YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → A Starter Guide To Nomads In Stellaris

A Starter Guide To Nomads In Stellaris — Transcript

by Ep3o · 7,471 words · 1,095 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00This is an arcship, the new nomadic
0:02empire type home planet, fleet, and
0:04science ship. There are many new nomadic
0:07mechanics and different to normal planet
0:09fairing empires. War, economy, and your
0:11planet works differently, and we have
0:13new mechanics like way stations and
0:15contracts. But don't fear, in this video
0:17I will give you a complete overview so
0:19that you can get up to speed and
0:20dominate the stars with your nomadic
0:22empire. Thanks to Paradox for sponsoring
0:24this video. If you're thinking about
0:25picking up season 10 or nomads, make
0:28sure to use the link in the description
0:30or pinned comment. Or you can use code
0:31EP3O Stellaris at checkout on the
0:33Paradox store. It'll give you a Steam
0:35key that you can redeem and get right
0:36into the game. Firstly, how do you
0:38become a nomad? Well, you come over to
0:40new game like always, create a new
0:41empire, and in government and ethics
0:44there is a new togglable feature for
0:46nomadic gameplay. It gives you a brief
0:48description of what happens and how
0:50arcships and districts give you 100%
0:53more empire size. You can then select
0:55the different arcship type. These all do
0:57different things, but we'll get into
0:59what exactly these modifiers actually
1:01mean later on. Now you can make your
1:03empires normal. There are many civics
1:05that are compatible that you love from
1:07before. You can still be any ethics,
1:09authority, and even a megacorp or
1:11machine. There's also some unique just
1:13to nomads like Caravan Masters, Deep
1:16Sleep, Flight School, but we'll get into
1:18those in more detail later on. You can
1:20also pick origins. Here's a full list
1:22available to both and there's of course
1:24the nomad only's like Void Farer's
1:25Secret Path, Era of the Khan, and
1:27Forever Cruise. I think that it's hard
1:29to create your empire when you have no
1:30idea what's going on. So we're just
1:32going to get straight into the most
1:33important bit of Stellaris, how the
1:35economy works. If you have a good
1:37economy, you can do whatever you want in
1:38the game. Okay, we're in the game. It
1:40looks kind of normal. We've still got
1:43food, consumer goods, alloys, trade, you
1:45know, the good stuff like science as
1:47well. And that's because the main
1:48difference is the operational reserves.
1:51This combines both minerals and energy
1:54credits into one resource. This is not a
1:57number, but instead is a situation where
2:00it's low, medium, or high. You can also
2:03just click on here to bring it up
2:05straight away. These numbers are not
2:07your total energy credits and minerals,
2:09but it's how much you're gaining or
2:10losing a month. So, currently, we're
2:12actually producing 199 energy credits a
2:14month and minus 123 minerals a month.
2:17Because this is a net positive, we will
2:20start taking up the operational
2:22reserves. Currently, we're in the medium
2:24category. This does give you bonuses and
2:26it's currently giving us five stability.
2:28If you go into low, you'll get less fire
2:30rate, armor, shield, and stability. You
2:33don't want to be in the low. And if you
2:35go below 1,000 reserves, you will get
2:38additional economic penalties. Don't go
2:40low, essentially. Now, if you go to
2:42high, you get 10 stability, an extra
2:45five from medium, and 10% research
2:48speed. If you know me, I like tech. I
2:50want to be in high as soon as I can.
2:52Stability is also nice because as you
2:53know in the game, more stability means
2:55more resources. That still looks the
2:57same. Now, as you can see, there are
2:58three default approaches. Conserve,
3:01which is going to reduce your upkeep
3:02from jobs by minus 50%. However, job
3:05efficiency for all your specialists,
3:07essentially, is halved. This could save
3:09you in a pinch if you've expanded too
3:11much on science or unity. I can't wait
3:14to see the builds that would be used
3:15this because it's only science and unity
3:17jobs. So, if you don't have any of
3:18those, you could just have minus 50%
3:21upkeep on jobs. Balance does nothing.
3:23Burn, however, gives you 50%
3:25infrastructure build speed and 50%
3:28efficiency for specialist or complex
3:30drones. This is very good. You might be
3:32asking, "Where's the negative?" Well, if
3:34you know how efficiency works,
3:35essentially, when we click this 50%,
3:37it's going to add 50% more workers here.
3:41That means we're paying 50% more upkeep.
3:43So, the negative is just in the innate
3:45way efficiency works, where essentially,
3:48we're paying more upkeep for all of our
3:49specialists. What I would say is try and
3:52get to high as soon as you can. The
3:54extra five stability and research speed
3:55is very nice. And getting your economy
3:57set up to also be positive with burn on
4:00is even better because 50% efficiency
4:02for specialist is crazy. Just make sure
4:04you have enough upkeep. As obviously
4:06more alloys or consumer good jobs are
4:08going to have a more mineral upkeep
4:09which might see you tick down. But
4:11overall for the economy, try and get to
4:13high and try and sitting high with burn.
