Stellaris - 7 Hidden Mechanics That You Probably Didn't Know

There's tons of mechanics in Stellaris. Some take the main stage, others like to remain hidden in the background. Lets see if there's any features you've missed or just completely forgot about.
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00:31 Piracy Supression
03:40 Automation
05:52 Hotkeys
08:09 Ethics Flipping
11:20 Veterancy
14:33 The Help Button
16:15 TTS
Video title; Stellaris - 7 Hidden Mechanics That You Probably Didn't Know
Stellaris Copyright © 2022 Paradox Interactive AB. www.ParadoxPlaza.com
#Stellaris #ASpec #Features

[@DefaultProphet]

Biggest one for me is setting army transport fleets to aggressive has them auto invade whatever is in the system they’re in

[@MrProthall]

Holy shit

[@jacobe2995]

not only that but once the invasion is over they fallow the nearest fleet.

[@halochamp91]

my only issue with aggressive army transports is sometimes they invade planets they have absolutely no chance of beating and so you just lose the army. the AI isnt perfect there yet.

[@Alftura]

Found that out like 2 or 3 months ago! Yes! So helpfull. I also found out that if the defending army XP on the planet is higher then your marine transport fleet then it will not auto invade. Not sure if that is something others have accounted?

[@DefaultProphet]

@@jacobe2995 didn’t know that! That’s rad

[@truthteller6116]

You missed most important hotkey imo that not everyone might yet know about - the Ctrl+Shift+RMB for science ship to force them to put something in their queue but with top priority. Let's say you already set 15 planets to be surveyed but got special project - you just use this combination and force ship to make it's next move the project instead continuing route, and when they end it - they just get back on their track and there's no need to set it again. I think I learnt it from you few years ago and it's literally most important thing in the game.

[@lukedelaharpe6760]

omg thank you for sharing that is so useful

[@LikeableGuy]

Same with any action I believe. So if you set a construction ship with an order queue or even a fleet.

[@tri99er_]

That is a very good one. But not necessarily RMB, it's Ctrl+Shift+any ommand. Any ships or fleets will just put that command at the top of the queue, even pushing back current orders. It's very helpful, saves a lot of time. Obviously the prime case is science ships for exploration, but can also be useful for fleets.

[@WhenDevilsDuel]

Uhm... can someone tell me what those individual buttons do so I can translate that into controller lol Or if anyone from console knows how to do this they could jus say it. Console fam need this teq

[@trulystupid]

This exists?!? This is extremely helpful!

[@edwinwang5594]

I never knew that trade routes are editable. Always just built a gateway at every important node so that pirate is impossible to spawn due to the suppression.

[@TSYUKYUKYU45]

i tested to not supress the pirate at all and in 100y of gameplay they spawned 2 time so why bother with patrol

[@akiraraiku]

@@TSYUKYUKYU45 even if they don't spawn you still get piracy decrease of trade value funneled to your capital

[@altejoh]

I mean, TBF even with editing routes I still do this late game xD

[@christopherpuck4590]

You missed a crucial hit key: F which brings up a “find” function to find any system/ planet. Works great for finding those last couple system/planets you need to conquer to meet war goals.

[@Illuminat-ve5ue]

i think most people know this as this is also the default button for a lot of text find programs. like in your browser you can probably use ctrl+f to search for keywords

[@unitor699industries]

Thnx

Don't forget to put admirals in that patrol fleets so that they get valuable experience before their first real combat! :)

[@ondrejmrazek8209]

Best thing I learned in this video is, that ships can get XP by supressing piracy. Good for peacefull times.

[@kevinhowe543]

Same, only thing as well. Ofc this fine Space Lumberjack of ours got me into the game before hyperlanes were mandatory so...

[@valdirbruxeljunior]

The point one exp / day for suppressing pirates was the only feature I was not aware of, and one that I def need to exploit next time I play.

[@DanStaal]

For the automation: the resources are vital, and needed to be mentioned. If you just turn on automation, nothing happens because you didn’t give it any resources to build with.

[@Cotcan]

Yes, this. I recommend dumping resources into the shared stockpile, or better yet, add some monthly minerals or energy credits that will automatically get dumped into the shared stockpile each month. You don't need to dump too much in there as a little bit each month goes a long way.

