The feeling when you see an Ruined Megastructure but it's a Orbital Ring...

I still think Ringworld segments should come with Orbital Ring features built into them... i mean an orbital ring is literally a miniscule version of the ringworld. Imagine having 4 hangar bays, 3 secondary structures, and 50 defense platforms on each of 4 ringworld segments. It could singlehandedly defend a 10x crisis and it *should* have that kind of power.

To bad you can't use the catapult as a weapon and yeet an invading fleet that goes into its system into a random spot in the galaxy.

there is one sliiiiight drawback to the matter decompressor i noticed in my current playthrough: if you build it on a black hole with dark matter production it will kill the dark matter production

My heart breaks for ring worlds, but you justified their place in C so well😭

The sentry array in F tier is a bit rough: seeing all fleet movement in the galaxy (and granting the same thing to your allies) is still very, very valuable. Being able to track the movement of far away crisis fleets is always very useful to prevent attacks from unexpected angles. But the argument of the lag is, as ever, a very solid argument

Strange side benefit of the Dyson sphere: it lets you go to town on the slave market, if other empires do that sort of thing. Currently filling out three Ecuminopolises (Ecuminopoli?), a ring world, and fifteen worlds in the L-cluster. In a play though that gave me a ruined mega shipyard. So yeah, that’s a lot of fun

Think you forgot to mention that the quantum catapult also requires a system with a pulsar or neutron star as well making it even more of a pain to build.

Sadly, ring worlds belong in the C tier, but finding Sanctuary changes that slightly.

16:25 I think the Strategic Coordination Center makes a lot more sense for players inclined to Pacifism or tallness, or both. Every time I build it my relative increase in Naval Capacity is yuuuge, whereas a player who has been conquering systems from the early mid game would see a much smaller relative increase.

Slight error you missed: at 15:15 you said that the Matter Decompressor produces alloys instead of minerals

I understand that doing so would take a lot of work, but I'd love it if your ship style also determined how your megastructures looked.

Ringworlds are very useful late game when all of your resource storage is full. Just throw down a Ringworld and fill it with silos

When it comes to finding a ruined megastructure, Dyson Sphere and Matter Decompressor definitely beat out the others. It negates all of the drawbacks of building them, (the cost, time, and needing to take an ascension perk), and they inherently are more effective the earlier you get them because of how much they allow you to snowball.

The pop growth and pop mechanical assembly colony designation on ring worlds definitely helps with the population problem, especially when it scales with the planetary ascension tier

As someone who focuses on the PvE aspect of the game, I gotta put Dyson Sphere up there in S tier with the Mega Shipyard. At the point where I'm considering mega structures I usually find that my restriction is economy more than shipbuilding capacity, throwing in 4k energy income let's me put all that into ship upkeep. Don't get me wrong, Mega Shipyard is also S tier, to me they're both up there

An unmentioned drawback of the Sensor Array is that tliyanki, drones, amoeba, etc stop spawning. If you're cordyceps this means building it shuts you down. Unless they removed that feature of having intel on a system in 3.6, which I don't recall seeing in the patch notes.

I disagree with the Sentry Array being in the F tier, I find it extremely useful, especially when going the Determinded Exterminator route.

The Catapult is something I have fun with if I take the origin, and thus plan an entire build with it in mind, but I have never actually built one from scratch.

One thing I adore about ringworlds is the rp perspective for it. Building a ringworld means your empire is powerful af, so to demonstrate my power, I usually like to build ringworlds in system bordering my vassals and gifting them the rings

I'd love to see you do gigastucture sometimes as well. Very good video Montu. I am always a fan of your top 10's if you are going heavy enough into megastructured however you are probably going to have 2 build slots and probably 3 when you get the ambition won't you? Lol I love Gigastructures fir this reason though I usual leave it at 1 at a time default unless I am doing heavy RP. I also play exclusively pve so that mat change things as well as an addendum, I would put matter decompressor as S tier myself it's usually the go to for me though with Gifastucttures I'm using a lot of star lifters as well

One thing I will say in defense is that with the interdimensional warlock you can catapult fleets half-way across the galaxy with pinpoint accuracy. And that's its only redeeming quality. I mean I guess it's cool and stuff

