Stellaris – Stay on Target Achievement Guide

A quick guide on how to obtain the Stay on Target achievement.

How to Get Stay on Target Achievement

Galaxy Settings

• Galaxy size: Huge (1000 stars)
• AI empires: 0
• Fallen empires: 5 (or 4 if you don’t have Synthetic Dawn)
• Marauder empires: 0
• Tech/Tradition cost: 0.25
• Crisis strenghth: off
• End-game start year: 3000

The other options don’t really matter that much, so adjust as you want. For civics I recommend Fanatical Purifiers with Militarist ethos. The idea is to have maximum fire rate, so you can quickly shred the FE fleets.

Important: After you generate a new game, exit to main menu and open the save game file in a text editor. If the save game file contains the text:

design="SHIP_COLOSSUS_SECTION"

This means that one of the FEs has spawned with a colossus. If that text is not there, then you will most likely not fight against a colossus this game, so you need to abandon it. Keep making new games until you create one where a colossus is spawned at the beginning.

Build Up

Your enemies are sleeping Fallen Empires, so you can build and grow your empire safely. Find the Fallen Empire with the colossus. Use a sentry array or a science ship to locate it. Get information about the colossus and the area around it.

After finding the Fallen Empire with the colossus, plan to fight them. Guess which of your planets they might attack first. Usually, it’s a planet close to them. Remember to think about wormholes and gateways too.

Make a new colony near the Fallen Empire. Protect it well. Don’t upgrade the starbase, but make the planet very strong. Build a military academy, a shield generator, and many fortresses. The goal is to make it so hard to conquer that the enemy will use the colossus on it.

Build a gateway in that system near the planet. This lets you bring all your ships quickly to surprise the enemy. Keep your fleet waiting at another gateway in your empire.

The Engagement

Important: Savescum!

It’s important to save your game before starting the war. Make a backup save file. Things can go wrong, and the colossus might escape quickly. If that happens, you might not get the achievement.

After you’ve made your planet strong and built big fleets, get ready for the fight. Try to have at least double the fleet power of the Fallen Empire.

Have at least one Titan ship with the FTL offensive aura. This makes it take longer for enemy ships to escape.

Try to make the Fallen Empire declare war on you. You can do this by saying you’re their rival or by insulting them. This gives you a bonus in the fight. If you can’t make them start the war, you can still attack them yourself.

Make sure that you have a massive fleet and before you engage:

• Use the unity ambition that buffs the fire rate
• Use the No Retreat war doctrine that buffs the fire rate
• Have a good admiral with buffs to fire rate
• Basically do everything you can to buff fire rate / damage of your fleet.

After war is declared by either party, the FE should attack the bait planet which you have fortified like crazy. In my case, the FE had 2 fleets. The first (bigger one) was sent to the planet along with armies to capture it and the second fleet was holding back protecting the colossus in a nearby system. As soon as the bigger fleet started bombarding the planet, I jumped on them from the gateway and shred the fleet along with the transports. Then I moved out of the gateway back into the other end of the gateway (which the FE cannot access).

Then the FE sent the remaining (smaller) fleet along with the colossus in order to wipe the planet.

Important: Wait for the right moment to attack the colossus. It has two stages: charging and firing. Charging is when it gets ready. Firing is when it actually shoots its beam. You can see the difference if you click on the colossus. When it’s firing, you’ll see a beam coming out of the ship. This is your chance. Use your gateway to bring in your fleet right when the firing starts. Attack and destroy the enemy fleet and the colossus at this time. Don’t jump in too early during the charging phase. The correct timing is crucial for success.

I appreciate your time and hope this little tutorial was helpful.