4:15And if you're wondering what festival
4:17is, this is to do with one of our civics
4:19and we'll get on to that later on. Now
4:21do you know you can still buy energy and
4:22minerals to help you progress through
4:24operational reserves. You can still buy
4:26monthly minerals and energy and that
4:28will affect these numbers here. For
4:30example, let's just buy 140 minerals a
4:33month. You can see we're now positive on
4:35that which would then progress us up way
4:37quicker towards high. However, you
4:38cannot sell your minerals or energy
4:41because they get converted into the
4:43operational reserve number. So you do
4:45need to be careful if you buy too many
4:47energy or minerals, you can't sell them
4:49back. Okay. We've talked about what you
4:51need to do. How do you get those
4:52resources? Well, if we look over here,
4:54we have the Nomad UI. We have the
4:56capital ship, the ship controls, and the
4:58civilian arc ship. Civilian arc ship is
5:00the physical ship that we can move
5:02around. The ship controls are the ship
5:04design, shipyard, assault armies, etc.
5:07And the capital colony arc ship is your
5:11planet screen. It's actually quite
5:13similar to what you're used to. We've
5:14still got districts, we've still got
5:16zones, we've still got specializations.
5:18We've got pops all working these as
5:20normal. Now the main difference with
5:22your starting capital planet compared to
5:24the arc ship is that all districts cost
5:26alloys. Yes, including the basic ones
5:28and specialization. However, the costs
5:30have been changed to account for them.
5:32For example, specializations are 500
5:34alloys instead of 1,000 minerals. You
5:37have similar districts to what you'll
5:38see. Half of the starting districts on
5:40your arc ship will also give some trader
5:42jobs just to keep you going. These are
5:44quite nice. Trader is nice. Buildings
5:46are also slightly different. Instead of
5:49costing minerals, they cost a rare
5:51resource or alloys. For example,
5:53research labs are rare resources,
5:55pre-sync types as alloys, etc.
5:57Obviously, you might be seeing that
5:59there's no way to mine an arc ship. That
6:01makes sense. And where am I even
6:03producing rare resources from to build
6:05those buildings? That seems weird. How
6:06do we get them? Well, my friend, that's
6:08where harvesting comes in. Now, your arc
6:10ship can harvest by coming over and
6:12clicking the harvest resource button or
6:14you can use automation to survey and
6:16harvest and collect stockpile. We'll get
6:18into that later. Harvesting currently
6:20has 100% efficiency and will harvest the
6:22resources and will take 90 days. So, if
6:24we harvest this frozen world, we can
6:26also right click and harvest if we want.
6:28We'd get crystals and that would be just
6:30a flat 50 crystals, not per month.
6:32Logistic ships, which are your
6:34construction ship alternatives, which
6:36have a limited number, as you can see,
6:39we can only build two, can also harvest.
6:42When you do harvest, it will reduce the
6:44output to mining stations or way
6:46stations by minus 75%. These are denoted
6:50by these orange numbers that you can see
6:52in the system or on the system galaxy
6:54view. And these will come back, but it
6:56can take a while, 240 months, for
6:58example, here. Automation for the
7:00logistic ships also works very well for
7:02harvesting. However, there's a catch. As
7:04you can see, we harvest these resources.
7:06We get 50 motes, but we're still at the
7:08base 100 that we start with. That's
7:10because any resources collected by the
7:13logistic ships do not enter our empire
7:16resource bar that we have at the top.
7:18They're instead confined to the used
7:21stockpile capacity in individual
7:23logistic ships. So, we have two logistic
7:25ships here. We both mined. This one has
7:2650 motes and this one has 50 crystals.
7:29For these resources to be accessible to
7:31the empire for us to use, we have to
7:34deposit them back at an arc ship or the
7:36arc ship can come and collect it. So,
7:38all you have to do is have the arc ship
7:41stationary in your system and it will
7:43automatically collect it. You don't have
7:44to go right up to the logistic ship, it
7:46just has to be in the same system. This
7:48means you can just do it from the system
7:50map, you don't have to go and micro it.
7:52As you can see now, we have 150 motes,
7:54150 crystals because we've collected
7:56them. Automation again is pretty good at
7:58doing this. It will wait till it gets
7:59pretty high on the stockpile. So early
8:02game, when it's going to take longer to
8:04get that stockpile up, you might want to
8:06automatically come collect them or send
8:08your logistic ships to go to your
8:10Arkship. But that is how we're going to
8:11get minerals and rare crystals, motes,
8:15gases early on in the game. Now of
8:17course, if you do harvest with a
8:19Arkship, the Arkship doesn't have a
8:20stockpile. The stockpile is our empire
8:22resources. The 50 gases will go straight
8:24into our empire. This does mean that you
8:26don't want to stray too far from your
8:28logistic ships. If we put our Arkship to
8:30explore like all the way over this way
8:33and our logistic ships are over here
8:34mining, they're going to have to then or
8:36when they're full, go all the way over
8:38here to find us. As you'll see from the
8:40rest of the video, we're going to want
8:41to try and actually stay in a similar
8:43quadrant as the rest of our nomadic
8:46empire. You'll also be able to planetary
8:48strip mine if you reach these
8:49requirements. These will be unlocked
8:51through later technologies and have a
8:53higher resource efficiency so they can
8:55mine more. Logistic ships however do not
8:57have that. They can only harvest
8:59resources. And much later on, when you
9:02get a spinal mount, you'll be able to
9:04reprocess an entire planet which is
9:06obviously going to give you a lot of
9:07resources. We'll get more into spinal
9:09mounts and the ship design later because
9:11first, there's another way of gathering
9:13resources. And that's through way
9:15stations. These can be built by your
9:17logistic ships or even your Arkship. To
9:19build one, you must fully survey a
9:21system. For example, where we started,
9:24we could build a way station. However,
9:26as you may notice, when we start the
9:27game, all of the deposits start with the
9:30harvested modifier meaning we would get
9:32barely any resources here if we were to
9:35build a way station. Sure we'd get some
9:37engineering, but I might ignore that.
