Ascension Perks in Stellaris are very unique and powerful. However, only 8 out of 31 can be unlocked per run. Thus, making it very important to know which perk is the best for the circumstance your empire is in. That’s why I made this Stellaris ascension perks tier list to prevent you from wasting the precious perk slots and ruining a playthrough.
Every run you can pick 7 traditions, completing each tradition will unlock 1 perk slot and the final perk slot is unlocked by researching the Ascension Theory technology. Which is a rare technology that appears pretty late in the game.
Some of the ascension perks are exclusive to the empire types. For example, machine worlds for machines, hive worlds for hive mind empires, and arcology projects are for collective societies. There are also specie ascension perks that are mutually exclusive, like picking one disables the others. Those are the mind over matter, engineered evolution, The Flesh is Weak, Synthetic evolution and Synthetic age.
Once you pick an ascension perk, it’s locked and cannot be changed. Therefore, you must choose very carefully.
Now you know the basics. It’s time we move on to the Stellaris ascension ranking from best to worst:
1. One Vision
One Vision is the best Ascension Perk in the game. It should be the first ascension perk you pick no matter what.
There is one problem though, machine empires can’t pick One Vision. As a machine empire you can skip this one but if you’re not, always pick One Vision first.
There are multiple reasons to pick One Vision as your first ascendency. First of all, it gives +10% unity bonus at the start of the game. Thanks to that early unity boost, you’ll be able to complete traditions, unlock perks, and ascend your planets much earlier. That’s what we call snowball effect. Secondly it gives -10% pop amenities usage. Which is very good for overall production since you’ll need less maintenance workers on your planets. It’s snowbally also.
2. Technological Ascendancy
Research is everything in Stellaris. In order to keep up with research and go beyond, you’ll need the technological ascendancy perk.
It should be the second ascension perk right after One Vision. If you’re a machine empire and can’t pick One Vision, start with Technological Ascendancy instead to start research snowball early.
Technological Ascendancy perk gives +10% research speed which needs no explaining and 1.5 times more Rare Technology appear chance which is very good also. The rare technologies you’ll need to unlock whenever possible are Mega Engineering, Ancient Refinery, Megastructures, Psionic Theory, Jump Drives, Zro Distillation, Exploit Dark Matter, Ascension Theory, Faculty of Archaeostudies, and etc.
3. Imperial Prerogative
Imperial Prerogative does one simply thing which is possibly the best bonus in the game with no substitute. Which is reducing the empire size from planets by -50%. It also increases official capacity by +2 but it’s not worth mentioning.
Since most of the empire size comes from planets, Imperial Prerogative is a God Tier ascension perk in Stellaris.
Low empire size will allow you to unlock traditions and research technology cheaper. It also helps with agendas, edicts, and campaigns. All in all, one must reduce empire size with every possible feature in the game. And Imperial Prerogative happens to be the best empire size reduction feature.
4. Species Ascendancy Perks
Species ascendancies are unique tradition trees can only be unlocked by picking one of the ascension perks. Once you unlock one species ascendancy, you’re locked with it and can’t choose another one. So, better make sure to choose the one you’re satisfied with to not regret in the future.
Stellaris Species Ascendancy ranking by strength:
- Mind over Matter: Unlocks the psionics tradition tree, which is the most exotic, well written path you can take in Stellaris. Strong too.
- Engineered Evolution: Best for spiritualist organic species.
- Synthetic Age (Virtuality, Modularity, Nanotech in order.): Virtuality is very broken if you know what you are doing. Modularity is for machine modification perks. Nanotech is also broken but nanoships cripple the game performance.
- Synthetic Evolution: Not as bad as The Flesh is Weak, but still not worth picking. Both Synthetic Evolution and The Flesh is Weak needs rework.
- The Flesh is Weak: Bad, don’t even bother.
Psionics pro tip: By choosing the teachers of the shroud origin, you can unlock the psionics tree without wasting a perk slot on the Mind over Matter ascension. Pretty broken if you ask me.
5. Galactic Wonders
Three strongest megastructures in Stellaris are Ring Segment, Dyson Sphere, and Matter Decompressor. In order to unlock these megastructures, you’ll need the Galactic Wonder ascendancy perk. Without the perk, you can never build or repair these megastructures in Stellaris.
STELLARIS MEGASTRUCTURE TIER LIST
- Ring Segment: %100 habitability, insane production boost, higher pop growth, giga size, and unique district types.
- Dyson Sphere: +1000, +2000, +3000, +4000 energy credits per level.
- Matter Decompressor: +500, +1000, +1500, +2000 minerals per level.
Galactic Wonders is the first perk you should pick right after researching mega-engineering rare technology. Unless you research the mega-engineering, you can never pick Galactic Wonders. That’s the hard requirement of this perk.
