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Stellaris, the sci-fi grand strategy from Paradox Interactive, allows players to guide a fledgling civilization from the discovery of faster-than-light travel to mastery of the entire galaxy. Along the way they’ll face dangers ranging from political uprisings to extradimensional invasions, and learning to turn these threats into advantages is the key to success inStellaris.
One of themany dangers of the galaxythat players can encounter inStellarisare the Guardians, incredibly powerful space-borne entities that were added in the Leviathans DLC. One of the most interesting Guardians is the Stellarite Devourer, a gargantuan energy being with the ability to feed directly from a star. The Devourer is no easy target, but the rewards for defeating it can be game-changing. However, players will need to be careful when challenging the beast, as it will take revenge for a failed attempt on its life.
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How to Defeat the Stellarite Devourer in Stellaris
Although it’s possible to defeat the Stellarite Devourer with almost any fleet of at least 40k Power, players can deal with the Guardian much earlier byspecializing their shipsto take it down. The Devourer has no Shields or Armor but high amounts of Point Defense turrets, meaning that weapons that deal increased damage to Hull and can’t be intercepted by PD are ideal. Reliable Components include Lasers, Plasma Launchers, and Energy Torpedoes, all of which will be able to rapidly destroy the Devourer’s Hull.
Unfortunately, when it comes to picking defenses for the player’s fleet, the solution isn’t as straightforward. The Stellarite Devourer’s offensive weapons include:
Devouring Beam- An incredibly powerful XL weapon that can one-shot most ships, but deals 25% less damage to Shields and is fairly inaccurate. It also has an almost three-year cooldown, meaning that it will likely only fire once during the battle.
Stellar Torpedoes-Guided weapons that completely ignore Shieldsand deal 150% damage to Armor. Although each Torpedo can technically be intercepted by Point Defense, their Hull and Evasion are so high that players are unlikely to be able to stop them.
Stellar Plasma- A Large energy weapon with a fast fire-rate that only deals 50% damage to Shields.
This array of weapons leaves the Stellarite Devourer with no obvious defensive counter. Although they will be completely bypassed by the Stellar Torpedoes, players will still need to fit some Shields in order to reduce the damage of the Stellar Plasma and Devouring Beam. Similarly, leaving out Armor because of the Torpedoes and Beam will leave the Plasma able to go straight through to damaging the Hull. The only defensive Components thatStellaris players should avoidcompletely are Point Defense weapons, which will have little to no effect in the battle.
Rewards for Defeating the Stellarite Devourer
Once players have defeated the Stellarite Devourer, they’ll be given two options for how to deal with its corpse. The first option is to use a Science Ship to study the Devourer’s corpse, which will give players the chance to either harvest it for 10,000 Energy Credits, 2,000 Minerals, and 80 ofStellaris' Influence resource, or attempt to reignite the sun in the Devourer’s System. The latter option will unlock another Project, which will create a Gaia world and a random number of Tundra worlds in the System when completed, a reward that is far superior if the player can colonize the System.
Alternatively, players can choose to study the Devourer’s Egg Sac. This will begin a parade-planning process on the player’s capital world, which can be aborted halfway through to return to studying the corpse instead. If players persist with the parade, they’ll gain a large amount of Unity and unlock aunique Espionage Operationcalled Consume Star. This difficult Operation allows a spy to infiltrate another Empire’s capital star, and infest it with infant Devourers. If the Operation is successful and the targeted Empire fails to respond to the threat, their star will go cold, wiping out all life in the capital System.
Stellarisis currently available on PC, macOS, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