9:39Instead, I'm going to survey a Raya here
9:41because the system has to be fully
9:43surveyed. Look at those beautiful
9:45resources that we can now collect. We
9:47can get some energy and science. We can
9:49build that waystation. And now that
9:50waystation is built, it shows it with
9:52this nice symbol here, but you might
9:54notice it doesn't actually claim the
9:56land. And that's because nomads can't
9:58claim land. Currently, we're not
9:59actually collecting anything and we
10:01cannot build a mining stations. Instead,
10:03the way we get these resources is
10:05through the There are many different
10:07modules for collecting energy, minerals.
10:10You can just still get hydroponic base,
10:12nice. Processing base, research
10:14observatories. You can even get a
10:16tribute vault for your vassals to
10:18collect more tributes. But they also
10:19allow you to observe pre-FTL, build mega
10:21structures, and much more. So, to
10:23actually get these resources, we're
10:24going to need a research observatory and
10:26a solar array. Once these are done, the
10:28numbers go nice and green and we'll
10:30start collecting them. However, this
10:32waystation works exactly like the
10:33logistic ships. Anything collected will
10:35go straight to the waystation stockpile.
10:37If we move our arkship out of that
10:39system because we're currently
10:40collecting, you'll see it'll start
10:41building up. And that's where the
10:43automation for collect stockpile comes
10:45in. Your logistic ships can go to the
10:47waystations, collect it, fill up their
10:49stockpile, and bring it to the arkship.
10:51The arkship can also automate to collect
10:53stockpile to get rid of that step in
10:55between. But again, anything in the
10:57waystation does not exist in our empire,
10:59including the technology. So, we're
11:01going to need to collect that. Now, a
11:03big difference from normal empires with
11:05waystations is that each waystation,
11:06even the default level one one that you
11:08build, counts towards station capacity,
11:11formerly known as starbase capacity. So,
11:13at the start of the game, you can really
11:15only have five of these. So, make sure
11:17you pick your systems well and make sure
11:18your logistic ships don't mine these
11:20resources. Automation's quite good at
11:22not doing that. However, sometimes they
11:24do. And if they are, I would try and
11:26stop them doing that and make them go
11:28harvest elsewhere, like down here
11:30instead. But if we're were planning to
11:32expand there, we might want to go off
11:34the beaten track, as it were, and not do
11:36it in a line. Way stations can also
11:38cloak, so you don't annoy people, but
11:40they also have collection efficiency. As
11:42you upgrade, the collection efficiency
11:44will be improved. There'll be
11:45technologies that improve different
11:46resource collections. As you go through
11:48the game, these numbers will get much
11:50bigger. Now, since we're talking about
11:52way stations, we should talk about way
11:54lines.
11:55Here's what I set up earlier from a
11:57video coming soon. This video should be
11:59up early access right now on release,
12:01but it will be released for free soon.
12:03But, if you want to watch bunch of Nomad
12:05gameplay, there's early access stuff
12:06already up. Now, this looks confusing.
12:08These red dotted lines mean that the way
12:10stations are connected to the way line.
12:13We can view the way line here in this
12:14tab, and it will directly show every
12:16single way station connected up. This
12:18does it automatically. It'll
12:20automatically form way line as long as
12:22you are connected to neighbors. Some
12:24buffs propagate through these way lines.
12:26For example, the interstellar
12:27recruitment office will reduce leader
12:29costs by minus 5%. Or, for example, this
12:32nebula refinery, for each one we have in
12:35the way line, will produce 5% more
12:37minerals for mining stations. So, we can
12:39buff up all the mineral productions in
12:40here as long as we've got a nebula where
12:42we've built one of these. Got stuff like
12:44tradition cost reduction, research
12:46speed, and these propagate to the
12:48empires that these way stations are in.
12:50So, currently, if we built any of these,
12:52we'd be affecting two empires because we
12:54are spreading across these two empires.
12:56One of my favorite buildings, though,
12:58has to be the logistic hub. This enables
13:00collection of stockpile resources from
13:02networked way stations within the entire
13:04way line. So, because we have two arc
13:07ships, that's right, collection only has
13:09to go to one arc ship. It can be the
13:12second one you build, the third, the
13:13fourth. Any arc ship that collects will
13:15go into your empire pool. So, as you can
13:17see, these way stations are starting to
13:19build up even as far down here or over
13:22here where we have a bunch of minerals
13:23and energy that we're getting because
13:25people are building arc finishes, which
13:27means we get that resource, too. 108
13:30minerals a month, 41 alloys. You can see
13:32it's building up. The minerals are
13:33actually full. So, we need to collect.