I personally like the sentry array as just quality of life, but I also play on Xbox Series X so my specs are good and I haven’t experienced any possible changes in the most recent version of Stellaris but it’s overall value isn’t high in my opinion, it’s just nice to see everything

Love your videos. Keep up the amazing work. Would love to see some more updated Tier lists

The catapult can be fun in a single player game when you're up against a giant empire that has as much or more fleet power than you but divided into many smaller fleets, it's a good idea to split your 10 large fleets into 20 medium ones and throw them at the center of the enemy empire and then have them to fly to one system and thus clean up a lot of small fleets that normally recapture captured systems as soon as you stop guarding them

mega shipyard is my absolute favorite since it was added.

This honestly makes me curious as to how much the list will change if it was for ruined megastructures instead, as it becomes possible for something like 2 strategic coordination centers or 2 mega shipyards, which is extremely good.

Going to watch this as I iron my shirts. Always great timing and good content Montu!

0:00 Intro 0:44 F Tier • 1:05 Quantum Catapult • 3:00 Sentry Array 4:38 C Tier • 4:57 Interstellar Assembly • 6:28 Ringworld 8:14 B Tier • 8:33 Mega Art Installation • 10:00 Strategic Coordination Center 12:15 A Tier • 12:22 Science Nexus • 13:22 Dyson Sphere • 15:04 Matter Decompressor 16:28 S Tier • 16:36 Megashipyard 18:21 Outro

Thanks for the rankings Montu!

I feel like Montu is stealing ASPEC"s viewers 😂 you're always on it. Stay safe Monty ❤❤❤

love this tier list, pretty much perfect to how i feel about the mega structures (though i dont have access to that catapult thingy) however for me personally there is one change i would make and that is switching round the ring world with the mega art installation one. reason behind this as a tall empire player, almost all my playthroughs i never get enough artifacts to finsh the sodding thing off and i personally alway push for the ring world so i can my one section forge, one section science, one section trade and final section farming. yes the building and getting these idiots to breed so i can fill the sodding thing up is a headache but personally for me the ringworld seems more practical.

neat updates on your tier list :) even tho im not activly playing stellaris at the moment i do enjoy these videos of your work

The thing with ringworlds is that they're very useful for research when you conquer other empires and don't want to manage their planets, so you just mass deport their pops there. Combined with releasing conquered sectors as vassals, they are a great way to concentrate your pops and still avoid growth penalties. I once had a game where I reached 30k research with them with a psi unity build

Surprisingly there is no video on 40k megastructures and they have no shortage of them in that narrative. Just floating the idea.

Thank you for your wisdom once again. Your videos are awesome

I've not played Stellaris in a very long while and I've not heard of some of these structures, but the quantum catapult sounds perfect if you know where enemy fleet positions are As long as you have time to consolidate your own fleets you can set them up near someone's systems for an offensive, or alternatively set up a defensive position and wait for the enemy to come to you

i am almost counting Gigastructural engineering as a base game asset at this point, i cant play without it as it gives quite a endgame and it does seem balanced surprisingly enough! i would love to see a tier list for that if you use that :)

Don't think I can argue it should be placed higher, but one thing a ring world is great for is depopulating swathes of the galaxy. I tend to play wide in the early-mid game, then shrink down to a very dense, easily defensible core sector toward lategame. The excess territory becomes vassals, but most of the pops that were out there are going to get relocated and need somewhere to go. A newly built ring solves the problem nicely, for far less influence than habitat spam.

I have to agree on the ringwold asessemnt: The only time I've found them useful is if I found the Cybreh homeworld and then researched the secret of the Cybrex. I think they need an excumenopolis level growth and assembly speed improvement.

