions of stars, but the Galaxy Generation tag has me confused.
Hey ASpec for your next video idea can you speculate the next dlc? since the diplomatic dlc we all wanted is here already :)
I personally think now we need species update… most of them are too bland, too similar especially in the late game
Stone species had the right idea but I think it should have been implemented better and extend to all species.
Each species should feel different when playing. On the top of my head there are few things that should be in the game:
More traits (and more trait slots so the more RP ones can be picked),
Trait-related events, more species types (gaseous, undergrounds, microscopic，virus etc) and
Special trait/mechanic for each species type,
A "crew" slot for ships (load one army on a battle ship to give it bonus, like a species with "quick reflex" trait can give the ship more shooting speed)
Planet modifiers showing what environment it has and what creatures they have, all creatures can be uplifted (and be different based on what they were, predators as army, smart ones to research, fat ones to eat, cute ones in zoo)
Another thing u can do is just download the "Stellaris: REBORN" Megamod (+130mods compiled); the only downside is you can't install anything else.
Maybe you should do these once a year.
Can you see about doing a playthrough of you playing with a bunch of game-changing mods on max difficulty? So like the mod that adds a bunch of super constructions ( Can't think of the name) Maybe throw in some mod races like maybe from Mass Effect or Star Trek. But edit the videos down a bit. I'd love to see a super campaign spanning years in the game.
Amazing Space Battles is a must. Surprised it's not on the list
0/10 didn't include auto survey from start.
I use 3 mods, tiny outliner, futurerama voice over,spiffing brit voiceover lol
I’m surprised giga structures isn’t on here and the one that adds more unity trees and ascension perks
I am working on updating the coloured energy weapons mod from a while ago, its nice when you can have tacyon lances and lasers that match the colour of your empire.
I had to install tiny outliner because the scroll wheel on my mouse is messed up, it made it a lot easier to manage my outliner
NSC2 is amazing ship expansion mod, highly recommend.
Can you add a statement on which mods you can use and still be in iron mode?