13:35So, let's plop our arc ship down on this
13:37system. It has to be the way station
13:39with the logistic hub where you collect
13:41it from. And now the arc ship is here,
13:43we can now watch as these resources go
13:45to zero and it fills up our empire
13:47nicely. We can just park an arc ship
13:49here. Keep expanding the way stations
13:51across the galaxy and any way stations
13:54collected that
13:55will be collected by the arc ship. It's
13:57pretty nice. And the more we upgrade it,
13:59the more efficiency we get. The numbers
14:01will get bigger as you go. Make sure to
14:03upgrade, research some cool stuff. Now,
14:05way stations can, of course, be built in
14:07occupied territory, as you can see. Now,
14:09let's talk about nomad diplomacy. All
14:11this harvesting and way station
14:13preparation will not go unnoticed by
14:15other empires. As you can see by the
14:17stellar cartel here, they currently are
14:19not happy because we have harvested
14:21resources in their border. I'm sorry.
14:24This will eventually fix, but you maybe
14:26should avoid constantly harvesting an
14:28empire because they might get very angry
14:30and declare war on you. We will get into
14:32the war soon. We also have unlicensed
14:34way stations in their space, which also
14:37has a negative opinion. As you can see,
14:39there's two here. If we do get rid of
14:41one, it does reduce it. So, the more way
14:43stations you have, the more they're
14:44going to be annoyed. You can get around
14:46this, though, for the way stations,
14:47anyway. You can form a way line pact.
14:49This will allow us to build way stations
14:51in their territory and they will benefit
14:53from our way line network. This is a
14:55thing you should just do. There's not
14:57too much negative to not doing it.
15:00They're not going to hate you and they
15:02will benefit, too. They could be a
15:03stronger ally for it. And remember, the
15:05more arc furnaces and Dyson swarms they
15:07have, the more you can benefit. So, now
15:10that we've done that, we're now
15:11positive. That's gone away from them.
15:13That's all fixed. Two nomads can also
15:15sign a way line pact to benefit from
15:17both their way lines' buffs. So, if
15:19they're connecting with each other, both
15:21the benefits that propagate through a
15:23way line will go through both. However,
15:25as you might be able to tell, closing
15:27borders would be a big arc ship counter.
15:29You can't close borders to a nomad. They
15:31will just be in your space unless you
15:34declare war on them, which we'll get to,
15:36don't you worry. You might have be
15:37seeing a lot of these um symbols
15:40appearing on your screen or from this
15:42video. These are contracts. One of the
15:44final economic things. Yes, there was a
15:46lot of economic stuff, that's why I
15:48wanted to get straight into it.
15:49Contracts let settle empires outsource
15:52work to nomads. Yes, that's right. As a
15:53normal empire, you can create contract.
15:55These could be things like researching,
15:57coming to harvest some valuable minerals
15:59for them, help a colony get up and
16:01running, transport delegates to and from
16:03a system, take a group of tourists on a
16:05galactic sightseeing tour, and the list
16:07goes on. There's four categories,
16:09military, science, resource, and
16:11diplomacy. Because yes, that's right,
16:13there's no military ones here at the
16:14minute, but you can be called upon to go
16:16and raid, cause devastation on a planet,
16:19join a war. I really like contracts.
16:21These will cost trade for a normal
16:22empire to issue, and nomads can accept
16:24them just by coming over, click accept,
16:26we can see the rewards, and then it's
16:28done. We can then look at them in our
16:29situation log. We can see a contract
16:31here. Ah, we need to do some research.
16:33Let's click research. That will be done
16:35in 6 months, and we'll get trade,
16:36influence, trust, and opinion. These
16:38rewards can differ, and there could be
16:40multiple mission types here. Just follow
16:42along, it's listed quite clearly. That
16:44is how you get and collect resources.
16:48Let's spend them, shall we? And what are
16:50we going to spend them on? Your arc
16:52ship. Your arc ship, as you may know, is
16:54your colony, shipyard, and a hybrid
16:56science and military ship. It can't do
16:58dig sites, anomalies, projects, etc.
17:00because it could just be killed from one
17:02of those. However, it can survey. The
17:04arc ship can do many things. It can
17:06bombard, it can build mega structures
17:08like way stations or other arc ships
17:10eventually. It has a fleet stance,
17:12automation for surveying, collecting,
17:14stockpile harvest resources, surveying,
17:16a deep scan, which lets you survey a
17:19system again as long as you have an
17:21advanced sensor array or a subspace
17:23imaging array, harvest resources, which
17:25we've covered, planetary strip mine,
17:26which is just a better resource
17:28efficiency, but you need to be at least
17:30tier two arc ship or have a planetary
17:32engineering lab or planetary
17:33reprocessor. The tier two is only for
17:35civilian ships though. And then a spinal
17:37mount. Let's finally see what a civilian
17:39scientific and military arc ship can do
17:41since you now know kind of how a nomad
17:43would want to play. You can make a
17:45better decision then. The civilian arc
17:46ship per arc ship tier will give you 5%
17:49resources from harvesting actions. So,
17:51if you have a civilian arc ship, you're
17:52probably going to want to harvest a lot
17:54rather than survey. This starts up
17:56obviously tier one 5%, 10%, then 15% at
17:59tier two then three. As we just saw, at
18:01tiers two to three, you just get access
18:03to planetary strip mining. Again, you
18:05just going to want to harvest and strip
18:08planet classes and get 250% efficiency.
18:10You might annoy people if you do it and
18:12it's in their system though. Okay, let's
18:14look at the scientific arc ship. Per
18:16tier, you get a sensor range, hyperlane
18:18detection range, and survey speed. So,
18:20obviously, with the scientific arc ship,
18:23you're going to want to survey more so
18:25that you can build more way stations.