On the lowest difficulty, I prioritized a science nexus as my first mega (and might even have found or conquered a second one), so at top play speed I was getting “research completed” notifications every 15 seconds on average for decades of in game time for a bit. Thankfully I had gotten positronic relays so I didn’t have to manually select new research

Loved it, thanks :) I wondered if you were going to put the Aetheophasic Engine in the S tier lol

I feel like Dyson Spheres and Matter Decompressors don't get as much love as they should. Not that you aren't showing them love here. I find one of the biggest advantages of those two is the fact that they start producing useful amounts almost right away. A first stage Matter Decompressor is still giving 500 minerals a month. A second stage Dysons Sphere is giving 1000 energy credits a month. both of those are really good for fixing a slightly upset economy, or just giving a nice edge to doing creative things. And the best thing about doing either of those, is that after the 10 or 20 years, you go on to a different mega structure while still receiving the useful bonuses. You could say the same thing about the other multi tier megastructures, but the bonuses for most of them are not great until you hit the final tier. Basically, I think what I'm trying to say is that a Tier 1 Matter Decompressor and a Tier 2 Dysons Sphere are S tier, but the fully completed ones belong in the A Tier where you put them. Also, would you be willing to create a planetary buildings tier list? I find myself wondering if I am undervaluing certain buildings. Also, I really do not understand the hate the Gene Clinic receives.

I wish the catapult was better. Its such an awesome concept. I think if they had an upgrade path that increases the accuracy(less fleets=more accurate yeeting)with a higher upkeep and maybe a cooldown after its use. I built one not knowing what it did. I did find some very very minimal use for it. i used it to yeet my fleet to the further edge of my empire(didnt have gateways built there yet) when i was being attacked.

The only time I ever used to build a Sentry Array was when I had already found a ruined one. Having two gave you enough base intel to view the exact build of any ship in the game, even crisis ships and space fauna. These days I don't usually bother since cloaked science ships can scout nebulae ahead of my fleets, usually without being a sacrificial lamb.

The quantum catapult definitely needs a buff. It seemed stupid to me from the get go. maybe add a return function for the last fleet sent and increase to perfect accuracy at completion.

You did the sentry array dirty...just the galaxy view alone makes it awesome...

I lucked up in my current run big time, i started out with the. Slingshot to the stars origin, found the ruined ship yard about 5 junps away and then got the first league precursor that had a ruined science Nexus. Its my current run throufh and isaved the file to the cloud so i can go back and play it again and again to relive my luck

Just so glad to see the shipyard still at S haha, always aim for my Kuat shipyards as fast as possible

Quantum catapult is pretty nice if you have the resources anyways The reduction alone is useful because whenever you have your fleets retreat or send them new reinforcements after taking casualties the catapult will speed up that time

I watch almost all your new stuff even though I can't use most of it because I'm on console. Keep up the good work! (We still won't get overlord until I think mid 2023)

Ship exp also grants a few percent additional Hull now, so that's nice too

In my last game, I managed to get my hands on 4 different megashipyards. I built one, one of the other empire (which I integrated) had a ruined one, a third empire built one and in the late game I started to spam 1 system single habitat vassals and one of them built a forth shipyard. That's 120 shipyards all running at 5 times speed. Even the 12k alloys I was producing from all my ecunemopolies weren't keeping up. That 25x scourge in 2410 never stood a chance.

I absolutely love the mega shipyard. Just yeeting fleets into existence

Since you're a lizard: When you lose your tail, do you go to a retail shop? Thanks for another cool show.

I've been playing with mods for so long, that I legit was about to angry-type when you didn't mention the Neutronium Gigaforge. Completely slipped my mind that that's not part of the base game XD

I've never had issues with maxed Sentry, so I would personally consider it at B. I usually start it first in single player when I'm not aiming for a Federation, and to look for any unclaimed archaeology sites, relic worlds and living Leviathans. More a personal preference, as I like to clean out the good things the ai didn't grab.

Man, I get it, but the Dyson sphere is S-tier for me. I 100% always build it, and the perk is a must-take for me as soon as I can.

I think the Strat Coord Center should be in the S-tier. The amount of naval capacity you get from it is enough to field an entire extra fleet, and the speed boost means you're chasing down enemy fleets even without the 'exotic gases as fuel' edict.

I was gonna say really the mega shipyard in S Tier but your reasoning actually made sense so I now agree

I am sad to say I agree with you about ring worlds. Most play throughs I still end up with them but that is via finding a ruined one or the slaughter of a fallen/awakened empire.

