Orbital Rings, introduced in the Overlord DLC of Stellaris, represent a powerful new Station type that offers strategic advantages by defending and enhancing key planets within your empire.
In Stellaris’ Overlord DLC, one of the most effective methods to boost your empire’s resource output is by constructing the new Orbital Rings. These structures, positioned between Stations and Megastructures in complexity, don’t consume your Station cap and require significantly fewer Alloys to build compared to other Megastructures. Constructing an Orbital Ring can be a game-changer in the mid-game, especially when placed around a highly-specialized planet.
Constructing an Orbital Ring in Stellaris: To build your first Orbital Ring Megastructure, you need to research the Orbital Rings technology. In the tech tree, this follows research into Starhold, Ceramo-Metal Infrastructure, and Galactic Administration. Once Orbital Rings tech is completed, you can use a Construction Ship to right-click on the chosen planet and initiate the construction process.
While Orbital Rings cost fewer Alloys than most Megastructures and aren’t restricted by Station caps, careful consideration is crucial when selecting the first planet to host one. The initial Tier 1 construction costs 1000 Alloys and 50 Influence, and later upgrades to Tier 2 and Tier 3 require the Star Fortress and Citadel techs respectively. These upgrades also demand a Tier 2 or 3 Capital building on the planet, making heavily-developed planets the most suitable candidates for Orbital Rings.
Utilizing Orbital Rings in Stellaris: Players can install various Modules and Buildings within their Orbital Rings, providing additional defenses and significant bonuses to the planet below:
Modules:
- Habitation Module: Adds an extra District to the planet, but requires Anti-Gravity Engineering tech. Costs additional Alloys and 25 Influence due to its impact.
- Orbital Shipyard: Enables ship production like any other Station Shipyard.
- Orbital Anchorage: Increases Naval Capacity like any other Station Anchorage.
- Planetary Defense Guns, Batteries, and Hangars: Enhance Hull, Armor, and Defense Platform cap, and add extra weapons, missiles, or strike-craft respectively.
Buildings (Tier 2 and Above): Upon upgrading to Tier 2, players can construct specialized Buildings for further boosting the planet’s output. These specialized benefits are particularly significant for highly-specialized planets and depend on the unlocked technology:
- Climate Optimization Stations: +2 Food from each Farmer (Requires Advanced Food Processing).
- Low Gravity Mega-Refiners: +2 Minerals from each Miner (Requires Advanced Mineral Purification).
- Stratospheric Ionization Elements: +2 Energy Credits from each Technician (Requires Planetary Power Grid).
- The Giga-Mall: +1 Amenities from each Clerk and +5% Trade Value (Requires Interstellar Economics).
- Alloy Processing Facilities: +1 Alloy and -2 Minerals from each Metallurgist; the penalty changes to -3 Food if the Catalytic Processing Civic is chosen in Stellaris.
- Orbital Logistics Systems: +1 Consumer Good and -1 Minerals from each Artisan (Requires Replicator Kiosks).
- Orbital Filing System: +1 Unity from each Administrator, Manager, Priest, or Telepath (Requires Effective Bureaucracy).
- Synaptic Relays: +1 Amenities from Synapse Drones for Hive Mind Empires (Requires Clustered Synapses).
- Orbital Maintenance Drops: +1 Amenities from Maintenance Drones for Machine Intelligence Empires (Requires Resource Processing Algorithms).
- Noble Estates: +2 Noble jobs and +2 Housing for Empires with the Aristocratic Elite Civic.
- Orbital Psi-Corp: +2 Telepath jobs and +5 Stability for Empires with the Psi-Corp Tradition.
- Orbital Shield Generator: +25% Shield HP for the Orbital Ring and its Defense Platforms (Requires Planetary Shields).
- Orbital Stock Exchange: +2 Merchant jobs and +20% Trade Value (Requires Galactic Markets).
- Orbital Slave Processing Hub: +5% resources from Slaves, -25% Slaves political power, -50% Automatic Resettlement chance for Slavery-allowing Empires (Requires Neural Implants).
- Orbital Embassy Complex: +2 Envoys, available only if the Orbital Ring is built around the Empire’s capital (Requires Xeno-Relations).