18:27Also, from tiers two to three, you just
18:29get access to the deep scan, which we
18:30saw before. You can survey again on a
18:33system uncovering deposits, which also
18:36removes the planetary depletion
18:38modifier. So, you could harvest it again
18:40or you can just collect from it. This
18:41obviously can go up to tier three. So,
18:43you could have three sensor range, three
18:45hyperlane detection range, and 15%
18:47survey speed. And finally, the military
18:49arc ship. Per tier, you get 5% fire rate
18:52and range. It's pretty good, 15% at max.
18:54And the unique feature from tier one to
18:57three is military armaments. That means
18:59at tier one, you just get four extra
19:01medium slots. We'll look at how strong
19:03the arc ship is in a second. Tier two
19:06keeps that four medium and gets an extra
19:08four large. And tier three converts
19:09those four medium into eight large. So,
19:12these really can be a proper capital
19:15ship for your empire. Whatever you
19:17select here doesn't mean you won't be
19:19able to get access to the other ones.
19:21Throughout the game, you're going to get
19:22research options that might give you
19:24civilian, scientific, or military arc
19:26ship construction. But, when you can
19:28build military arc ships, you will be
19:29able to build the type you start with.
19:31So, you're not locked into just civilian
19:33ships. You will eventually be able to
19:34build a scientific or military. Don't
19:36worry. Okay, let's have a look at the
19:38control panel. This is where you can see
19:40your systems, modules, spinal mount, and
19:43the upgrade. You first start out with
19:45two systems and two modules. This is a
19:47civilian ship, but it's going to be the
19:49same. You can add more systems on. Yes,
19:52you can just build an expanded
19:54cultivation deck, which will give you
19:55food. Or, you could just build more
19:57armor, shield, or more resource storage
19:59capacity. The armor and shields work a
20:01bit weird. This doesn't mean we only
20:03have one armor and shield component.
20:05There's actually three large slots.
20:06These slots then tell the ship design
20:08details what to actually build. As you
20:11can see now, it's populated with the
20:13armor and shield, and we're building
20:14three of each. If we build another one,
20:16we go to six armor. So, this is your way
20:18of actually specializing. We could go
20:19all armor if we really wanted to, and
20:21now we just have an all armor arc ship.
20:23You can see that the military arc ship
20:25having the extra medium slots is going
20:27to be quite nice for the guns, anyway.
20:29All arc ships start with four point
20:31defense. It prioritizes flak batteries
20:33because this is still automated. You
20:35can't control that. And two hangers.
20:38However, in the modules, we can actually
20:40build and design more weapons. I would
20:42be careful, though, because the
20:43engineering bay gives you an extra build
20:45queue capacity. That's right. We can
20:47actually build two things at once.
20:49That's pretty nice. You can build more
20:51engineering bays if you really want to,
20:52as well. And it also gives more
20:54megastructure build speed, which counts
20:56as your way stations, arc ships, or even
20:58Dyson swarms, arc furnaces in the
21:00future. However, this docking bay just
21:02gives you five naval capacity and more
21:04way station resource transfer rate. The
21:06transfer rate doesn't really matter too
21:08much, so you could swap this out. You
21:11could, for example, build some extra
21:13energy weapons. Now, instead we have
21:15four medium red lasers. Now, to upgrade
21:17you need arc ship engineering. However,
21:19your starting counter position does give
21:21you progress towards whatever the next
21:23tier tech is. This will start with
21:25actually arc ship construction, allowing
21:27you to build more arc ships. Then it
21:30will be arc ship engineering as a tier
21:31two tech, which then you can upgrade
21:33your arc ship, and then tier three will
21:34let you upgrade to the third and final
21:36tier. Let you have a devastator mount
21:38and a capital shipyard, which gives you
21:40a whole lot more build capacity, build
21:43speed, and allow for capital ship
21:45construction. There's also techs for
21:47stuff like your military arc ship,
21:48planetary processor, improving your way
21:51lines and logistics, which will increase
21:53capacity and give you more logistic ship
21:55capacity, and unlock some more unique
21:57buildings. You also have the planetary
21:59engineering lab for planetary strip
22:01mining, and techs can unlock different
22:03contracts like clearing blockers. It's
22:05not all in engineering though, of
22:06course. Physics has the scientific ship.
22:08Then there's contract types and modules.
22:10Like stellar engine, sub-space imaging
22:12array, excess jump. There's a whole lot
22:15you can explore in the different
22:16categories, and obviously the civilian
22:17ship would be unlocked in society, but
22:19we already started with it. Now,
22:20upgrading doesn't just upgrade how many
22:22slots you have here. It gives you a
22:24whole bunch of other stats, but also
22:25increases your max districts. Currently
22:27at nine, but when we upgrade it, we of
22:29course go up to like 19 at the minute
22:31because we also have the perks giving us
22:32stuff. So, it also helps with your
22:34economy to upgrade arc ships. This at
22:36level two just unlocks a bunch more
22:38systems, but as you get technologies,
22:41you can also get colony support. These
22:42are your orbital ring bonuses that you
22:44might recognize. So, if we're going for
22:46an alloy arc ship, we can get high
22:48energy forges for more alloy output,
22:50consumer good output, etc. There's also
22:52auras that you can build like a titan or
22:55juggernaut, and the modules still can do
22:57strike craft. There's also utilities
22:58like max districts, resources from a
23:01action, your grand archive. There's a
23:03whole lot you can do. When you upgrade
23:05again, you get all of the other systems,
23:07modules, and you also get a spinal
23:09mount. This is like the final
23:11specialization to your arc ship. You can
23:13get a devastator mount for damage,
23:15capital shipyard for that ship built,
23:17pantry reprocessing to really go
23:18harvesting, subspace imaging, and Exodus
23:21jump, kind of like a quantum catapult,
23:23but also destroy stuff. And of course,
23:25the stellar engine, which can actually
23:27convert stars and gas giants. It also
23:30maxes out your arc ship to have a lot of
23:32districts, 29 at max. It's not bad.