6. Master Builders
Master Builders perk only gives +50% megastructure build speed and +1 megastructure build capacity. It doesn’t sound that good I know but that’s very wrong.
I tried skipping it but skipping master builders delays megastructure projects a lot. I came to a conclusion that skipping master builders ascension perk doesn’t worth it. You need to rush your megastructures ASAP. Therefore, you should pick Master Builders perk whenever you can just like the Galactic Wonders perk to jumpstart your megastructure projects.
Megastructures takes ages to build even with the living metal mega-construction edict.
7. Arcology Project / Machine Worlds / Hive Worlds
Ring segments are the best research, energy/trade, and alloy worlds you can get. However, ring worlds are not good for unity and mining. To get the best planets for unity/mineral production, you’ll need these world-shaping ascension perks. Plus, you can build orbital rings around these worlds and boost production even further.
- Arcology Project = Ecumenopolis: +20%resources from jobs, +15% Pop growth speed, +15% Pop assembly speed, +50% Automatic resettlement destination chance.
Alloy, Consumer Goods, Entertainment, and Unity districts. - Machine World: +10% Resources from jobs, +1 Replicator job, −10% Pop housing usage, +50% Automatic resettlement destination chance.
Regular districts except agriculture districts swapped with unity districts. - Hive World: +10% Resources from jobs, +1 Spawning Drone job, +6 Housing from Hive Districts, +50% Automatic resettlement destination chance.
Regular districts but no district limit whatsoever.
Of course you can use +20 sized Gaia worlds for mineral production, but to produce most amount of unity on a single planet, you’ll need an ecumenopolis or a machine world. Special coordination district are god tier for unity production.
8. Galactic Force Projection
No matter what you do, no matter how pacifist you are, Stellaris always comes to a point where you need to fight strong foes such as Leviathans, Awakened Empires, and Crisis Factions. Therefore, you’ll need the +100 naval capacity, +50 fleet command limit, and +1 commander capacity bonuses of Galactic Force Projection.
+50 fleet command limit is an insane bonus for creating massive fleets under strong admirals. Other perk bonuses are cool too, but the reason I always pick Galactic Force Projection is the increased fleet command limit.
9. Hydrocentric
Hydrocentric is an exclusive ascension perk only available for civilizations with Aquatic main species. It’s good for both competitive and role-playing runs. Aquatic anglers build is one of the most fun and unique builds in Stellaris. If you haven’t played with an Aquatic civ yet, now is the time!
This perk has insane bonuses for aquatic pops:
- -25% ocean terraforming cost.
- Ice mining station starbase buildings.
- Frozen terraforming candidates.
- 50% increased effects of the Aquatic trait.
- 50% increased effects of the Waterproof trait.
- Deluge machine colossus weapon. (Instantly terraforms a world into an ocean world while simultaneously killing all non-aquatic species on the planet.)
10. Universal Transactions
Universal Transactions is an exclusive ascension perk for corporate civilizations only. Its bonuses are great for corporate builds. Therefore, you should pick this ascension perk whenever you play as a corporate empire. You can’t have Criminal Heritage civic though if you want to unlock universal transactions perk.
- +1 official capacity.
- +20% commercial pact efficiency.
- -15% branch office cost.
- Commercial pacts are free.
- Commercial pacts do not require an embassy.
Overall, these are 5 great bonuses complementary to the megacorporation playstyle.
11. Defender of the Galaxy
Defender of the Galaxy perk is really important for various reasons.
Firstly, if you’re into diplomacy, federations, and becoming the Galactic Emperor, you’ll like this perk because it increases the opinion of other empires by +200.
Secondly, the game becomes very easy as you learn the basics, techs, and micromanagement. Thus, you’ll want to adjust crisis strength in order to enjoy the game. For example, to defeat 25x strength contingency end game crisis, you’ll need Defender of the Galaxy perks since it’s giving +50% damage bonus to endgame crisis faction.
12. Galactic Contender
It’s very situational but very strong nonetheless. For example, lets imagine a scenario where a random empire opened an L gate to the Grey Tempest at 25x crisis strength. There is no way you can defeat Grey Tempest without Galactic Contender. It’s +33% damage bonus against The Gate-builders is life saver. Especially if you’re unprepared.
Again, a fallen empire bordering you randomly awakened? You’re about to get eaten son! Better get Galactic Contender perk for +33% damage bonus against awakened empires and start rolling your war industry. It’s also good for concluding the War in Heaven (Total war between awakened empires.) with your interference.
13. Cosmogenesis
Spoiler alert: Cosmogenesis perk is about becoming the Crisis and destroying the galaxy with an advanced singularity machine.
It’s a fun perk that’s giving the player immense bonuses in the cost of reducing relationship with other empires. And once you complete the crisis objects, the game is over.