[@infusedj9498]

i love running a subterranian army heavy build for fighting people who habitually leave this on bloody hillarious seeing them losing their minds over a recently made border habitat fortress btfo'ing their whole invasion plan

[@jaimevalencia6271]

@@Cotcan yeah it helps a lot especially on console

[@marciusnhasty]

Unless it was fixed in the latest patch, real power of automation was to only provide energy and keep minerals for manual additions and space. Stockpile treats those resources as x amount of energy OR minerals at the exchange rate 1 for 1 which is better than the market. And also, unless it's fixed, having upgrade buildings automated will do the upgrade without paying the rare resources cost for the upgrade - you'll only need them for the upkeep. Planets will often build nothing however until there are unemployed pops on the planet first day of any month when game is checking for automation.

[@accelerationquanta5816]

That's so stupid. They should just draw resources from the stockpile without any intervention needed

[@truesnakegod]

I recommend for the piracy suppression that you make 2 or 3 fleets (depending on empire size) from about 10ish corvettes (don't bother upgrading them since they're not meant for battle) then set them to your main trade routes and set them to patrol. In my experience you'll usually have no more than 3 major trade routes before you get gateways up and running. Once you get gateways up and running piracy shouldn't be much threat anymore. From there you can either upgrade and join the fleets to a war fleet, set them to patrol areas that arent worth setting a gateway to, or you can disband them.

[@Tiberon098]

Yeah, I forgot that once you get wormholes and gatways you don’t have to worry as much about piracy.

[@bigbenhgy]

but you get xp from piracy suppression, the only question is, does that scales with piracy, so is it worth it to make as big trade routes as you can?

[@DanStaal]

Also worth noting that correctly outfitted starbases can do a decent job of piracy suppression as well. Here fighter bays are your friend, and will help the base bring down piracy in a several jump radius.

[@truesnakegod]

@@DanStaal I agree but the Corvette fleets are best for when there's multiple systems between stops.

[@glaxko2]

Could you build Corvettes with zero armor or armaments and still have the piracy suppression?

[@classicfrog80]

The greatest hotkey combo in the game is ctrl+shift+click to insert command IN FRONT of a queue. So for example when your science ship encounters anomaly that unlocks special project, you can tell your science ship to complete the project first and only then carry on with it's queued tasks. Also,automation looks good, but seldom works. AI is amazingly incompetent, and if you care at all about the efficiency, it will make you grit your teeth in frustration.

[@tri99er_]

But on the bright side, automation can build building using only energy and you can micromanage it to the point that it will build exactly what you want on that world.

[@Tiberon098]

The piracy interdiction one is a mechanic I use all the time, I make sure I have a bunch of corvettes just for this; stations are good for this too, slap some hangar bays and missile turrets and they help too.

[@Archgeek0]

I suspect pirate patrol is a good way to train up new admirals, too.

[@sunso1991]

i am a machine gestalt empire, i dont need to deal with piracy, consumer goods, and factions life is simple and sweet

[@MuffinMammoth]

Hangar bays were my go-to method for dealing with piracy. That, and if I get any ships from events I'll set them to patrol routes once I don't need them anymore.

[@Tiberon098]

@@MuffinMammoth Exactly, send the pirate raiders or, the one crippled ship you get from that event (the name eludes me).

[@accelerationquanta5816]

Even unupgraded outposts can support 3 defense platforms, usually enough to kill the pirate fleets

[@RocketCouch]

One trick I like to use that's not well known is that you can build defence platforms on outposts, and at least as of a few updates ago, the AI doesn't seem to take the added firepower into account when invading your territory. A very useful early to mid game boost, or also good when you have a certain system that frequently spawns pirates.

[@Rybakov22]

Problem with that is the fact that outpost itself is a weak link. Once outpost is defeated, all defence platforms flip sides as well.

[@RocketCouch]

@@Rybakov22 it's not a silver bullet by any means, and the closer you get to late game the only real beneficial use is against pirates. But if you can spare the funds for it early on you can take a decent bite out of fleets that think they're in for an easy victory

[@Rybakov22]

@@RocketCouch Oh for that, amen. One of my starbases defended my empire for a century before her retirement because of expanded borders.

