Editing Stellaris (section)

==DLC==

[[Rage|The paid ones are absolutely fucking expensive.]]

With that out of the way, here's a list of them. They're in order of release (besides the first three since they basically all came out at the same time). Feel free to add more as they invariably come out to drain our wallets:

* '''Login Bonus''': Not really traditional DLC per se but it locks content behind a Paradox account, so it counts as free DLC. Gives you an avian portrait based on the chirpy social media app in another Paradox game, Cities: Skylines. [[Lulz|Since it has no variation it unintentionally works great for clone origin empires]].
* '''Galaxy Edition''': The collector's edition of the game. Only here because it gives an exclusive species portrait. It also comes with two E-books and the soundtrack, if you fancy yourself an en-/lit/-end individual. You can also shill 13 bucks (USD, convert as you will) to upgrade the base game to it.
* '''Creatures of the Void''': Preorder bonus of portraits that they got to exclusively use for a year before being given out for free to everyone.
* '''Plantoids''': The first paid DLC released for the game, and a taste of the avarice to come. Adds an entirely new class of species into the game, being plant people. Started out as little more than a cosmetics pack, got slightly better after unique traits were introduced for plants species.
* '''Leviathans''': The first paid DLC that isn't cosmetic. Adds a bunch of unique events into the game that all have a chance of generating in your galaxy, and all involving some big boss (like a space-faring Dragon defending its hoard) your fleets will have to fight for a unique reward. Also lets you play the totally-not-Babylon 5 story if you're old enough to know about it.
* '''Horizon Signal''': Free Eldritch uber-rare questline DLC. WHAT WAS, WILL BE; WHAT WILL BE, WAS.
* '''Utopia''': The first of the "major overhaul" DLCs that accompanied gameplay-changing revisions. While said changes are subject to [[Skub|debate]] even nowadays, at least we got the ability to build megastructures out of it. Also added [[Tyranids|Hive Minds]], which dominates a lot of the meta to this day. Basically now cultural activity trees that are finished get an "Ascension" concept, giving a significant bonus to your empire and shapes the game plot if you choose, such as psychic abilities, cybernetic ascension or even focusing on toppling Fallen Empires or dedicating yourself to defend the galaxy from outside threats. 
* '''Anniversary Portraits''': Free DLC that released the aforementioned "Creatures of the Void" DLC to those who didn't preorder, but also added some extra portraits on top.
* '''Synthetic Dawn''': Skynet is here. Major revisions to robots and such, and greatly expands on the Contingency. Lets you play as Machine Empires and allows for [[Necrons|synthetic ascension]], both of which are as powerful as you might expect. Unfortunately, while it did allow the creation of robotic civilizations, it restricted them to [[skub|gestalt consciousnesses only, meaning the Borg Collective or Skynet were the only robot civilizations you could make.]]
* '''Apocalypse''': The second major revision DLC. Gave us the glory of Exterminatus (or Death Star lasers, if you swing that way) via Colossi, as well as the fuckhuge Titan-class capital ships. This also brought in the Marauders, space-faring pirates who can become the Mongol Empire (IN SPACE!) as a mid-game Crisis event.
* '''Humanoids''': Another fucking species pack. At least it adds some fantasy-inspired portraits to the mix. [[Awesome|You can now be Orks without mods.]]
* '''Distant Stars''': [[Metal Gear|Nanomachines, son!]] Adds a small cluster (uninventively called the L-Cluster) off the side of the galaxy only accessible via special L-Gates which has the super rare "Nanite" resource which can be used for making the most unbalanced ship weapon per the last update(Nanite Autocannon) or be used for more mundane (stupid) tasks. Beware what can come out the other side. Also adds a few more Leviathan-style encounters.
* '''MegaCorp''': Another goddamn revision update came out with this one, coming with the advent of Megacorporations. Become Geedubs in space, or the Hutts. Or deal with them. Also adds caravaneers (with a parody of lootboxes), more megastructures, and the slave trade.
* '''Ancient Relics''': Archaeology, IN SPHESS! Mainly fleshes out existing Precursors (besides the Cybrex, who already got their limelight in Synthetic Dawn) as well as adding new ones. Also adds an event chain featuring space Skaven. They really are neckbeards...
* '''Lithoids''': Species Pack yet again. At least these silicon lifeforms actually have unique gameplay attributes tied to them, unlike the others, setting a possible trend. [[What|Like farting valuable gases and being enslaved and raised like cattle...for minerals and gems for energy weapons! Feel free to enslave and farm living rocks for their argon farts, mineral bodies and gem dandruff and turn a mineral poor planet into a powerhouse of pain and rock cannibalism.]]
* '''Federations''': Revision Update/DLC combo #4. Federations get revamped, there's now a Galactic Community, a new XBAWKSHUEG ship-slash-mobile-base class (the Juggernaut), new origins for your species, and more. Also adds a megastructure specifically made for shitting out ships in large numbers, [[Cheese|which can become incredibly cheesy due to producing 1d20 battleships every six RL minutes so long as you have the alloys to keep it running]].
* '''Necroids''': Space undead/vampires/what have you. Second in a trend of "species packs that aren't just overpriced cosmetic packs", they add an Origin which lets them play like they look. Basically there are new civics like regular population sacrifice temples for culture boost for normal races, and said necroids turning conquered populations either semi-voluntarily (well-treated cultists who are taught the necroid culture for 5 years and turned into undead) or forced upon conquest like mass-embracing Kindred.
* '''Nemesis''': The fifth revision, and the [[Edgy|Edgelord]] of the bunch. Lets you become the Empire from Star Wars or go full Chaos and rape the galaxy to death; it also revamps the otherwise borderline-useless espionage system to let you live out your [[Alpha Legion]] fantasies. You also get a more brutalist-style ship set for endgame mineral sink.
* '''Aquatics''': Why there wasn't the ability to play an aquatic species when mollusk-based portraits were already in the game is beyond us, but it's finally been rectified. Not only does it add ''more'' species portraits and such, but you can also now choose to live under the sea like Merfolk. Or go fishing. You also can ally with a Leviathan via an Origin - but since it's a dragon, it'll turn on you if you stop being useful to it. [[What|There's also a new Colossus weapon that drowns your enemies from orbit. Yes, really.]]
