Stellaris: How to Build Ships

If someone asks what Stellaris is all about, it can be tough to give an answer. After all, there are so many modes and features tucked into a single game!

What if you had to give a one-word answer? In that case, here we go: Stellaris is all about ships.

Sadly, newer players sometimes struggle with how to build ships. Even veteran players may struggle to build the kind of fleets that win over the enemy.

Learn more below about one of the key aspects of Stellaris: how to build ships.

The Basics of Building Ships

Building the perfect fleet takes a bit of time and practice. Simply building ships? That’s the easy part!

All you need to do is open the Outliner, click on your shipyard, and then click on the third possible tab. This lets you begin building ships right away.

By default, the game will generate the best possible version of the ship. But you may want to toggle this off so you can better customize what you build (more on this later).

What Ships Should You Build?

A common rookie question is “what kind of ships should I build?” The honest (if annoying) answer to this question is “it depends on what you need to do.”

Early on, you should try to match the enemy ship for ship. If they have plenty of corvettes, you need to create your own corvette fleets to counter them.

You can also investigate how the enemy has upgraded its ships. If they are bristling with things like anti-shield weaponry, then you may not want to invest much time and effort into upgrading your own shields.

You can invert that strategy when it comes to fortifying your defenses. When you know how they’ve tricked their ships out, you can develop the perfect counters. Just think of it as “rock, paper, scissors” in space!

To Design or Not to Design

By default, Stellaris will try to optimize the ships you create. However, that optimization is handled by the game’s sometimes illogical AI.

That’s why many players recommend turning off this “auto-best” feature. While it may sound useful for newbies, it keeps you from actually customizing the different slots of your ships. If you can’t do that, you can’t effectively counter the ships and defenses of your opponents.

Ultimately, it all comes down to your personal gameplay experience. If you don’t have any issues with the auto-best system, you may want to keep it on. Even if you’ve been winning with it, I would argue being able to design your own ships is half the fun of the game.

How to Build Ships in Stellaris: What Comes Next?

Now you know how to build ships in Stellaris. But do you know how to build something a bit bigger?

We put together a comprehensive guide to building a starbase in Stellaris. Check it out and expand your empire in style!