[@RocketCouch]

@@Rybakov22 Yep I'd kind of discovered it by accident a while ago when I'd downgraded an old border station I didn't need, but had something like 10 defense platforms. Then later on I noticed that the outpost in that system somehow had like 3 or 4k power, and none of the fleets invading me seemed to account for it or even realize it was there.

[@korimiller379]

My piracy suppression is usually done by starbases with hanger bays at the mid to late game. Each bay adds more suppression and reach of that base, at citadel levels, a single hanger bay starbase can contain six or seven jumps in all directions at once, so unless your empire is 25% of the galaxy or more, you'll probably only need two, maybe three suppression stations. I also tend to have one of the stations neighboring systems have another starbase that has collection modules/buildings to gather up trade value in a wide area to funnel off to the capital.

[@AgainPsychoX]

First 11 from Montu, now 7 from ASpec, good videos to keep newcomers to the game informed :)

[@melfice999]

Aspec messing with anti-piracy,. clicking into the system view few times, and explaining about trade, really shows that the whole thing is messed up and hard to control. And also is one reason why my "trade routes" are just a bunch of Starbases forming a single line.

[@kareningram6093]

I already knew most of these, but I agree that editing trade routes is VERY important and should be discussed more. It can be vital if you have a hole in your empire, like if you're surrounding a system that has a tough critter you're not ready to kill yet. Trade routes always take the shortest route to your capitol, by default, so you can be losing a lot of money through trade if it's going through one of these "lost" systems. A few other tips: If you don't want to use patrol ships to suppress piracy, like maybe you're doing a "no ships challenge," then upgraded stations are vital. Each weapon slot increases the amount of suppression as well as the radius of suppression, so if you have two guns on your station, it protects up to two systems out. Hangar Bays have the highest piracy suppression, so if your station is only being used for piracy suppression and NOT to protect your border, only use those. Defense platforms also add to piracy suppression, but I am not sure if they increase the radius or not because I typically only build them on my border stations. And lastly, the piracy suppression of your station goes through gateways, so you can stack the protection value of ALL of your stations if you want to, lmao.

[@SteelsCrow]

Trade collection goes through gateways as well; that is the main reason pirates disappear after building gateways. You only need the one trade hub starbase with its gateway to extend through all your other gateways. Up until then, defense platforms cannot match the potency of actual upgraded starbases, for the system each is in. Piracy doesn't exist in those systems. Large territories may be difficult to cover, but small and moderate ones should have enough starbases to chain them along so that no further intervention is needed.

[@brightenblack207]

I feel like ASpec made this video just to bug the devs into making a better tutorial and hotkey options.

[@UrielinMountains]

The only one that I don't know is text-to-speech. That one caught me off guard for sure. I was like what? it has text-to-speech? excuse me? As an RTS games player, discovering the shortcut key is basically my first thing to learn when playing games. One time I got so busy with my star bases, my friend thought I'm typing commands to cheat lol

[@manofcultura]

Flipping from authoritarian to egalitarian mid game is probably the most underrated strategy. Authoritarian have bonuses/hidden features that really help early game especially with aristocratic elite and the ability to make deals with crime lords for a whopping + 20% stability with no real costs other than micro managing your crime rate to fall between 40-10%. Then as mid game comes you hopefully have a good surplus of consumer goods and an industrial base, so you can fully transition to utopian abundance and 10% specialist output.

[@tri99er_]

I guess it seems good, have to try it out. Also extra influence helps expanding.

[@415ProdigalMan]

Thank you ASpec for another great video! The game is fun but rather complex and has a steep learning curve, your tutorials really helped me when I started playing. Keep up the good work.

[@harlequingnoll5]

That veterancy is why I keep chasing ship disengagement...

[@yamahsghost]

TTS is very new and nice addition for other, but most of this stuff seems common knowledge. Also who would use a fleet for pirate suppression, there are enough star ports to cover most of your anti pirate needs. Here is something that some might not know, trade value is collectable through gates. So you only need one Trade Hub, the rest can be Bastions full of hangers to cover the trade routes. Added bonus that Hangers increases platforms by 1

[@jacobe2995]

This is how I deal with piracy early game. in fact I usually position starbases like 2 apart from each other in a chain.