* '''Overlord''' - More Megastructures, a (retarded) overhaul of the Vassal system, new Origins (including a new Psionic origin that makes Psionic Ascension more viable), etc. The game changes included in this update are current as of May 2022, but knowing these guys it won't be for too long. The old 'Empire Sprawl' mechanic has become an "Empire Size" value, penalising wide empires' tech and tradition research rates to force the players into playing tall, [[What|meaning that it's entirely possible for a one-planet empire to research faster than a ten-planet one with dozens of research labs and hundreds of scientists]]. Vassals now cost you absurd amounts of resources to maintain and will rebel if you make them do anything, [[Fail|but the ES malus means you can't just beat them to death and take their stuff]]. Edicts got a kick in the nuts, being reworked so that [[RAGE|Everything costs Unity (rather than influence)]], which is spent like the Political Power of [[Hearts of Iron]]. [[Skub|Contentious in the extreme]] due to massively altering the game, to say the least.
* '''Toxoids''': A species/origin pack themed around pollution, including new origins and civics. You can genetically overdrive your species, [[Looted|scavenge wrecks after battle]], and [[Hive World|even pollute your own planets via unrestrained industrialization]], and there is a unique faction gameplay named Toxic Knights who act all "Monty Python meets Nurgle". If there is a silver lining is that at this moment, after all these years of coding, the AI can often outperform the player in mundane tasks, and will establish *very* powerful empires if left alone. Vassals are slightly re-balanced, now they are OK with staying vassals with reasonable support and some freedom in expansion, allowing a religious authoritarian empire to make Holy Roman Empire in space delegating all the shit lands they can't be arsed with. Oddly enough, this is the DLC that actually added dedicated Cybernetic Modifications to the game.
* '''First Contact''': Three Origins, Cloaking Tech, and some interesting options for interacting with pre-spaceflight civilizations. Adds a new faction called Minamar Specialized Industries (MSI), an interstellar "[[Cyberpunk 2020|Corporation]]" with a canonical habit of trapping pre-FTL civilizations in debt slavery and stripping all of the resources they can from their home planets; they also use [[Roman Empire|the naming schema of the Roman Empire]]...for some reason. Also notable for adding a new FTL method, the Subspace Drive, that acts as a budget Jump Drive for empires that start with a certain civic  at the cost of forgoing certain starting researches. 
**Weird note regarding the Roman Empire naming scheme: that name pack has been in the game since basically the beginning of the game's development but as of now MSI is the '''Only''' faction, pre-made empire or other applicable entity to use the name schema that is not player made.
* '''Galactic Paragons''': A Leader rework, with new traits for leaders as well as reworking the trait system in general. Now you can choose to level up Traits to be more powerful when you level up instead of only getting one level and hoping for the luck of the draw. It also adds in the Council, which is essentially head leaders from each type plus your empire's ruler. [[Awesome|This had the side effect of reducing the number of science leaders you need for research down to just one]], at the cost of there now being a leader cap. For RP purposes, you can also set your original ruler's backstory now as well as their initial focus, and RNG leaders have their backstory list out various traits. Speaking of foci, they're reworked to also be choosable by the player instead of directly tied to whatever leader is currently in charge - with a windup period that gives some bonuses at first followed by a launch period where the real meat of the boons come in. Can be boring if you dont want to minmax your leaders and set to autolevel, but you do you.
* '''Astral Planes''': Adds new events and origins allowing for interactions with astral planes beyond the Shroud. Generally considered heavily overpriced for what it adds. It also doesn't add much, if any, cosmic horror to the game. Weird; imagine Backrooms-like weird mini universes where you poke around and find mildly interesting stuff, but you can open new ones and dig around these mini universes using "Astral Threads", a byproduct of cosmic reality that can be used to explore other realms and spent for mini bonuses. Technically this adds the Multiverse as a mechanic but lore wise there have been events dealing with alternate universes before as seen with the Null Void, Dimension of Pain, the Fae, and the alternate universe where the [[Warp Drive|Jump Drive]] was the only discovered form of FTL [[Grimdark|with reality eventually ensuring]].
* '''The Machine Age''': Allows for new cybernetic and machine and/or spiritual empires, for all your Mechanicus RP dreams and more. This finally allows you to make individualistic Robotic/Machine empires instead of the strict collective consciousness requirement of Synthetic Dawn. Also adds a new endgame crisis where a machine bitch from a Fallen Empire (or some random world if they're disabled) tries to wipe out all sentience as a solution to suffering - [[FAIL|not understanding it, too is sentient, and not to mention that people prefer being sentient, thank you very much]]. But wait, there's more! This include a new nemesis path, which is in contrast of Galactic Nemesis, is not limited by ethics. You can become the Xeelee, but minus the Photino Birds, coming off as petty.
* '''Cosmic Storms''': Expands on the cosmic storms that occasionally show up in the base game. Can be annoying as shit (leading to [[butthurt]] review bombs), but to be fair that's what you signed up for buying this.
* '''The Grand Archive''': A story pack centered around the eponymous megastructure, which is essentially a giant space zoo/museum that you can stock with a variety of various historical relics, [[Trazyn|living or otherwise]], for the people of your empire to enjoy. It also adds a new midgame crisis in the form of a Voidworm epidemic, pleasing [[Nurgle]].
* '''Biogenesis''': A biologically based DLC that was negatively received at launch due a few issues. [[Skub|It was released along side a complete system and engine overhaul impacting the entire game]] and as result everything ''broke'' for a lot of people (good lord, the lag reached the realm of Clang!). As a result, a lot of the negativity from the 4.0 overhaul spilled back onto the DLC which, while it had its own problems, inflated its negative reception. The DLC itself concerns itself with everything biological; new biological upgrades and gene modding systems, bioships can now be fielded by empires ([[Rage|but are limited to 2 shipset styles]]) which use food instead of alloys, new ascention paths (Cloning, Purity and Mutation) and new origins allow you to play as [[Tyranid|Evolutionary]] [[StarCraft|Predators]], sentient planetary ecosystems, or a [[Cadia|world besieged by invaders emerging from the <s>warp</s> a wormhole on the edge of the system]]. It also works as Hive-Mind revamp by introducing new civics and abilities (example being the Bodysnatcher civic) and including a new Hive Mine Fallen Empire. There is also a new become the crisis path where your entire empire turns itself into the Behemoth, a biologically planetary predator that wishes to eat the galaxy. Yeah, this is the Tyranid DLC. 
*'''Shadow of the Shroud'': To be released: Shroud expansion with an End of the Cycle rework.
*'''Infernals''': To be released: Not a demon expansion, [[HERESY|sadly]]. Volcano and fire expansion.