Currently this perk is very OP since it’s giving advanced tech and strong fleets to the player. Some players pick it for the bonuses but don’t complete the crisis objectives.
Picking cosmogenesis for its bonuses only is feels like cheating. So, I don’t pick cosmogenesis unless I intend to end the galaxy as a real deal crisis.
14. Galactic Nemesis
Galactic Nemesis perk is also turning player into Crisis Faction but doesn’t necessary erase the galaxy like Cosmogenesis. This crisis perk is about conquering.
Though keep in mind, Galactic Nemesis isn’t as strong as Cosmogenesis. Still it’s still giving the player some strong crisis ships (menacing ships) that are game changing.
Since this perk will greatly alter the gameplay in a competitive way, I recommend it to experienced players only.
15. Colossus Project
Colossus Project perk will allow you to create the single most powerful weapon in the game, the Planet-Killer Colossus. With a Colossus you can literally crack fully populated planets, turning them into asteroids and stardust!
Stellaris colossus weapon parts:
- World cracker: Destroys planets by splitting them open, like a coconut.
- Nanobot diffuser: All biological and lithoid pops gets instantly assimilated, planet conquered.
- Deluge Machine: Floods the planet with water turning it into an ocean world, all non-aquatic pops are killed.
- Neutron Sweep: All pops are instantly wiped out.
- Divine Enforcer: All pops become spiritualist. Machine and hive minded pops are wiped out.
- Devolving Beam: All pops turn into pre-sapient species.
- Global Pacifier: Shields the planet forever. (Mechanically is not different than world cracker. It’s for role-playing, I think.
Best part of Colossus is not even the planet destroying capabilities. It also gives Colossus Total War casus belli which is the strongest casus belli in Stellaris. You can take over entire empires in a single war thanks to the political implications of Colossus weapon.
Requirement for the Colossus Project is only the titans technology which is a mid-end game battleship technology. Even the pacifist empires can pick the colossus as long as they have access to titans tech.
16. Mastery of Nature
Is great for your capital planet, ecumenopolis, machine worlds, and hive worlds. Other than that, it’s not really useful because you don’t need much of the planets anyway when you can have ring worlds. And unfortunately, Master of Nature does not work on ring world segments.
All in all, it’s very situational. I choose it from time to time. However, if I could pick 9 or 10 ascension perks, I would always pick Master of Nature.
17. Xeno-Compatibility
Immigration pull and cross breeding bonuses will significantly raise the population growth of your empire. And having more pops is always good in Stellaris.
It’s actually OP but completely destroys game performance by creating billions of new species… That’s why it’s the only Stellaris ascension perk that can be disabled in the galaxy settings.
I wouldn’t recommend it even if you have high-end PC. Because the optimization of Stellaris is not very good, especially for the late game.
18. Consecrated Worlds
Consecrated Worlds unlock a decision which is for turning uncolonized worlds into holy words.
Only 3 planets can be consecrated, and they must reside inside your borders. You cannot colonize the consecrated holy worlds unless you revoke the decision.
Having 3 holy worlds inside your border gives empire wide +25% unity and +15% amenities bonus.
Now this unity bonus is absolutely amazing and broken. Much better than one vision ascension perk in terms of unity production. However, it makes you unable to colonize 3 habitable worlds inside your borders. Go for it if you think it’s worth. But in 400 or smaller sized galaxies, I can’t really say consecrating habitable worlds worth the bonuses.
19. Mechromancy
Mechromancy is a machine intelligence exclusive ascension perk granting slight fleet power, cyborg zombies, and leviathan resurrection.
I think there are much better ascension perks. However, reanimating biological guardians such as Tiyanki Matriarch, Voidspawn, and Ether Drake can be lots of fun! Just like the Night King from Game of Thrones reanimating the dragon.
20. Archaeo-Engineers
+33% archaeotech weapon damage sounds very OP, however, even the basic end-game technology ends up being stronger. Not even mentioning fallen empire or crisis technologies. Besides, it’s impossible to sustain the minor artifact requirement of the end-game fleet sizes.
All in all, Archaeo-Engineers is good in the mid-game but unfortunately has no use in the late game. Except for slight precursor building bonuses.
21. World Shaper
You can pick the World Shaper ascension after researching climate restoration technology for -25% terraforming cost and Gaia World terraforming option. Is it worth it? I don’t think so.
Can already colonize Gaia worlds for free by randomly finding them or getting lucky with the various Gaia world events.
Also, you can terraform planets to Gaias for free via Baol precursor or Azaryn. Check out Azaryn guide for more info on gaia terraformation.
I mean, only differences between a normal world and Gaia world are %10 happiness and %10 production bonus. You can get ecumenopolis, machine worlds, hive worlds, and ring segments instead. Other alternatives are much better.