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

Starbase cap can be rather lacking early game Also I would rather put a starbase over every single blackhole in my territory and have a bastion at every entry point into my empire than waste a slot purely on piracy suppression If you get a bunch of enclaves they also need one space station each for their fancy buildings

[@berlindude75]

If you cannot be bothered to deal with piracy (via static suppression and/or patrolling with fleets), set up chains of adjacent starbases with a dedicated trade collection hub at their ends toward trade-heavy clusters outside your capital's trade collection range and then simply manually route the trade from starbase to starbase to prevent piracy entirely. This is a partial solution for the early to mid game until you unlock gateway tech and, of course, depends on your starbase cap (and if and by how much you choose to buff or exceed it).

[@smoore6461]

Some good Info in this video. Never use automation but I might Give it a try, some I knew some I didn't. Very goid work sir!

[@l4bells851]

man those really are 7 hidden mechanics I probably didnt knew about!

[@A_Spec]

Well, there you go

[@JohndrewtheSylveonking]

Veterancy was something I figured out a long time ago and started slapping on Fleet Academies on all ship yards. Having an additional 10% weapons damage and other bonuses the very moment they are built is pretty amazing and I am surprised that NO ONE has talked about it for years.

[@Galen55]

The only new one is the text to speech, I'm actually quite impressed with that!

[@tri99er_]

It's a recent addition

[@dodge33cymru]

"Don't take that out of context" should be the name for this channel...

[@puppernickel6845]

Huh. I'm actually surprised to see that I already know most of the stuff on this list. The only things that surprised me was the hotkeys - knew some of them, but not that there were so many - and that ships can level off of Pirate Supression. Now that bit is going to be helpful for my next game, goodness Thank you for the most wonderful video Aspec! As always you bring a bit of knowledge to the curious. Keep being awesome!

[@tri99er_]

Although there's no dedicated hotkeys tab as mentioned in the video,most of the buttons that have a hotkey list it in the description. Although you won't find some very useful utility hotkeys in there (like Ctrl+Shift+Command for your ships)

[@stuartrusso6948]

Thx, The stuff about veterancy was really useful as I didn't know how that worked. I will now have all my ships out on Pirate Suppression instead of just a couple of corvette squadrons :-)

[@mr.freedorson2632]

It.... was.... awesome! I didn't know most of the mechanics! And they would have been very useful to me, a couple of games ago!

[@GritimoTheOdd]

I didn't know about editing trade routes or the fleet veterency, I have kept seeing the fleet academy but since I never knew what it did, I always skipped it. Definitely going to be using that in the future.

[@tri99er_]

It's probably the most important building to get for your shipyards. It's as useful as the Naval Logistics Office, for your anchorages. That's why they are unlocked by the same technology too.

[@SteelsCrow]

Furthermore, you can't build a fleet academy without a shipyard already built or in queue. Its purpose is to improve shipbuilding. I always specialize a small number of starbases toward shipbuilding according to my needs, each with fleet academy and crew quarters, but only one with titan and colossal shipyards.

[@chidy9699]

Just FYI, if there is an admiral on the fleet patrolling, they will slowly gain xp. I have my fleets patrol when not in a war to give them this slight xp boost.

[@jeffreyculbert2093]

Piracy suppression optimization tricks I use all the time: 1. Employ new admirals in your suppression fleets to start them gaining experience and leveling up. 2. Use the base tech thrusters but highest tech FTL drives on Piracy Suppression corvette fleets. Fleets on patrol only reduce piracy in a system while they are actively patrolling that system. Faster ships means they’ll reduce piracy more often in each system patrolled, but by a lesser amount. Slower ships means a greater reduction per system, greater chances of built up pirate activity in the next system in the route, and more overall experience for your patrol admirals to passively acquire. 3. Patrols need not travel entire trade routes from Starbase to Starbase to suppress piracy and gain experience. The need only to travel from your collecting system (usually your original starting home world system) to a system with pirate activity. This lets you customize and tailor your patrol routes so that systems always have enough piracy to provide free experience for admirals, but never enough to spawn pirate fleets before a new patrol shows up in system. Sending multiple patrols through red skull systems on different paths can be very effective. 4. Piracy only starts to occur when you have at least a second Starbase built that does link up and “send” its trade value back to your home collecting Starbase. If you don’t build a second Starbase then piracy never begins.