===The DLC Cheat Sheet===

For the purposes of "What DLC should I buy?", well, the short version is "Utopia and Lithoids for learning the game" (Hive Minds, from Utopia, avoid all that pesky internal politics, and Lithoids avoid all that pesky "habitability" stuff)<ref>Robot empires, from Synthetic Dawn, combine these, but have serious scaling issues, and the Ascension Paths from Utopia are fairly desirable for many late-game empires</ref>, "Leviathans, Ancient Relics, Distant Stars, First Contact, The Machine Age, Apocalypse, Overlords, and Cosmic Storms for a more interesting galaxy, in very roughly that order". Then there's "Plantoids, Necroids, Federations, Synthetic Dawn, Overlord, Toxoids, Galactic Paragons, Nemesis, Aquatics, Astral Planes, and The Grand Archive  for various roleplaying options."

It also appears that Paradox now understands that the number of DLCs they are releasing is getting ridiculous and now offer the '''Stellaris: Expansion Subscription'''...subscription. For $9.99 a month (or $19.99 for 3 Months, or 29.99 for 6 Months), anyone can have full access to [[AWESOME|every single DLC past, present and future for the duration of the subscription.]] As it stands, without factoring in sales in order to buy all 23 DLC (Not counting the OST, eBook, Free DLC, or the currently unobtainable '''CUBE'''), it would cost over '''$300''' dollars to buy everything available barring price fluctuation. If you are just dipping your toes into the setting to start with, the subscription service makes it easy to jump right in. [[Just as Planned|Just be aware of the devil in the details that leaving it on will eventually lead to you having paid more for all the DLC than if you had just bought every single DLC individually (as is the nature of subscriptions).]]

Also, in Multiplayer, if one player has more DLC installed than others in the game, every player gains access to the same DLC content as the one with the most DLC. So, technically, as long as you have the Base Game you can get access to every other DLC content as long as you can find someone who has that DLC you can play with.