The progress of your empire in Stellaris rests upon your ability to conquer neighboring planets and system and learning to do it as early in the game as possible! This is something you need to learn early in the game as it can be considered as the part and parcel of the entire Stellaris experience.
For more help on Stellaris, read out our Slaves to Win War Guide, Ethics, Traits, and Government Guide, and Beginner’s Guide.
Stellaris Guide: How to Capture Systems and Colonize Planets
Our Stellaris Capturing Systems and Colonizing Planets guide will walk you through everything you need to know about doing so.
Getting Started
While in the game, you can click the arrowheads in order to get to a system that can be explored. Do note that in order to conquer a neighboring system, you need a science ship and survey the particular system you are interested in.
The entire process can take a few minutes, however, it can be sped up by pressing the + button in Time-Control Panel. Once you have completed the survey, choose the construction ship and have it head towards the system you are looking into.
Once the construction ship has landed, press the right-mouse-button on the system star and select Build Frontier Outpost which will cost you minerals and influence. This thing is extremely important in the sense that if it gets destroyed, your entire control over the system cripples down.
After the Frontier Outpost has been established, you will receive regular information related to neutral and hostile units roaming nearby.
Constructing Buildings
After colonizing a planet, you will have to expand sectors in order to acquire resources. Once a sector has been developed, you will get influence from it after building settlements there.
The green progress bar next to a population signifies that a particular sector of the planet is being colonized. The simple green bar, on the other hand, signifies the contentment level of residents.
Do note that population will not cease growing until all available sectors on a planet has been settled down. After a sector has been settled, you will be able to erect buildings in order to gain additional bonuses.
After selecting a sector, click build to see all the available buildings, their benefits, requirements, and more. One more important thing to note here is that at any time during construction, you can cancel the construction and regain all your resources spent on it.
Colonizing Planets
After your sociology project has been completed, you should be able to colonize planets successfully. While surveying, you may come across colonizable planets – in red and green color. In order to colonize a planet, you need to build a colony ship from the spaceport in homeworld.
Do note that the entire process requires time and valuable resources. Once completed, select the planet that you wish to colonize and select Colonize Planet.
Some of the things that you should know regarding colonization are that it requires increased energy credits, lasts for a full year, and must build a separate colony ship for each planet that you wish to colonize.
Found anything missing or confusing? Let us know in the comments section below!
