Stellaris – Nanite Ship Maxxing Guide

Nanite Maxxing Swarmer Spam Supremacy Build

Here’s a guide to get a strong position like the picture shows by around 2260, without vassal / overlord cheese or exploits.

The build is a unity rush gestalt machine empire with tactical algorithms and unitary cohesion as its starting civics. The traits don’t matter too much but having automodding is very helpful. I used the Arc Welders origin.

Start by finding and colonizing all the worlds that are near you. Only build unity buildings (1 sim site then uplink nodes) on them at first, DON’T build the pop assembly buildings until the next step. You should put 1-2 unity buildings on your capital, then only build generators on it to sustain your unity colonies, as well as 1 forge district. Market micromanaging between energy, alloys, and minerals is essential during these first years, as you will be squeezing every ounce out of your economy for growth. Make sure you get capacity subsidies edict via the energy building tech ASAP. Build a starbase with solar panels as needed from spare alloys to keep your empire from going bankrupt.

Once you have mostly completed your second tradition (I usually pick statecraft -> prosperity -> discovery), you can build the pop assembly buildings on your colonies. Around this time your unity production should be in the hundreds, so I would start saving up alloys to improve the arc furnaces. I usually upgrade my starting arc furnace until the first tier that gives alloys, then I place the second arc furnace in the designated system (you will get a notification when surveying this system that it’s perfect for your second arc welder).

This system usually has much more planets in it, which means a more powerful arc furnace (in the picture, the second arc welder produces almost 3x as much). Don’t upgrade your second arc furnace until later, once its placed go back to saving unity for traditions. Having 2 arc furnaces up and running means you don’t need any pops to produce alloys or minerals, which enables you to spam more unity.

Once you get your third tradition finished, take the synthetic age AP and set the situation approach to the first or second option. I usually get to this point around year 2220. You can upgrade your second arc furnace to the first stage that gives alloys now, you’ll need them in a bit.

On your unity colonies, now start building new research labs instead of unity buildings, so you can start catching up on tech. Save your unity until the situation finishes, when you will pick nanotech and get the tradition tree unlocked. You should have all your colonies settled by now and your border choke points claimed, so use all your alloys to spam solar panel starbases, ignoring the cap as they pay for themselves.

After the situation finishes, pick nanotech of course, and instantly buy the first two traditions on the left of the tree, which lets you start converting your worlds to nanite ones (do this immediately). Now go to all of your starbases and build the nanite harvester building, starting in the systems that your arc furnaces are in. You should have a decent amount of tech by now, the important thing to focus is getting the galactic administration tech for your 3rd civic.

Once you complete the nanotech tree, take the Grasp the Void AP so you can maximize starbase spam. Continue making tech buildings on your colonies and constructing nanite harvesters on your starbases, building new ones if you run out of them.

The last big step happens when you research galactic administration. Once you get it, replace unitary cohesion with Astro-Mining Bots, and whatever third civic you like (I usually pick OTA updates for less empire size). Now go back to all your starbases and replace the solar panels with astro-mining bays, which boost the output of all your nanite deposits massively (up to a +150% increase just from the starbase). Continue spamming starbases until you have one in every system you own, and get them to at least starholds with 4 mining bays, a nanite harvester, and a mining hub.

At this point you just keep doing what you’re doing, getting tech and unity from your colonies and energy, minerals, alloys, and nanites from your starbases / deposits. The nanite deposits granted by the harvesters double every 5 years until they reach a cap based on the size of the planet the deposit is on. After this cap, free nanite swarmer ships will be made every 5 years. The mining starbase bonus stacks with the arc furnace bonus as well, so make sure to build all the arc furnaces you can in the systems with the most nanite deposit production.

Now go forth and conquer with your ever expanding swarm!

Some Notes:

  • I usually pick tech ascendancy and imperial prerogative as my 1st and 2nd APs
  • If you get the Cybrex as a precursor, you can unlock the Cybrex mining hub building which gives ANOTHER stacking +100% mining station deposit bonus.
  • During the last two steps I usually try to get swarmer missiles for my swarm ships, as they are very very OP.
  • The lack of tech rushing isn’t that much of a loss for this build, since your whole economy runs without pops (aside from about half your energy coming from technicians), and your military is just swarm ships which only cost nanites and have no upkeep so no need for military techs.
  • If you get a subjugation war declared by say, a virtual machine empire, just accept the vassilization! You’ll have plenty of resources to spare if they tax you, and it only gives you more time to build up your nanite swarm until you have thousands of zero-upkeep swarmer ships and no one can stop you.
  • I picked tactical algorithms for the OP 50% shield and armor penetration you can easily get by trading admirals to NPCs. If you are in a multiplayer PvP game you probably won’t be able to trade these away, so you should probably pick a different civic like rapid replicators.

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

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 8007 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

1 Comment

  1. a couple of discoveries:

    The spawning mechanic from nanites is a bit weird and mostly indepedentant on the +% mining output.

    When you get the module, every resource that can spawn a deposit will do, and go from stages I to X in intervals of 5 years if posible increasing nanite yield.

    Asteroids and the like stop at stage IV. Moons and the rest can go stage V and foward and start spawning ships depending on the STAGE not the actual number of nanites improved by modifiers.

    So, free swarmers start ocurring 25 years (stage V x 5 year loop) AFTER building the modules independent from space modifiers.

    TLDR: The best strategy to mass nanites as early as possible way well be to ascend super fast (like y25 or so) and then freeride the ships. I don’t think arc furnace can get to a meaningful nanite yield to sustain the cost of building ships.
    Space modifiers don’t matter, apparently.

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