Building megastructures is my favorite mechanic in Stellaris. It takes years of in-game time to get, and the hard work is more than worth it.
It would be nice if you could build as many of these structures as you like, alas, that is not possible. There are many caps involved with megastructure creation, and this guide will teach you all about them.
Recommended Read: How to Get Dark Matter in Stellaris
Knowing how many megastructures you can build is nice, but you should know something first. All megastructures, except one, need DLC to build. If you want to build these megastructures for yourself, you are going to have to hand over some cash to Paradox first.
You can build as many FTL and megastructures as you like in Stellaris, but only one per system. Multi-stage megastructures are only one per system and only one per empire. The exception to these rules are Habitats and Ring worlds.
Table of Contents
- How Many Megastructures Can You Build in Stellaris?
- Single Stage Megastructures
- Multi-Stage megastructures
How Many Megastructures Can You Build in Stellaris?
There are two kinds of Megastructure in Stellaris.
There are single stage, which means you pay once and you build them all in one go. Then there are a multi-stage; these take multiple resource investments and will take a very long time to complete.
In Stellaris, you can build however many single stage megastructures as you’d like, but you can only build one per system. Multi-stage megastructures can only be built once per system and empire, and you can only build one of them at a time.
Whatever problem you have in Stellaris, there is no doubt that a megastructure can be the solution to that problem.
Movement, ship construction, resource production, fleet size, and even politics can all benefit from a giant space building.
Single Stage Megastructures
About these single stage options, is that you can build as many as you are able to. If you want ten each of these, the game’s rules allow it.
The single stage structures come in two categories; faster than light (FTL) megastructures and orbital megastructures.
FTL Megastructures
The FTL megastructures are your empire’s ticket to the fast lane in Stellaris. They allow ships to bypass the hyperlane network, and make vast leaps across the galaxy in single bounds.
There is no risk to this form of transport either; it can’t fail and can’t be exploited by your foes either.
The two FTL megastructures are:
- Gateways. The best way to imagine these; is the wormholes from Stargate. Your ships can use these gateways, to travel to any other gate in the galaxy. You can only build one gateway per system.
- Hyper Relays. These allow ships to jump to any adjacent system that also contains a hyper relay. Meaning your ships can make jumps without having to use sub light to reach a hyperlane. Like gateways, there is a one per system limit.
Orbital Megastructures
These megastructures orbit planets. Both of these options make for great utility for any empire.
The two orbital options are:
- Habitats. These are artificial micro planets. They look like star bases, except they have no defenses. You can build as many habitats in a system as there are planets. Upgraded habitats make them larger, too.
- Orbital Rings. These are huge rings that encompass a planet for the purposes of defense. They function like traditional star bases and provide buffs to the planet below. To build one, they will need to have a colony. This means you can have as many of these in a system as you have colonized planets.
Multi-Stage megastructures
These are the big boy structures. These wonders are from the minds of some wonderful science fiction writers, and brought to life in the game of Stellaris.
If you want to win Stellaris, these marvels of technology will be the difference maker between you and your opponents.
There are a few caps you need to know about with multi-stage structures.
The first is; build capacity. You can only build, upgrade, or restore one megastructure at a time.
The second cap is the one-per-system cap. This second cap is non-negotiable. However, multi-stage megastructures can share a system with single stage ones.
The multi-stage projects, are as follows:
- Mega Shipyard. An enormous shipyard, that improves ship build speed empire wide. They can only be built in systems that contain one star, and they will orbit this star.
- Quantum Catapult. A Quantum Catapult allows you to fire your ships across the entire galaxy. They need a pulsar, or neutron star, to use as a fuel source.
- Strategic Coordination Centre. These centers can be built around any celestial body. They allow you to field a lot more ships and build more star bases.
- Mega-Art installation. If your empire needs more unity and amenities, this is the megastructure for you. Any celestial body will make a good home for this installation.
- Interstellar Assembly. The assembly megastructure is for increasing your political might in the galaxy. After building around a planet, you will receive buffs to; opinion, envoys, and diplomatic weight.
- Ring World. To build a ring world, you will need a single star system for the megastructure to orbit. These super habitats, act as planets that you can exploit for vast profit. You can build more than one ring world.
- Dyson Sphere. After building this, energy production issues will become a thing of the past. This will destroy the sun and all worlds that inhibit it, so choose wisely.
- Science Nexus. Research is king in Stellaris, and the science nexus will lift your empire’s research potential to new heights. This is built around any standard world.
- Sentry Array. Completing this structure will let you see the entire galaxy with no fog of war. It is built orbiting any celestial body.
- Matter Decompressor. A marvel of engineering that harvests the matter trapped within a black hole. Never worry about needing minerals again after making one orbiting a black hole.
- Aetherophasic Engine. This appears in your home system after becoming the final crisis level. It will orbit your home star, and completing it will result in a game victory.
Building past the cap
If you counted the list of multi-stage megastructures, you will notice there are nine of them (excluding ring worlds and Aetherophasic engines.) So to answer the question of; how many megastructures can you build in Stellaris, the answer is 10.
Well, that is, unless you have the most broken relic in the game, the Isolated Contingency Relic. You get this by defeating the contingency end game crisis. It will allow you to build 2 of every multi-stage megastructure. Bringing the cap up to 18.
You can still only build one Aetherophasic engine with this relic.
This is everything you need to know about how many megastructures you can build in Stellaris.
If you have any questions or suggestions for this guide, please let us know in the comments section below. As always, have fun building all the megastructures in Stellaris.