[@Tempus62]

I knew civilization had mechanic like that where troops can get experience and get stronk but I genuinely honestly believed it was just freaking ADMIRAL level up not actually ship levels

[@aleverettes2789]

0.1 experience per day from suppressing piracy sounds interesting, but to put the number into perspective: to level a ship from experienced to veteran requires 900 exp (100-1000) and from veteran to elite requires 9000 exp (1000-10000), so it takes 9000 days(25 years) for a ship to level from experienced to veteran and 250 years to elite also bear in mind you have to pay for the extra 33% energy credit and alloy upkeep while those fleets actively move around instead of docking up in a station. Is the mechanics entirely useless? Probably not. But is the mechanics borderline-ly useless? Yeah Its just better to build a station in every system a major trade route goes through rather than using your fleet, even if the station itself has zero defensive capability it can still block pirates from spawning inside the system

[@A_Spec]

There must be a way to exploit this.

[@samurai8698]

Actually didn't know ships could level up to Elite

[@stalincat2457]

14:52 Tabletop simulator has a simulated tablet as a prop. Yes it has internet. Yes you can go websites. Yes, degenerate websites work too :)

[@charlieawerbuch5352]

Couple things to note about Piracy and Trade - Piracy cannot occur within the collection radius of a Starbase, it can only occur along the trade route back to your capital. As such, one of the best ways to set up a trade network is to set up Starbases with 6 Trade Hubs in key locations, that way you only have to protect a small number of trade routes. Once you get Gateways, all of this becomes moot, as Trade Collection Range and Piracy Supression travel through Gateways.

[@snarzetax]

nope, piracy happens within the collection radius of trading starbases all the time.

[@SteelsCrow]

@@snarzetax What he meant was the trade value each trade hub collects at a distance isn't taken by piracy. Only trade value running through routes. Separate and related note, each starbase cancels piracy in its system. So smartly placed trade hubs are very valueable, especially ones at the end of chains of starbases leading back to the capital.

[@Akitorbenov]

Some great tips, thanks so much!

[@harleybeta]

Nice, appreciate the content! please consider having sources for videos like this for people who are curious :)

[@QwertyCaesar]

I knew all of these because you've mentioned all of them at least once over the years. You're quite thorough.

[@Caigul]

knew about the trade routs didn't know you could change it

[@HungryAndorian]

Text to speech is hillarious when it tries to say "psionic".

[@dmitriyk.2890]

Despite using the faction menu and features I missed that you can change the ethics on the go with it. Surprising.

[@tri99er_]

You can also suppress and promote factions for free now, which is good, if you want to maximize your faction unity output and happiness (which goes directly into stability, which goes directly into resource output). If you have one super happy faction (usually your governing faction; you can see the happiness beside the faction name), you can convert most of your empire to it. It's easy to have 80-100% happiness and 95%+ of population ratio. You just make sure that your empire has the right policies and enjoy a lot of stability basically for free. Since factions are somewhat randomised and weren't really intended to be easily controlled (it used to cost influence), actually having a way to easily control your factions is huge. Granted, suppressing a faction give a large happiness penalty to it, so you probably don't want to suppress a faction with more than 10% of your population. Promoting a faction doesn't influence happines, but it pushes other factions to give of their pops, at which point if you bring them under 10% you can seal the deal with suppressing it. This trick will greatly boost your productivity, while you won't really care for happiness of other factions (it will even help them die quickly if you do the opposite actions). It's not worth to suppress factions that are happy though (like your governing factions as long as you stay within their policies). But you can always destroy some pesky unhappy opposition, improving your stability and unity output. You also always want to promote at least your happiest faction and maintain its happiness. It's just a passive and free boost for your empire.

