One of the best parts of Stellaris is at the very beginning when you get to create your species for the first time. However, not all traits are created equal. Some traits are just average and don’t give any real benefits but aren’t a significant drawback either.

In this article, I will attempt to go through some of the best traits to give your species and why they are so good. This should hopefully give you an idea of where to start with creating a species as well as which traits to avoid and why. 

This list is in no particular order but covers traits and empire creation for Stellaris 2.3 empires. This is base traits only and no advanced traits gained through high-level genetic engineering will be covered.

 Those you gain access to through high-level genetic engineering will not be covered here.

10. Durable

This trait is exclusive to Gestalt Consciousness machine empires. It reduces their upkeep cost. As robots are maintained through energy and not food, Durable helps address one of your more critical early game problems: the lack of energy credits.

• Robot Upkeep -10%

• Reduces the amount of energy you have to spend on your pops.
• Lets you grow your population much faster without bankrupting yourself.
• Makes rapid, early expansion more feasible.

9. Intelligent

This trait is extremely helpful for research-focused empires but everyone can benefit from it in some way. It gives you a boost to research across the board.

• +10% Physics Research from Jobs
• +10% Society Research from Jobs
• +10% Engineering Research from Jobs

• Allows you to more easily keep up with the latest technology as the game progresses.
• Helps to soften the blow of increased research speed which you get from expansion and pop growth.
• Allows you to buff your research speed without having to choose a category of research to specialize in from the start.

8. Mass Produced

This trait is exclusive to Gestalt Consciousness machine empires. It can help with a certain aspect of mechanical pops (robots, droids, etc) that some players can find to be rather annoying. I am talking about the fact that robotic pops are produced at a far slower rate than organic pops, in general.

• +20% Robot Assembly Speed

• Increases the growth speed of your robotic population.
• Allows you to populate the menial jobs with robots more quickly so your organic pops can be given the more specialized work.
• Faster growth of colonies that consist of mostly robots.

7. Adaptive

This trait allows you to more effectively colonize low habitability planets while worrying less about the increased costs that will result from this. Allows you to get a reasonable number of buffs from added habitability without the drawback of having to put 4 trait points into a single trait that Extremely Adaptive has.

• +10% Habitability on all Biomes
• +50 to the price of slaves on the market

• Increased pop growth on low habitability worlds
• Easier to colonize low habitability worlds
• Increased planetary job output on low habitability worlds

6. Recycled

This trait is exclusive to Gestalt Consciousness machine empires. Reduces the cost of building robots in the early game. Extremely powerful at the start but has diminishing returns and will not have a noticeable effect by the time you reach the late game.

• Pop Assembly Cost -20%

• Lets you get a headstart on population growth in the early game.
• You can spend your resources on other things besides simply getting more pops.
• Building new pops is ⅕ of the price it would be without this trait

5. Sedentary

This trait cannot be used by hive minds. Introduces some very slight penalties to immigration and resettlement but the penalties are so minor it’s pretty much just a free point. Easy pick if you need some negatives.

• -15% Pop Growth from Immigration
• +25% Resettlement Cost

• Penalties are so minor they’re hardly noticeable
• Gives you a free negative point with few drawbacks
• Lets you more easily take some more of the better traits

4. Enduring

All this does is give your leaders a bit of extra lifespan. It gives you more time to level up your leaders and more time without needing to get new leaders because the old ones are dead from old age.

• Leader Lifespan +20 Years

• Leaders live longer
• You have more time to level your leaders up to their maximum level
• You can benefit from high skill levels for longer before having to live with a level 1 leader again.

3. Conservationist

Conservationist gives you some more breathing room with your consumer goods income. As you grow your population more and more, that population will become a bit of a consumer goods vampire. This trait will allow you to dedicate fewer planets to the production of consumer goods if you so desire.

• Pop Consumer Goods Upkeep -10%

• You will need fewer civilian factories to support your population
• Easier expansion with less need to consider consumer goods needs
• More planets can be dedicated to producing more important goods rather than just consumer goods

2. Logic Engines

This trait is exclusive to Gestalt Consciousness machine empires. This trait boosts the research output of your empire as a whole. As it boosts your research output in general rather than from jobs or stations, you don’t need to worry about where your research is coming from to get these bonuses.

• Research Output +10%

• This bonus is across the board rather than being from a certain source of research points such as jobs or stations
• Allows you to gain access to certain early game technologies much faster
• Allows you to boost your research in general without needing to specialize in a particular category

1. Traditional

Extremely useful for either a unity focused run or just to help offset the effects of rapid expansion and population growth on your unity gain. Traditional gives you an increase in your unity income from jobs. Note that this trait cannot be taken if you have also selected troublesome as they do the exact opposite of each other.

• Unity from Jobs +10%

• Offset Unity penalty from population growth and expansion in the early game.
• Allows you to expand and keep a decent amount of unity coming in while building fewer monument buildings or their equivalent
• Allows you to finish your first Tradition tree significantly faster

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