23:35Nomads also have unique districts. We've
23:38covered the popular research mall and
23:40industrial trade quarter that you start
23:41with just to give you a few extra trade
23:43jobs. In terms of city specialization,
23:45there isn't too much different. You're
23:47just allowed to build the industrial
23:49trade quarter and the popular research
23:51mall. Again, it's different when you
23:53look at the basic districts that you're
23:55used to being food, energy, and
23:57minerals. You can of course just
23:58specialize your energy jobs and gain
24:01more technician jobs and building slots.
24:03Nothing's changed there. However, arcs
24:05have special districts that also buff up
24:08the actual arc ship. When you research
24:10technologies, you'll get access to new
24:11specializations for these, such as the
24:13engine bypass. You'll produce two less
24:15energy per 100 technicians, get the
24:18building slots, but for every 100
24:19technicians, you'll get 5% sublight
24:22speed. So, you could make your arc ship
24:24go bow if you really wanted to. You'll
24:25have stuff similar, like the shield
24:28overclocker. They'll have a gas upkeep,
24:30but give shield hit points and shield
24:32regen. And of course, you can just turn
24:34the energy district into a science
24:36district if you really wanted to. This
24:38middle district is a little bit
24:39different. If we got rid of the initial
24:40district, it's actually just a basic arc
24:43ship deck. Once you build here, you'll
24:45get some housing, but then you can
24:46specialize it. You can specialize it
24:48into food, society, a harvesting bay,
24:51which will turn alloys into minerals,
24:53but also increase resources from
24:55harvesting actions and arc ship speed by
24:5710% per district and the action speed by
25:015%. This means you could make an
25:02ultimate harvesting arcship by just
25:04spamming these. Finally, you can get the
25:06way station trade hub instead, which
25:08will turn consumer goods into trade and
25:10station capacity, meaning you could
25:13actually increase the amount of stations
25:14if you're playing a way station focused
25:16build. There's a lot of options within
25:18this arcship and it doesn't stop there
25:20because we still have the engineering
25:22core to look at. Once we build one of
25:23these, it will get some soldier jobs.
25:25Nothing different there. Once we have
25:26one though, we can specialize it. And
25:28there's a lot of specializations. These
25:30specializations focus on weapons. These
25:33specializations focus on your arcship.
25:35The first law are all about weapons.
25:37It's going to increase your upkeep per
25:39100 soldiers, but per 100 soldiers give
25:41you 5% explosive weapon damage, meaning
25:44if you're wanting to go crazy with
25:45missiles, you could build the missile
25:46silo. It also gives soldier jobs from
25:49missile weapon modules, so we could just
25:51easily increase the amount of soldier
25:53jobs just by building missile batteries,
25:55which then self-buffs itself. It's then
25:58the same with the ammunition lines for
25:59kinetic weapons, laser capacitors for
26:01laser weapons, and flight decks for
26:03strike craft. You then have the void
26:05forges, which will increase the mineral
26:07production, but increase how many alloys
26:09you get. It also increase the armor by
26:112% and armor hardening by 1% per 100
26:15materials. So, this could be really good
26:16for just getting alloys going or buffing
26:19up your ship to be really tanky. You
26:20then have the shipwright quarter, which
26:22will give naval capacity per soldier
26:24jobs, too, and ship build speed per 100
26:26soldiers. This will give you materials
26:28jobs instead of soldiers. And then you
26:30have the military research complex. Like
26:32the other three, we can specialize into
26:35physics, society, and engineering. If
26:37you wanted to make a scientific arcship,
26:39you still can. Look at that. Now, of
26:41course, you can also build these
26:42arcships. To do that, you need 500
26:45influence, 10,000 alloys. You can choose
26:47the classes if you have the technology,
26:49and once it's built, you start with an
26:51arcship, but it's not empty. It does
26:53start with 1,000 pops, which is very
26:55nice, to be honest. It just creates pops
26:57for you. I would definitely try and get
26:59at least another arc ship online as soon
27:01as you can. This will allow you to
27:03either sit and collect stuff or go and
27:04explore elsewhere in the galaxy. And
27:07there's no limit to the amount of arc
27:08ships you have. When you do start the
27:10game, you're going to have the arc ship
27:12readiness situation, which does debuff
27:14your arc ship. These can be different
27:16random events. I've seen a bunch of
27:18different ones. For example, here we
27:20need to clear the hangar bay, which is
27:22two blockers we need to clear.
27:23Currently, we're getting a strike craft
27:25damage. There's a coolant flush, which
27:26means we have to go to a black hole and
27:29then that flush coolant decision.