[@matheusGMN]

Honestly, the automation I ignore because no matter how much I try it never seems to do anything, so I gave up trying to understand it lol

[@matthewmcneany]

also worth mentioning that pirates can't spawn in a system with an upgraded starbase no matter how much trade flows through a node. So if you have a lot of starbases or a particularly tall empire you can direct trade through systems that only have starbases in them and avoid piracy altogether.

[@panmopsel]

Fun fact: You can vassalize fanatic purifiers, But you need nemesis dlc to take crisis ascension that allows you to do so

[@DEADGAMESINC]

They shoudve make a full sound pack of advisors voices did the whole text ingame. I know the volume of the job but hell that would be so much immersion thanks to that.

[@hahano1121]

Haven't played in a while, but I remember toying with the automation before. I told a few planets to build complex resources, so they all started doing motes. Had to go in and manually change them all.

[@leoscar9816]

People actually use ships against piracy ? It's so much easier to : 1.Redirect trade routes so they don't all go through the same systems when possible (less trade = less piracy so it's easier to suppress). 2.Build a station with 6 hangars to just...not deal with piracy ever again in a 6 system radius outside of chokepoints with a lot of trade value, and even then building a starbase on said chokepoints will solve the problem.

[@A_Spec]

The system is pretty obselete

[@srdjan455]

I knew about setting paths in trade routes and it's a semi broken system, had open boarders with a empire and no matter what I did the system insisted that I go through their system instead of my own. Which was a problem as I can't do anything about the Pirates or spawns in an AI controlled system

[@ericlondon2663]

TTS....I had no idea. That is impressive. Thank you.

[@PaulReed]

Hotkeys I looked for very early on to save moving my mouse so much. I knew about automation but only because I was sick of having to manage every planet so much and clicking on the button to automate it just gave me a warning about a low stockpile that I had no clue about. I since found a mod that does it slightly better but you do need to have every planet in a sector and that gets messy when they're limited to such a small distance. "Better Planet Automation" is the name of the mod. I just found out about the civics thing when I stopped to look at it a few days ago. I realise some aspects can't be changed after the game starts but otherwise it's something I've not dabbled in a lot. If I'd answered this when the video first came out I'd only know about the hotkeys so this is handy. The thing I worked out very recently that should be explained has to do with jobs on planets. I knew you could boost jobs so they'd get filled over others but I didn't know you could expand the job tiers and reduce the maximum amount of jobs. Sure, 15 people earning minerals is nice but if you have lots of surplus there and a deficit of food it isn't so handy. Now I can balance that.

[@andromedach]

You can also eliminate piracy if you unlink stations within your trade module gathering range. So if you range is four and you have a station at three there is a chance piracy erupts between that station and your hub which has the four trade modules - but if you remove that station from the trade route piracy no longer occurs between it and the hub. sector automation is still not working well, planetary automation is fine and interestingly enough you can build with pure energy if you fill the stockpile on the top of the sector management screen - not within each sector itself! I would never automate sectors. Planetary automation works decently but you need to turn off crime, special resources, and similar, else it goes off in the weeds.

[@altejoh]

10:00 I feel like what is being underplayed is how much effort (or change in playstyle) it might take to *get* the proper factions, and to get enough of your population supporting said faction in order to make the change that easy and simple. Unless one of the more recent updates made it a lot simpler. Also the ship experience system seems... so under thought. In order for a ship to reach max experience (level 5), they would basically need to win, *and not get destroyed in*, every combat they fight... basically from the beginning of the game until around year 2400 or more. I doubt most people's ships ever see past level 2 under normal circumstances. Like, why does this exist? Also gaining exp through piracy means that Gestalts can't take advantage of it, since they don't collect trade. Unless a neighboring empire runs trade routes through the gestalt's systems.

[@bisman]

you can also use ships to stop the piracy in a system and farm xp on the ships but alot of people say the energy saved by docking is worth more than the xp value while in space

[@davidthorp01]

Okay I knew about veterancy, what I did not know of was that Elite even existed. Either this says a lot about how I don’t do enough waring, or my ships die too often…

[@keerf255]

Elite took a long time to grind, only my titans truly ever got there, sometimes.