Rings are great for trade Empires and not bad overall as a substitute and consolidation of perk points where you don't need to build ecumenopolises to have better factories. While perhaps not quite as good being able to get the trade value especially if you find your first ring world (cybrex for example) to insanely high numbers like 1500 from 50 pops (all merchant districts plus I like to run some synthetic gas/chem/crystal) is pretty strong. Then excess pop from growth that becomes clerks gets moved to other segments. The bonus from research segment is also very nice. I think if you take the ascendant corporate civic it's probably worth ascending ringworld segments. You can get really big trade and research values there. With the trade federation policy you also tend to have stupid unity to do it with anyway. I've been running a spiritual/military/egalitarian clone army build with psionic ascension for the OP admirals, conquering primitives to populate. This with the massive trade so I can get 3 primary resources just from my ridiculously OP merchants that I can spam most effectively on Ring Worlds.

With the changes to planet occupation and if they were to add effects to make supply lanes a factor, I could see the catapult having value. You could send a fleet to disrupt their economy or break trade routes.

Much love Montu

A wonderful video , much lovr

The catapult also reduces MIA time so that might be the difference between winning a war and losing a war.

I would like so see a Tier list for the top 10 Mods. Great vid, keep up the good work.

Catapult sounds great and very useful. 🤔 I like filling ring worlds with abducted pops. 😁

Tfw you find a ruined matter decompresor and an empire near you finds a ruined dyson sphere that you *aquire* and repair allowing you to become all powerfull at ludicrous speed

The Interstellar Assembly and Quantum Catapult are really the only megastructures I pretty much never build. I usually have enough weight and envoys without the IA to push through whatever resolutions I want, and the QC is just not worth the cost. My two favorites are the Dyson Sphere and Ring World; I *always* build those.

In my opinion, Having a Dyson Sphere is a absolute must if your a machine empire, since Machine Empires soak up so much Energy Credits. And in tendon with the Mega Shipyard, you are going to be a massive threat to the entire galaxy

I had a game where i managed to ger a ruined dyson sphere. My economy was unbreakable

I just want to point out that the Science Nexus should be caveated with that it is a vanity project if you're a Fanatic Materialist, because Fanatic Materialist is ridiculously OP and you will have researched almost all, if not all the tech tree by the time you can fully build a Nexus.

I usually build ringworlds in the L cluster and turn them all into resource silos. Great way to have a TON of resources

I feel like the sentry array should give some special espionage operations and maybe a bonus to espionage skill

I would say the catapult is c tier if you have as a origin, but it's right next turn home system and once you complete the archeological site, you get the tech to repair and it only cost 2500 alloys and then 10,000 to upgrade to its max, I like it as it's come in pretty handy for me, and I've used a method I called shotgun deployment where I put a bunch fleets on it and jump them to an enemy system and start wrecking havoc fast then join them together to face their fleets, but if you don't have it as an origin than yeah its not quite as worth it to build it.

I just finished a game with the catapult, and once fully upgraded it was very accurate. The circle was so small it usually only covered one system.

now we need a tier list for gigastructures and ACOT

@Montu just a note, you mention you can't build a Dyson Sphere or Matter Decompressor unless you've built another megastructure first. However, I believe you also get this option if you restore a ruined megastructure? If so, the new 3.6 Shattered Ring origin checks that box as soon as you restore a ring segment, does it not? Makes this much more attractive.

I gotta say I agree with most of your assessments. I do think the Assembly is more useful than C tier, especially once you consider that many empires that focus on diplomacy will be neglecting their fleets to start off with (Though I guess that falls more into roleplay than actual strategy with the fleet diplo power modifier) What megastructure do you think the game would benefit from getting added in future DLC?

There could be a option for ringworld if you build it in a system with inhabited planets or stations. prebuild the ring segments to inhabit as you automatically transfer the old pops to the new ring segments. that way you use some unity and energy to fully complete a ring in such a system to not be slowed down by it trying to get up to speed. would probably use similar programming to ecumonopolis once you complete that making similar amounts of what was there. this way you can also build the ring as your capital in the heart of your empire.

Ringworlds are basically for the RP, the science districts if you hate making stations (which I do lol), or if you have useless planets you can dump pops into

Can confirm: I avoid building the sentry array because it causes so much lag! xD I have even, in the past, avoided upgraded sensors on my ships for a similar reason, although I do that now.

