This chapter of the Stellaris guide describes the next steps in your quest to build an empire. Thanks to them, you will learn how to conquer new solar systems and colonize conquered planets.
Capture a neighboring system
Capturing neighboring planetary systems is what you will be doing throughout the campaign.
Switch to the adjacent system by clicking on the green arrowhead marked in the above screenshot. The arrowheads point to neighboring systems, and they remain active for systems that can be explored.
Select a science ship and order it to explore the neighboring system. Before you take over any system, you must conduct a full exploration of the resources and planets in it.
The scientific ship itself will determine the route. The study will take a few minutes, but you can speed it up by using the time control panel and clicking the plus button.
After inspecting the system, select a construction ship and send it to an adjacent system. In the screenshot above, you can notice that the blue area representing your empire has expanded a bit, all the way to where the star of the system is located.
Once the construction ship reaches its destination, you must press RMB on the star of the system. Select "Build Frontier Outpost" from the menu. Please note that the cost of construction is expressed in minerals and influence, so your options for expansion are limited for now. After you select the correct option shown in the screenshot above, the ship will begin to build.
In a few minutes, the outpost will be ready, it defines the boundaries of your empire. You have to protect it because they are very expensive to build and if the enemy destroys it, you will lose full control of this system.
With the construction of an outpost, your zone of influence has expanded. Now you will regularly receive information about the actions of neutral and hostile units in this zone.
Build buildings on your planet
Colonized planets give you the opportunity to expand individual sectors, which affects the process of obtaining individual resources. In order to gain influence from developed sectors, it is necessary to build settlements there.
Look at the screenshot above. Near one of the settlements you can see a green progress indicator. This means that a particular sector of the planet is in the process of being colonized. The green bar means the contentment of the inhabitants of certain sectors that are already colonized.
The rate of development of a population depends on its characteristics (high or low coefficient of natural growth). The population will develop on the planet until it populates all available sectors.
Settlement occurs in all available sectors, one sector per planet. Under each sector, you can see the bonus that you will receive after you populate it. You can leave some of the bonuses at the beginning of the game, or build buildings to get additional or different bonuses.
After selecting an uninhabited sector, another panel will appear. In the screenshot above, a button is marked that allows you to erect the selected building. Click on the marked button.
The panel lists all the buildings available in this sector. Each image of a building is provided with information about the profit that you will receive from this building. Select the building you need.
Selecting a building starts the construction process displayed on the sector panel. The screenshot above shows the process of building a mineral mine. At any time during construction, you can cancel the process and get back the resources spent on it. In the screenshot above, you can see an orange progress bar that indicates the time remaining until the end of construction.
After the construction is completed, the building of the mine appears, and the previous profit is converted into income from this mine.
Keep in mind that buildings should only be built in previously inhabited sectors, so that you get a profit from the moment you complete the construction.
Cleaning planetary sectors
The population of the planet will constantly increase in certain sectors. Some sectors of the planets will be littered with unprofitable buildings or obsolete structures that you will have to remove in order to ensure the development of the population. At the same time, it is a way of generating profits intended for certain sectors or the construction of new buildings.
The blocked sectors of the planets are marked with a characteristic frame. Click on one of these sectors.
As a result, another field will appear on the panel. This way you can clear the sector. On the panel, you can view the cost of cleaning the sector and its duration. Click on the button marked in the screenshot above to do so.
Look at the screenshot above. Another window has appeared on the panel, in which you can see the time remaining until the completion of the operation. You can cancel sector cleaning by using the button marked in the screenshot above, thanks to which your costs will be returned to you.
In the above screenshot, there is an orange bar that shows the time it takes to complete the operation.
Clearing sectors is quite expensive, especially at the beginning of the game, so try to do it only after the population in free sectors has developed enough.
Planet colonization
If you're following the instructions in this guide, you should be completing your sociology project around now. Thanks to this, you will be able to colonize planets.
While exploring, the science ship can discover new planets that can be colonized. In the screenshot above, there are two planet symbols. Green is the planet that meets the needs of your population. To colonize the red planets, you will need additional sociological research, thanks to which you can make sure that the inauspicious planets meet the needs of your population.
The first step is to build a colony ship. To do this, go to the space port of the mother planet and select the button shown in the screenshot.
Please note that the list of available units has been replenished with an additional unit - a colony ship. You should consider your decision to build it as it is time consuming and costly. You can disable the space port for a while, which will prevent you from building new units, such as warships.
If you choose to build a ship, it will be queued. Construction and selection of colonists will take 350 months.
Once the device is ready, select it. Colony ships are represented by a silhouette icon with a flag (screenshot above).
Switch to the system you wish to colonize. Select a planet to colonize and press RMB. Then select "Colonize Planet".
A new planet panel will open, where you must place your colony in one of the available sectors.
Planet colonization increases your need for energy credits. Colonization lasts 12 months. The screenshot above shows the shape that the new planet panel takes. The bar displayed on it shows the time left until colonization is completed.
Note that the colonized planet has been given the name of your people. After completing the process, you will be able to use the resources of the planet in the same way as on your home planet.
It is important that for each of the planets you will have to build a separate colony ship, which is expensive and time consuming.Do not forget to conduct sociological research, thanks to which you will be able to colonize planets that are unfriendly to your population by default.