[@dustinjones7458]

I fought a dozen wars suppressing uprisings in my vassals territory in my latest machine empire. My Corvette fleets were always my primary response...by year 2400 I was rocking 200 elite Corvettes lol Seriously good to have.

[@tribsta1018]

I want to see a series, ASpec and friends vs AI and all crisis in hardest difficulty 🙂👍

[@tribsta1018]

I actually knew about all of them apart from the wiki and the fleet hot keys. But the text to speech in multiplayer is ok but it only works with the chat box open. You don’t often have it open so when you open it often get like a bunch of texts one after the other all at once haha. I wish they could do it so it said it as anyone messaged strait away without the chat box open. Unless I’m missing something? But anyways great vid 👍

[@Nemo2342]

Piracy is one of the only things I ended up modding out, because I mostly play synthetic empires and hated having pirates randomly show up when someone routed a trade route through my systems,

[@skrybosaw4448]

And the most annoing thing about this is that as a gestalt your space stations don't prevent piracy, even tho it's components, like hangars, say that they have trade protection, it doesn't work, because trade protection is coded into the trade mechanic, and gestalts have that mechanic turned off. So to not turn off piracy, I just edited a single line of code and allowed gestalts to engage in trade, now piracy prevention works as intended.

[@RSantiX]

Here is a tip for the TTS. It uses the built in windows speech settings, so you can actually change the voice / download more. (restart game to apply) And another one i read on the steam forum. Ever wished you could copy a fleet in fleet manager instead of having to click your favorite composition again and again? Transfer all ships out of your fleet to a new one. This will leave the original empy fleet with its composition in fleet manager so you can just hit "reinforce".

[@michaeledmunds7056]

I literally only figured out how to suppress piracy a little while ago and was like "I can do something about that??"

[@Kaonium]

Bastion stations with hangar bays have a static piracy interdiction value, and are a solid alternative to corvettes

[@Darlf_Sevil]

i play on low hyper but when to my capitol have many way i try do 2 or more trade roud to have lower piracts

[@archmagemc3561]

I have been using veterency to help me deal with GA AI with max scaling, its good stuff. Doesn't matter AS much with the new meta being torpedo cruisers or artillery missile ships, but still.

[@aaronkellogg1991]

@Aspec, I apologize if I missed this, but since patch 3.6 have/can you go over Empire Size and how to manage it? The bureaucrats used to combat sprawl but don’t seem to anymore. Is this about using the planet tiers now?

[@A_Spec]

Bureaucrats no longer exists sadly. I'll need to do a deep dive into the concept

[@TheRealCatCatCat]

I have known about those systems before. But what I personally dislike about some of them is how overt they seem to be. Almost as if either forgotten by the developers or deliberately hidden, in an effort to create this elite set of "Chad players" who can navigate mostly by keyboard and will switch ethics as the situation arises. Just tons of construction work that would be nice to have better access to, I guess?

[@konst80hum]

Yeah i found the TTS and the larger fonts very useful when i started.

[@XerShadowTail]

One thing I wish Stellaris had was a visual indicator or otherwise of the audio cues which are in the game since my hearing is not the best. Apparently sounds play in the background constantly during crisis based on their progression, or when there is a threat on the map you do not know about.

[@A_Spec]

Generally this is indicated by the info tabs on the top. The crisis specific audio doesn't really add that much and is mostly background noise without purpose.

[@AntonioGallo73]

The secret manual! Thanks, expecially for the pirate patrol, i tought i had to use 1-4K fleet

[@codyarcher3263]

Only things I didn't know is you can remap trade routes, and patrolling also gives exp.

[@joshuamaxson4038]

Playing the game for 2 weeks and didn't know that 90% of this existed. Many thanks for explaining these game mechanics!

[@gunmim]

it's just not documented anywhere .... except when you point on said button/tab and look in the popup or in the Hotkeys page in the wiki xD

[@icarodesantana3299]

This video is a patrimony. Thanks a million

[@McTeerZor]

Hanger bays and hyperlane registries also help with piracy suppression!

