Seizing of systems and colonization of planets in Stellaris Stellaris guide, tips

Last update: 14 March 2019

This chapter of the Stellaris guide describes further steps in your quest to develop an empire. Thanks to them, you'll learn how to capture new solar systems and colonize conquered planets.

• Seize the neighboring system
• Erect buildings on your planet
• Clearing sectors of planets
• Planet colonization

Seize the neighboring system

Seizing neighboring planetary systems is what you will be doing throughout the campaign.

Switch to a neighboring system by clicking on the green arrowhead marked in the above screenshot. Arrowheads point you to neighboring systems and they remain active for systems that can be explored.

Select the science ship and order it to survey the neighboring system. Before you seize any system, you have to perform a full survey of resources and planets there.

The science ship will determine the route for itself. Surveying will take several minutes, but you can speed it up by using time-control panel and pressing the plus button.

After you have surveyed the system, select the construction ship and have it go to the neighboring system. In the above screenshot you may notice that the blue area that represents your empire has expanded a little, up to the spot where there is the star of the system.

As soon as the construction ship reaches its destination, you have to click RMB on the system's star. From the menu, select "Build Frontier Outpost". Note that the cost to build it has been expressed in minerals and influence, so your capabilities for expansion are limited, for now. After you select the correct option shown in the above screenshot, the ship will start building.

After several minutes, the outpost will be ready, It specifies the boundaries of your empire. You have to defend it, because they are very expensive to build and if the enemy destroys it, you lose full control of that system.

With the outpost being built, your area of influence has expanded. Now you will receive regular information on actions of neutral and hostile units in that area.

Erect buildings on your planet

The colonized planets provide you with an option to expand individual sectors, which affects the process of obtaining individual resources. To receive influence from the developed sectors, you have to build settlements there.

Look at the above screenshot. By one of the populations, you can see a green progress bar. This means that the specific sector of the planet is being colonized. The green bar represents contentment of residents of individual sectors that have already been colonized.

The rate development of a given population depends on its attributes (high or low natural growth ratio). The population will keep to develop on a planet up until it has settled all of the available sectors.

Settlements takes place in all of the available sectors, one sector at a time, per planet. Under each sector, you can view the bonus that you receive after it has been settled. You can leave aside some of the bonuses, at the beginning of the game, or erect buildings to receive additional or other benefits.

After you select an unsettled sector, another panel will pop up. The button that allows you to erect a selected building has been marked in the above screenshot. Click on the marked button.

The panel lists all of the buildings available in a given sector. Each picture of a building has been provided with information on profits that you will be receiving from that building. Select the building that you need.

Selecting the building starts the building process displayed in the sector panel. The above screenshot presents the process of erecting a mineral mine. At any moment into the construction, you can cancel the process and receive back the resources that you spent on it. The above screenshot you can see the orange progress bar that specifies time remaining until the end of the construction.

After the construction has been completed, the mine building has appeared and the previous profit has been turned into income from that mine.

Remember that you should erect buildings only in sectors that have been previously settled, thanks to which you receive the profit starting with the moment of the building's completion.

Clearing sectors of planets

Planet's population will be constantly expanding in the individual sectors. Some of the sectors of planets will be littered over by unprofitable buildings or obsolete structures that you have to remove to ensure the development of your population. At the same time, it is a way to obtain profits assigned to individual sectors or of erecting new buildings.

The blocked sectors of planets have been marked with a characteristic frame. Click on one of such sectors.

This should display another field in the panel. You will be able to clear the sector, this way. On the panel, you can view the cost to clear the sector and its duration. Press the button marked in the above screenshot to have it done.

Look at the above screenshot. There is another window that appeared on the panel, where you can view time left until the operation is finished. You can cancel the clearing of the sector, using the button marked in the above screenshot, thanks to which you will receive back your expenses.

In the above screenshot, there is an orange progression bar that represents time necessary until the operation is finished.

It is quite expensive to clear sectors, especially at the beginning of the game, so try to do this only after population in the free sectors has developed sufficiently.

Planet colonization

If you are following instructions in this guide, it is around now that the sociology project should be completed. Thanks to this, you will be able to colonize planets.

While surveying, the science ship may discover new planets that can be colonized. In the above screenshot, there are two symbols of planets. The green one is a planet that meets your population's needs. To colonize the red planets, you will require additional sociology research, thanks to which you can make unfavorable planets fit the needs of your population.

The first step is to build a colony ship. For this, access the space port of your mother planet and select the button shown in the screenshot.

Note that the list of available units has been expanded by an additional unit - colony ship. You have to consider your decision to build one, because it is time-consuming and costly. You can disable the space port for some time, as a result of which you will be unable to build new units, e.g. warships.

If you decide to build a ship, it will be queued up. Construction and selection of colonists will take 350 months.

As soon as the unit is ready, select it. Colony ships are represented by an icon of a silhouette with a flag (the above screenshot).

Switch to the system that you want to colonize. Select the planet to colonize and press the RMB. Then, select "Colonize Planet".

This will open the panel of the new planet, where you have to put your colony in one of the available sectors.

Colonization of a planet increases your needs in terms of energy credits. Colonization lasts 12 months. The above screenshot presents the form that the panel of the new planet assumes. The bar displayed there represents time remaining until colonization is completed.

Note that the colonized planet assumed a name that corresponds to the name of your people. After the process finishes, you will be able to exploit resources of the planet in the same way as you would on your mother planet.

What is important that you have to build a separate colony ship for each of the planets, which is costly and time-consuming. Remember to conduct sociology research, thanks to which you can colonize planets that, by default, are unwelcoming to your population.