Recommended Mods 2.2.3

A list of recommended mods from /4xg/. Make sure to check if you are using the correct version (2.2.3 or 2.2.4) for each mod. Not all mods are compatible with each other. Most descriptions just taken from their Steam summaries. Most of these are in this modlist https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1602717297 Reason for not all being on that is because those are just the mods I play with. If you have mods you would like to recommend, just post them in /4xg/ and say FAQgot or Pastebinfag to get my attention.

EDIT: Created sub-modlists from the the main one linked above. The sub-modlists are linked as appropriate below.


Mandatory
Glavius AI Mod - Drastically improves the AI. *Edit* - Glavius was discontinued as of patch 2.3 and elements of it ported into the base game.





Cosmetic Mods: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1319809463

-Namelists/Flags/Portraits
*Remastered Human Traits - 10 female and 10 male replacement portraits for the standard 5 female and 5 male human characters. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1591647610

Animated Galactic Empire Portraits - This mod also adds portraits, namelist, prescripted empire with a custom system, and rooms. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1596617351

Astronomical Emblem Pack - 450+ high quality emblems designed to match the style of vanilla emblems designed by Paradox. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1302897684

Cybrxkhan's Assortment of Namelists for Stellaris - more than 200 namelists for custom species, over ~6000 new star names, 250+ names for black holes, 100+ asteroid prefixes and suffixes, and 250+ nebula names. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682691478

Expanded Empire Colors - Adds many more empire colors. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1330794807

Flags : Emblems & Backgrounds - Adds a bunch of emblems and backgrounds. Despite warnings, it will work on latest release. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682165224

IFN1 Flag Backgrounds - Adds 115 flag backgrounds to the game, which you, and randomly generated AI empires, can use. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1605102847

No Default Paradox Species (Any Version) - This is a simple mod that removes all default paradox species (preset empires) from the species creation screen. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1142142725



-Ships



-Galaxy/Planets/Gameplay
Alternate Laser Graphics - This mod gives lasers and all laser-type weapons a fast "Travel" effect as seen in various sci-fi such as star trek. This way, you can also tell more easily if the lasers are being fired at or by your ships. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1524724960

Beautiful Universe v2.0 - This mod changes vanilla skyboxes and brings more beauty to the game. As references were used NASA photos, EVE Online skyboxes, and various digital art. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=697938908

Enhanced Galaxy - Dark Core 2.2 - Basically, it makes the galactic center darker, reducing the strain on your computer and raising the FPS a little bit. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1226833540

No Glow - This mod removes the "glow effect aura" from all planets to provide a more realistic visual appearance. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1604912476





Gameplay Mods

-Quality of Life: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1319800771
Auto Auto-Explore - Auto-auto-explore gives all empires the "Automated Exploration Protocols" tech at game start. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=785299768

Encourage Growth Permanently - This mod adds a new decision that allows you to encourage growth permanently. Instead of taking 1000 food for a 10 year boost, it takes 8.3 food per month (1000 food every 10 years). https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593221761

Multiple Megastructures - Build and Own 2.2.3 - Allows multiple megastructures to be built and upgraded at the same time, and allows Empires to have multiple of the same kind of megastructures. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1597029869

Zro Refinery - Adds a tech to make a building that converts one of each strategic resource into one zro. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1591092294.

Starnet AI - Improves the AI and makes it much more aggressive.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1712760331



-Performance
Stellaris Performance Mod - Lowers particle count. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1566822652

Stellaris Performance Mod - DDS Texture Tweak - Reduces texture resolution. Probably won't notice unless you zoom in frequently or enter ship editor. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1590614009

Stellaris Performance Mod - Galaxy Dust Tweak - Reduces the amount of dust in background. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1611050120



-Expansion: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1627026476
Dynamic Political Events (2.2) - Adds lots of political events to flesh out your empire's politics. Intended to be used with Potent Rebellions 2.0. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1227620643

Extra Buildings - Adds mineral and energy equivalents for hydroponic farms. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1587874171

Extra Ship Components 3.0 - Expanding vanilla ship components with new tiers as well as adding several new subtrees with technology based on crystals, psionics, gravity manipulation and Nanomachines. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1586639570

Gigastructural Engineering & More (2.2) - Adds 24 new megastructures and 11 unique systems. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1121692237

Guilli's Planet Modifiers 2.2 - Adds lots of planet modifiers, harvestable gas giant rings, new civics, a new resource, and more exploration events. Can be very fun, but isn't incredibly balanced. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865040033

MVG Logical War Exhaustion - With this mod, the war exhaustion calculation has been rebalanced to give much more emphasis to occupation of planets, starbases and systems and far less emphasis on combat unit loss. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1586111172

More Events Mod - This mod adds new anomalies and events to your game, focusing on spicing up the game after exploration has slowed down. If you use 2.2.3 requires another submod. I recommend you turn off the Varuzen Menace. Go to your edicts menu (hotkey F7) and choose MEM Options and under Crisis Options turn off Varuzen Menace. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=727000451

No Clustered Starts - As name says, prevents clustered starts. Make sure to follow directions in mod's summary. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=687226658

Planetary Diversity - Adds 26+ new planet types. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=819148835

Potent Rebellions 2.2 - This mod significantly expands the Vanilla rebellion mechanics to make them a more significant threat to established empires. Intended to be used with Dynamic Political Events. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1112740619

Realistic Demographics - Proportional Pop Growth -Reworks how pop growth is decided. Beware that migration treaties can still cause pops to grow on poor planets that they otherwise wouldn't. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1592077532

Technology Ascendant - Adds twelve breakthrough technologies, one for each specialization (particles, materials, biology, etc) that dramatically increase research speed in that field, along with other unique empire bonuses.