[@Drakon0Blade]

Bonus tip for keeping Piracy down: Starbase Hangar Bays have double the suppresion over guns or missiles, 10 vs 5, so if you're building big Trade Hub stations or just have routes all over, simply make sure your main trade routes are covered with some fighter craft and you will only need a few small anti-pirate corvettes for the hot spots (systems with lots of trade passing through.)

[@punthebun]

I wonder if the TTS accessibility option was added before or after Alfabusa did that TTS Stellaris skit...

[@alexzandernite7864]

I'm Glade You Made This, But How Does This Work In Console Edition Because The Modify Trade Routes Are Limited In Game Now Since The Last Two Updates & Dlc's &/or with The Federation.

[@ryanance9871]

How do you set up automation on console edition? We are currently just before Overlord.

[@davg.2589]

Starting out as a megacorp for the easy trade value income boost and then switching to imperial when one is ready to conquer the galaxy

[@AvanToor]

Your ground troops gain experience! Give them shore leave. Heal your troops.

[@A_Spec]

They're sadly just cannon fodder

[@AvanToor]

@@A_Spec Yep! :D

[@azpont7275]

As a someone who played Stellaris 1.0 I kinda new all these, except the in-game wiki, I never clicked on that. The in-game browser looks cool!

[@blueldrrich84]

I had no idea thats what patrol did! Wow! And how to set up a trade network. Like, I kept getting those icons saying I can do trade or that its not being accessed but I had no idea how to solve it. Thanks!!! I knew about ship xp and veterancy, but I had no idea they earned xp doing patrols. Seems like that's all kind of one leads to another. Super cool. Too bad they don't really tell you about any of this, despite this stuff being integral to the gameplay... 🙄

[@Cifer77]

The individual planetary automation looks awesome, when was that added? But the sector automation looks the same as it was years ago, very vague and not specific enough. Which overrides which? Planetary or Sector automation?

[@earlofpudding7901]

I just don’t worry about trade routs until I get gateways, then I swap my capital station to full trade slots and build a few gateways where I need em

[@NKGerydos]

You've forgot the most important hidden mechanic ASpec! Like Favourite Share and Subscribe to get additional combat bonuses! :D

[@Alexapalm]

Been playing since the beta, I knew about all these systems, minus the in game wiki, but I wasn’t sure exactly how they all worked

[@TJK4605]

How did i not see the trade node thing before, i have had such a ball ache from the AI declaring totally random trade routes thanks to the hyper relays

[@adamnevraumont4027]

Veteran ships hack: strip ships of almost entire weapons (maybe all weapons). Have them fight something weak, like mining drones. Fight lasts forever. Flee before they are destroyed. Then refit your ships for combat.

[@sluggersomething9185]

Do you know if hiveminds can get ship exp. from patrolling or do the ships need pirates to get exp.

[@Amigo21189]

How cool would it be (I know it's impractical) for the TTS to use your advisor soundboard? Granted, I main materialists and alt robots, so my advisor already sounds like a TTS, but still.

[@felixrowan3740]

About a minute and a half in and I had no idea you could reroute trade routes manually.

[@mariaveenema4337]

WHAT?! That in-game wiki....I had no idea! I also didn't know pirate suppression gave fleet xp!

[@nuqueerwarhead3564]

I think I went my whole first playthrough without knowing that science ships can "assist research" on a planet, providing about a 10-20% boost to the planet's research output, and giving the scientist xp.

[@katier9725]

I did remember the veterancy system, although I never knew the specifics.

[@ShadowoftheMask]

I'm pretty much aware of everything here except hotkeys(because I'm weirdo who avoids using them lot of time so never bothered to learn them) and that patrolling gives exp :'D

[@JanJansen985]

Stellaris is like 50 half baked ideas put together Its no surprise no one knows about it Even reading patch notes makes it harf to know whats going on

[@AverageEstonian]

Wow i only know only few of thous things, sir you are mvp info channel on stellaris on YT.

[@a_4_year_old411]

Ok, how do I change the TTS voice and can I make it a synthesizer

[@BiNumLi]

Adding the Academy is a good idea for producing quick veterans. But ideally only one planet should produce all the ships. Because those slots have other important uses. Like Transit, Trade Hub, Defenses, Countering Devices, etc.