27:31Currently getting minus 50% armor and
27:32health. And then there's a positive. We
27:34can just harvest the free unique ones
27:36with the arc ship, can't be a logistic
27:37ship, and we get resources from
27:39harvesting. There's a bunch that rotate,
27:41but essentially flush coolant need
27:43gases, time, and being in a black hole,
27:45and then you get rid of the corrosive
27:47coolant, which is very important. I
27:49would definitely do that. Now you know
27:50how to get resources and how to build up
27:53your nomadic empire. The next question
27:55is how do I fight? Now arc ships are
27:58colonies, but they're not planets. They
28:01cannot be bombarded or invaded, so they
28:03must use ship combat, and any hull
28:05damage is equal to the devastation. That
28:07does mean, however, arc ships will only
28:09ever be able to be conquered by other
28:11nomads. You can't be running around as a
28:13normal empire with a nomadic ship. But
28:15you can settle and embark. We'll get
28:17into that soon. So, what happens if
28:18you're a non-nomad and face a nomad?
28:20Well, obviously, you cannot use the
28:21claim war goal against nomads. However,
28:23you can, of course, battle the arc ship.
28:25If you win, it will disable the arc ship
28:28until the war ends. Once the war is
28:30over, the arc ship's re-enabled, and
28:32it's dealt with according to the war
28:33goal. If it's genocidal war, it
28:35immediately blows up, leaving debris for
28:37the allies. However, if you've gotten
28:39annoyed by arc ships, you can use a new
28:41cast spell like to expel them from your
28:43borders. This will delete all their way
28:44stations in your borders, move their
28:46ships out of your systems, and force
28:48them to respect your closed borders for
28:50the duration of the truce. So, you can
28:52get rid of nomads if they're being
28:54annoying. If your arc ship goes into
28:56battle against non-default empires like
28:58leviathans, it will set the hull to
29:00zero, meaning max devastation, and your
29:02arc ship will escape. So, you don't lose
29:04the game. However, if you're fighting
29:05the end game crisis, it will destroy the
29:07arc ship, and you will lose if it's your
29:09only one. If you're a nomad battling a
29:12non-nomad, you cannot claim or conquer
29:14planets. You can invade and occupy their
29:16planets, and they will be released once
29:19war is over. If you're a total war
29:21nomad, the planets will be immediately
29:22split into vassals, and that could be a
29:24proper vassal because nomads can make
29:27vassals, and proper empires can make
29:29nomads vassals, or they can make purge
29:32vassals. These will only exist
29:34temporarily, and only as long as it
29:36takes for the pops to get purged. Once
29:38finished purging, all resources will get
29:40transferred, and unique effects like
29:42necrophage or galactic nemesis. The last
29:44one is nomad versus nomads. This is
29:47honestly something you should consider
29:49if you're a nomad because you can take
29:51their arc ships. This is through the
29:52nomad raid casus belli. It'll let you
29:54take their arc ships and way stations
29:56that you have disabled in the war. This
29:57is very strong and can really accelerate
29:59a nomad because in my experience, the
30:01biggest bottleneck and the biggest slow
30:03down is actually getting your first arc
30:05ship built or the upgrade, which can
30:07take a while. So, getting another arc
30:09ship
30:10it really accelerates how strong you
30:12are. The other thing you can do to
30:13accelerate your growth as a nomad
30:14especially to help with your operational
30:16reserves is to make vassals. And nomads
30:19only have to be superior in military
30:21power to subjugate another empire. This
30:23could mean that their military arc ship
30:25to start is one of the best because it
30:27does count towards your fleet power and
30:29really helps you just vassalize people.
30:31It's quite strong. Okay, so what about
30:33settling and bargaining that I've
30:34teased? What if I'm done being a nomad
30:36and I want to settle down on a planet?
30:38To settle, you have to take adaptability
30:41or versatility. And you can settle as
30:43long as you found an empty planet. If
30:44it's already settled, you can dislodge
30:46them. There are three options. You
30:48either settle with this arkship leaving
30:50the rest of the ships to a subject, so
30:52you create a nomadic vassal and only
30:55that ship settles. You can settle with
30:56all your arkships putting all the pops
30:59on that planet, so no nomad vassal. Or
31:01you can stay in space with that arkship
31:03settling and becoming a vassal for you.
31:05And if you wanted to be a normal empire
31:08to start with and then become a nomad,
31:10you can do the same thing. With
31:11adaptability or versatility, you can
31:13then use your decision on your planet to
31:15embark and become a nomad empire. All
31:18remaining colonies will become a
31:19subject. This will cost the same as
31:21building an arkship for nomad empires
31:22500 influence, 10,000 alloys, and 10
31:25years. And it's the same logic. If you
31:26have a single planet, you become nomadic
31:29and all your existing starbases become
31:30way stations. If you have multiple
31:32planets, you leave behind a vassal or
31:34the nomad is a vassal. So yes, you can
31:36turn a planet into a nomad vassal and
31:38just create lots of nomads if you really
31:40wanted to roaming around buffing up your
31:42empire. Or they might be stealing your
31:43resources, who knows. Okay, you're
31:45excited to play. You know how nomads
31:47work, the options you have, and you
31:48really want to try one of the new
31:50origins. So let's break it down. Void
31:52Ferriers is essentially the prosperous
31:54unification of nomads. You start with an
31:56additional logistic ship. This is not
31:58that good because it doesn't raise the
32:00cap. Logistic ships only cost 100
32:01alloys. If you don't start with this
32:03origin, build a logistic ship straight
32:05away. They're very good early on. Then
32:07you just get more survey speed, action
32:09speed, just stuff that helps nomads.
