One planet can only support 12 buildings including capital complex. So, choosing the right buildings for maximum output is highly important. I believe this Stellaris building guide and tier list will help you to get the most out of your building slots.
I will not mention buildings that are 1 per empire buildings such as alpha hub, faculty of archaeostudies, military academy, ministry of culture, planetary supercomputer, etc. These buildings are limited 1 per empire and should always be built. That’s a given.
Buildings on this list are available to all of your planets and ranked accordingly.
Stellaris buildings tier list:
1. Ancient Refinery
Ancient Refinery is the best building in Stellaris ever. It’s God Tier building without a doubt.
The building adds +1 chemist, +1 refinery, and +1 lensing drone jobs and increases exotic gasses, rare crystals, and volatile mottes from jobs by +25%. Basically, it’ll give all three key strategic resources for a single building slot.
Can build 1 ancient refinery per planet, therefore you should build it to everywhere regardless of your planetary focus. Because you’ll need the strategic resources. Build ancient refinery even if you don’t need strategic resources because you can sell them at galactic market for a lot of energy credits.
Always research and build faculty of archaeostudies right away. Building that will increase the appearance chance of ancient refinery technology.
2. Fallen Empire Buildings
Fallen empire building blueprints can only be acquired by reverse engineering minor artifacts. Reverse engineering costs 500 minor artifacts, so, you better excavate all the archaeological sites you can and build research stations for a good amount of minor artifact production. You can start reverse engineering minor artifacts once you research the arcane deciphering tech.
Each reverse-engineering has a 5.9% chance of giving a single random fallen empire building. This chance will be doubled if you have Archaeo-Engineers ascension perk.
Stellaris fallen empire buildings:
- Sky Dome > Empyrian Dome: Housing & Amenities
- Class-3 Singularity > Class-4 Singularity: Energy
- Nourishment Complex > Nourishment Center: Foods
- Affluence Emporium > Affluence Center: Consumer Goods
- Hyper-Forge > Auto-Forge: Alloys
- Dimensional Replicator > Dimensional Fabricator: Strategic Resources
Class 4 singularity (energy) is the best. I feel very lucky when get it.
You can also get these buildings via research by using Stellaris fallen empire buildings mods.
3. Astral Siphon
Astral siphon is a slightly altered version of research station. It does give research production focused on physics and a little bit of astral thread. Also increases astral threads capacity.
I prefer max level astral siphon over a max level research station. Because unlike upgraded research stations, astral nexus does not have a strategic resources upkeep.
It doesn’t cost rare resources when upgraded and will produce astral threads which is a very strategic resource for running powerful astral edicts. Astral Binding gives +10% resources from jobs bonus which is a god tier edict.
4. Psi Corps
Psi Corps is a unique building that can be unlocked only by following psionic ascension. It might actually be the strongest building in the game, but I didn’t rank it number one simply because you can’t build it unless you took the psionic ascension path.
What it does is very simple. Psi corps increase stability by +5, add +2 telepath jobs who produce lots of unity, decrease crime safety, and increase resource production from psionics pops by +20%. That’s insane. Single building increases production of entire planet by +20%.
Only downside of psi corps is the planetary capital requirement. To build a planetary capital, you’ll need 25+ pops on a planet. Though that can be quickly achieved by resettling pops.
5. Clone Vats
Clone Vats are exclusive to the genetics engineered evolution path just like psi corps are exclusive to the psionic ascension.
Its food upkeep is insane but definitely worth investing because clone vats will pop up new pops like crazy. I make sure to have enough food production before unlocking clone vats so that I can build it to every planet I own.
There is one downside of clone vats though. You can’t build robot pops and organic pops at the same time. Gotta choose one over the other. So, say goodbye to the robot assembly plants.
6. Special Unity Building
Special unity buildings have a limit, 1 per planet. They can be upgraded twice and have no strategic resource requirement unlike regular unity buildings. Basically, this is the improved version of normal unity buildings. That’s why I like to build one on all of my planets.
Besides, unity is much more important than we give credit. Where to spend excess unity in Stellaris? You can adopt traditions, ascend planets, rush agendas, and recruit lots of leaders with unity.
It’s another building like ancient refinery that must always be built on a new planet with no exception.
7. Ministry of Production
Is a special building that’s increasing consumer goods and alloy productions by +15%. It also adds one politician job but it’s not even worth mentioning.
Alloy is the most important resource in Stellaris and ministry of production boosts metallurgist output by +15%.
Just build one on a ring segment or on an ecumenopolis specialized on alloy production. The results will be outstanding thanks to the stacking production bonuses.
8. Energy, Mineral, Alloy, Consumer, Food, and Trade Buildings
There are 6 key resource production boosting buildings you can build in Stellaris. They do increase the production by percentages. So, it’s important to specialize planets for a single resource.
These buildings have planet limit 1/1. So, can’t build more than one energy nexus on the same planet.
- Energy nexus: Energy credits from technicians +2. (Must built on generator worlds.)
- Mineral purification hubs: Minerals from miners +2. (Mining world.)
- Food processing centers: Food from farmers +2. (Agri world.)
- Alloy nano-plants: Alloys from metallurgist +2. (Industrial world, forge world.)
- Civilian repli-complexes: Consumer goods from artisans +2. (Industrial world, factory world.)
- Galactic stock exchange: Trade value +20%. (Capital world, commercial ring segments.)
9. Police Buildings
You need at least one police building on planets with +85 population. Because stacking lots of people on a planet cause crime even if you have lots of free houses and amenities.
Stacking pops will increase the overall production, especially on ring world segments. So, only way to keep the show going is building police stations.
Not to mention corporations… Your planets will be the target of corruption holdings if there is a criminal heritage corporation in your galaxy. Only way to stop crime generated by corporation holdings is to build precinct houses.
10. Fully Upgraded House Buildings
Can build one or two fully upgraded house buildings on resource production worlds. That way you won’t waste any slots on nexus district.
Nexus districts mean less production districts. Besides they increase empire-size like every other district. Why build nexus when you can build houses…
They’re especially handy in the late-game where you aim to get max amount of production on ring worlds. A ring segment can only have 8 districts, don’t waste one of them on a nexus. Instead, build 3-4 houses.
11. Gene Clinics
Gene clinics grant bunch of bonuses. But the most important thing is the habitability increase bonus.
Don’t build gene clinics for pop growth or amenities only, it’s not worth it. However, if you colonized a planet with %60-80 habitability, do build gene clinics for habitability increase. Other bonuses will be the cherry on top. Learn more on Stellaris habitability guide article.
Level 1 gene clinics will increase habitability by %10 whereas level 2 (cyto-revitalization centers) increase %20.