I would put interstellar assembly in A tier in single player its so good, you can easily become top empire with it and pass ideal galactic motions and those envoys can essentially keep most of the galaxy off your back while you build to invade them. I would also put Dyson sphere and matter decompressor in S tier i build them everytime they are fantastic almost never worry about energy or minerals again until the very end game. Swap over those pops to other jobs. I agree with low placement of ringworlds. Most of the time it takes to long to set one up unless you're lucky enough to get sanctuary. I find its best just to get upgraded relic worlds.

Well I just started a new playthrough in 3.8 and guess what’s the first two megastructures I got the plans for and built…. Yup, a quantum catapult and a sensor array :D

hello montu! I think my list looks completely different. i always build the guard matrix first to find all the leviathans and/or the strategic defense command for the bonuses. the mega shipyard is definitely one of the best I build but not my favorite. I find the Dyson Sphere the coolest, which I also mostly build. To be honest, I never build the research nexus because at that point the most important technologies are researched and I just don't find the nexus useful for the repeatables. At the point when I can build the matter decompressor, I have such a high income that it is no longer necessary, which is why I don't build it either. mega art installation and interstellar assembly would come after that, they are always good. To be honest, I would wish that there was a mega structure that produces alloys because you need them the most in the endgame.

17:45 home, check, 18:00 video, check and dinner, also check. Love the vids and ik this will probably be a good one too.

The Dyson Sphere should be the very first megastructure built since the other ones would require immense amounts of power (not in a gameplay sense). It makes sense for a galactic empire to solve it's energy needs first before they start trying to mine black holes and yeeting fleets across the galaxy. Maybe with some reworks they could make this happen.

You should make a video to tailor-making species for jobs via the genetics tradition. (i.e. your "miner species" has industrious, very strong, etc.). Microing that sort of thing isn't for most, but I always had fun with it.

I know it could be way too long, but would you consider doing something similar with the Gigastructure-Engineering mod? Maybe just the big ones but i at least would appreciate the insight

Totally agree with the Ringworld analysis. By the time you have it built it is pointless to move pops to it and never gets used to full potential. Edit - In current playthrough I just had ruined Interstellar assembly ...meh. Shattered ring ...ok. Then something I have never seen before ....ruined Dyson Sphere and I could rebuild it as soon as I had Mega Engineering. Fully functional for 4k Energy production as soon as I did the repair. Saves me an Ascension perk as well because I can do without the Matter Decompressor...or if I take that perk can I get 2 Dyson Spheres ?

The assembly used to be a mandatory build for me, i just don't need to worry about it now. If it gets a decent buff or extra bonuses related to federations or subjects it would go back to being more useful.

I would say ringworlds compliment ecumenopolis, especially if going tall. It allows you to largely forgo food, energy and research production on your planets in favour of alloys and minerals, whilst the ringworlds handle the other economic stuff. It is pretty niche and probably still not optimal (probably better to use habs), but it feels nice.

I agree that the science nexus and mega shipyard are the best megastructures to build.

Imo rapid deployment in most of the galaxy easily trumps the inaccuracy of quantum catapults. Espescially if there are no gateways nearby, and if you're trying to cover enemy ground quickly I think the inaccuracy actually becomes a small benefit - granted it can be niche since you need moderate fleet sizes to not get ate by enemy fleets.

That feeling when you take another empires MegaShipyard, and the bonuses stack together

the ringworld depends a little bit, if you are a slaverempire with a working slavemarket you can fill the rings pretty quickly. If not I agree with your ranking

Ring worlds are amazing for science. I fill them up with obsolete technicians and miners after I build the DS and MD. they do however take too long to build. I would reduce build time by 50% and then I think they would be used more by players.

I'm not sure if they count, but would Hyper Relays and Gateways also be considered S tier megastructures? Couldn't imagine playing an empire that doesn't use them.

I personally think that Dyson Sphere and Matter Decompresssor need a little boost like "+5% of production of energy credits" to be as good as they shoud be regardless their cost.🙂 And the Ring World is basically to expansive and to long to construc... I think it suffur to much from the comparison with the Orbital Habitats and that Dev need to rebalence the equation.😢 There where a time where Ring World were OP, but for the moment they are outclass by Orbital Habitats. I think for exemple that it could be nice if we could build Ring World around Black Hole, Pulsar, and in system with more than 1 star.😃 And like other says, I also think that I could be nice if Ring World were also defense station, like a little Starbase.😄