32:11It's not that interesting, but it helps
32:13nomads. The secret path, honestly quite
32:16fun. You're going to be going on a
32:17journey to find different systems
32:20exploring the galaxy. You get the unique
32:22arkship district which will convert your
32:23politicians into high pilgrims,
32:25bureaucrats into devout adepts, and
32:27civilians into faithful acolytes. These
32:29are all unique jobs, and as you go
32:31through the path, you can buff up
32:33different ones. For instance, the video
32:34coming soon, I really buff up the
32:36bureaucrats to produce pretty much every
32:39resource. You could probably do the same
32:40for civilian politicians, but I've not
32:42tried that yet. Heirs of the Khan, it
32:43does what it says on the tin. You're the
32:45heir of the Khan, you're going to be
32:46chased by marauders because you've been
32:48exiled. However, if you survive and
32:51you're strong enough, you can become the
32:52Khan by defeating your old clan. Start
32:54with the military archship, in my
32:56opinion, and you can also create satrapy
32:57subjects, which give you resources, but
32:59you also steal their naval capacity.
33:01Gives you a bit of buffs to help with
33:03that. Finally, you have the Forever
33:04Cruise. You're essentially going to have
33:06crew and passengers. You need to meet
33:08both of their demands using contracts to
33:11flip which one is better or not. You'll
33:13get unique districts that will help with
33:14this. It's kind of like rogue servitors,
33:17but with a ticking situation and
33:19contracts that spawn. How long can you
33:20survive? Let me know. And you can
33:22combine the custom civics with this. We
33:24have flight schools, which just buff up
33:26strike craft. It's pretty good. We have
33:28caravan masters. It will start you with
33:29a way station. We'll just buff all your
33:32way stations. If you want to play around
33:33way stations, take this civic. You also
33:36get improved way line logistics, which
33:37is pretty nice. More logistics ships at
33:39the start. That's very good civic. Deep
33:42Sleep, it will start you with more pops,
33:43but you can't use them until you clear
33:45the expensive blockers to basically wake
33:48them up. You can also prepare deep sleep
33:49if you have too many pops, and it will
33:51give you minus 15% upkeep from jobs for
33:545 years. So, once you're mega rich, you
33:57could just cycle between sleeping and
33:59waking them up to get minus 15% upkeep.
34:01Hired Guns will give you a trade reward
34:03from military contracts plus 50%, so you
34:06can be very aggressive. More ship fiery
34:08and less upkeep under these contracts,
34:10and ships in orbit of hostile colonies
34:12have less upkeep. You're basically just
34:14wanting to do military contracts. Star
34:16Seekers is pretty cool. You have to find
34:18unique encounters throughout the galaxy,
34:20and then once you've done that, you can
34:21do a situation approach to go absolutely
34:23crazy. Host a festival is going to drain
34:26your entire resource stockpile dry, but
34:28you're going to have 1,000% pop assembly
34:31and efficiency for specialists while
34:32this is going. It's um pretty good if
34:35you can keep recuperating your
34:37operational reserve, which you probably
34:39can later on in the game. It's pretty
34:40good. And you don't have to actually
34:42pick it at the start of the game, so
34:43this could be later on you pick it to
34:45just go crazy with your specialists. And
34:47finally, Void Dweller's, your ultimate
34:48pirate civic. It's pretty sick. You can
34:50plunder, you get way station modules
34:52that will sap resources dry from your
34:55empire from the planet that is above,
34:57and you can buff it up with the
34:58stronghold, and it also then buffs up
35:00clothing strength, lowers military ally
35:01cost, but increases energy upkeep.
35:03There's also a few traits like photo
35:05adaptive, which gives you different
35:07buffs depending on the stars you're in.
35:08It does work with multiple stars in a
35:10system. Plunderer will give you trade on
35:12consumer goods per naval capacity
35:14destroyed. Pair this with the pirate
35:15empire. Terraphobic is a free pick if
35:18you're planning to stay as nomads
35:20because you're never going to be on
35:22non-artificial worlds. Recursive learner
35:24is pretty sick. Depending on what the
35:26archship is, will give you more buffs
35:28per the districts you have on it. So,
35:30the more you go in the game, the bigger
35:32the buffs you'll get. Interconnected is
35:34a machine trait. It will lower upkeep
35:36for the less amount of pops you have.
35:38Bit weird of a trait, not a big fan. And
35:40combat synced will increase a pop energy
35:43upkeep, but give you more engineering
35:45output. However, during a war crisis,
35:47you'll get 0.1 stability per 100 pops up
35:50to 15%. This also applies on artificial
35:52worlds. There is obviously more in this
35:54DLC such as the champions forge life
35:57enclave, defender of the galaxy
35:58ascension perk, paragons, and the
36:00stellar cannon. This video was just a
36:02breakdown on playing as a nomad. I hope
36:04it was helpful. If I missed anything,
36:07let me know in the comments so others
36:08can learn more. Remember to use my code,
36:10I'll link in the description if you are
36:11buying nomads. Now go watch my first
36:13gameplay video with it. That's coming
36:15out tomorrow, but it's already up early
36:17access for members from just $2. Click
36:19it now. I'll see you there.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of A Starter Guide To Nomads In Stellaris by Ep3o, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 7,471 words across 1,095 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.