22. Nihilistic Acquisition
Here is another situational ascension perk that’s only good for early game and maybe for role-playing.
I mean, if you can go to war for stealing pops, what’s stopping you from taking over the pops and their worlds? Pop stealing via nihilistic acquisition is very slow anyway.
It was broken earlier patches but now it’s nerfed to the ground and not worth picking at this state.
23. Grasp the Void
Your starbase capacity should be around 27 once you unlocked all the technology. +5 doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Besides, going over starbase capacity isn’t even that punishing.
As for the FTL travel technologies appearing 1.5 times more, it doesn’t really matter at all. FTL techs are not worth rushing because they don’t help you snowball in any way, shape, or form.
Therefore, I think Grasp the Void deserves to be very low on the Stellaris ascension perk tier list.
24. Eternal Vigilance
Starbases are useful only against neighboring empires and that’s it. But here is the thing, if you invested your alloys on naval power, your neighbors won’t attack you anyways.
As for the crisis factions, even the fully upgraded citadels with the Eternal Vigilance perk can hold their fleets. Thus, investing in starbases not really worth as long as you have surplus of alloys. Locking a perk for starbases? That’s definitely not worth. I would choose a perk giving me fleet power, research, or unity bonus over Eternal Vigilance.
25. Lord of War
I really hate the mercenary enclave mechanic in Stellaris because it leaves you vulnerable.
Renting your ships means you have no ships to defend yourself and the AI will attack all the time. That’s the problem I have with Lord of War perk and the mercenary stuff in Stellaris.
You can maybe pull it off by reducing difficulty or inventing new ways of profiting out of it. But unfortunately, Lord of War is a lower tier perk regardless.
26. Enigmatic Engineering
How can a perk named Enigmatic Engineering can be this trashy?
Enigmatic Engineering ascension perk is a shield against steal technology and debris analyze counterintelligence activities. Well, if you’re stronger than your enemies, they can’t even destroy your ships to analyze any debris. This perk is pointless…
Did developers create this for multiplayer? If one player has such a massive technological advantage, it’s game over for other party anyway.
All in all, Enigmatic engineering is useless.
27. Interstellar Dominion
Interstellar Dominion is the biggest Stellaris noob trap ascension perk. Gotta admit, I used to pick Interstellar Dominion as the first ascension perk, but I didn’t know any better.
Claim influence cost -20% is basic but starbase influence cost -20% sounds amazing in the early game for expanding quickly. Let me tell you why it’s not so amazing and a waste of perk slot.
First of all, you don’t need to survey every system at the beginning. You can just explore systems and look around. Both scientist ships and military ships with leaders can explore the galaxy. Exploring the galaxy is important to know which sides to expand and claim the chokepoints as soon as possible.
Once you control the chokepoints, you can close borders to your neighbors and slowly build starbases in the areas you’ve already locked by expanding to the chokepoints and borders. Meaning, you don’t really need to build starbases ASAP, and can skip Interstellar Dominion for much better ascension perks.
28. Shared Destiny
If you want loyal vassals in Stellaris, you can’t have more than one vassal unfortunately. That’s because there is a hidden vassal debuff called divided patronage which is reducing the loyalty by -1 for having more than simply 1 vassal.
So, if you want 2, or perhaps 3 truly loyal vassals, Shared Destiny would be the right perk choice. But if you ask me, vassal loyalty means nothing. Because if your naval strength is far more powerful than your vassal’s combined strength, they never rebel. That’s the reason why Shared Destiny is one of the worst perks you can get.
It also gives +2 available envoys but that’s also useless.
29. Executive Vigor
Executive Vigor is unfortunately outdated and pretty much useless. +100 edict fund means nothing pretty much at every stage of the game.
You don’t have access to useful edicts at the start. It’s useless in mid-late game too because you can get more than +100 unity from other useful ascension perks like One vision, Imperial Prerogative, and Consecrated Worlds.
Besides councilor and node skills already gives bunch of edict funds for free.
30. Detox
Detox is a terraforming perk allowing you to turn toxic worlds into habitable worlds. On the tooltip, you can see how many toxic worlds available inside your borders. First of all, if you’re playing tall on a small galaxy, you don’t even have more than one or two toxic worlds inside your borders anyway.
Secondly, you don’t need that many worlds when you have ring worlds. Lastly, by the time you can pick Detox ascension perk, you already have capacity to terraform or conquer new worlds.
All in all, there are much better ascension picks you can choose over Detox.
31. Voidborne
Voidborne is a perk about habitats, which is something I despise. Habitat stuff is just a bad feature in Stellaris no matter how much rework they put in.
Habitats are boring, useless, and cause lots of lag.
If that’s the habitat related achievements you pursue, you can pick the voidborne. Otherwise just don’t even bother since it’s the worst feature and the worst perk in the Stellaris.