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The galaxy can be an unfriendly place inStellaris, with space pirates, inter-dimensional horrors, and zealous slaver-empires providing plenty of threats to a player’s fledgling civilization. Fortunately,Stellarisalso provides players with a wide range of sci-fi techs to increase the effectiveness of their ships and the security of their planets.
Despite its massive scope,Stellarishas always been missing one of themost iconic sci-fi technologies, until now. The First Contact DLC has finally introduced cloaking to the game, allowing players to conceal their ships to explore, survey, and ambush.
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How to Unlock Cloaking in Stellaris
In order for players to begin cloaking theirships inStellaris, they’ll first need to complete the Basic Cloaking Fields tech. As a rare tech, Basic Cloaking Fields has a small chance of appearing amongStellaris' semi-random tech choices each time a player finishes a Physics tech, but the odds can be boosted. Having a Scientist that specializes in Field Manipulation will make it more likely to appear, as will the Technocracy Civic and the Technological Ascendency Ascension Perk.
Once they’ve completed the Basic Cloaking Fields tech, players can useStellaris' ship designerto install the Basic Cloaking Field Generator component on their ships. The component goes in the Auxiliary slot, and requires a small amount of Alloys as well as the Exotic Gases strategic resource. There are four other cloaking technologies to discover in the tech tree, each offering a higher Cloaking Strength, all the way up to the top-tier Dark Matter and Psi-Phase cloaking components.
How to Use Cloaking in Stellaris
Players can activate cloaking on any ship or fleet equipped with cloaking generators through the ship orders menu in the bottom-left. While cloaked, ships can ignore closed borders and can’t be detected by normal sensors. This can allow players to slip their shipsthrough impassable borders, and even use their Science Ships to perform Reconnaissance on hostile planets, boosting Intel.
As shown in the chart above, Basic Cloaking Generators are only able to cloak Corvettes and Frigates, and only at Cloaking Strength 1. This is important as enemyStations and Orbital Ringsequipped with Detection Arrays will be able to detect cloaked ships if their Detection Strength is greater than the ships' Cloaking Strength. Additionally, the Cloaking Strength of a fleet is always determined by its lowest member, so a fleet with Corvettes and a Cruiser will be much easier to detect than a fleet of just Corvettes. While it is possible to gain a greater Cloaking Strength than 5, it takes extra bonuses such as completing the Subterfuge Tradition Tree or entering an obscuring nebula.
Cloaking Strength not only affects how easy it is to detect the Cloaked ships, but also the penalties that they suffer while cloaked. With just a basic Cloaking Strength of 1, ships will suffer from a 50% Sublight Speed debuff, as well as a 2.25x multiplier to FTL charging speed. These penalties are separate from the 100% Shield Nullification that the Basic, Advanced, and Elite Field Generators impose when active. Dark Matter Field Generators only impose a 50% Shield Nullification while cloaked, and Psi-Phase Field Generators suffer a 100% penalty with normal shields, but no penalty at all when using Psionic shields. Players will have to take these debuffs into consideration when using their cloaked fleets forespionage and infiltration, particularly if they are planning to de-cloak straight into combat.
Stellarisis currently available on PC, macOS, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
