How to install Stellaris mods: A detailed guide for 3.6

Author: wslav

In this article, we will go through the process of installing mods on Stellaris.
I will say right away, this is not a very convenient and simple process, but there is no other option for installing mods on a non-Steam version of the game.

So, here are the step-by-step instructions for installing mods on Stellaris 3.6.* in the Microsoft Windows system

1. Download the archive with the mod from our site. Hopefully, you have already done so
2. Open the file manager (Explorer) and navigate to the folder "C:\Users\[your_user_name]\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris", where [your_user_name] is the name of your current user on the system, without brackets. The easiest way to get there is to click on documents in the left panel of the file manager, find the paradox folder, and there will be a folder with game data in it.
3. If it doesn't already contain a "mod" folder, create it manually. Move the folder from the archive there. The path should be, for example: C:\Users\w\Documents\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris\mod\1623423360 (remember, this is just an example. you should have this structure, but the numbers and username will be different)
4. Navigate to this folder, and find the descriptor.mod file (the file extension is not displayed by default in Windows, this is normal), move it to the mod folder (that is, on one level above).
5. Copy the name of the newly created folder and give this name to the descriptor file. If your system does not display extensions (that is, the file name did not end with .mod), then proceed to the next step. Otherwise, you need to add the extension as well.

6. Open this file in a text editor. If it contains a path line, you need to replace the path in quotes with the full path to the folder with the mod (for example: C:/Users/w/Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/mod/1610578060, remember that the user and mod id yours will be different, and do not remove the quotation marks).
Otherwise, you need to insert the line at the end of the file
path=""
Specifying in quotation marks the absolute path to the created mod folder (see the example above in this step).

7. We've almost done with this long and tedious process of installing the mod, only a few steps remain. Find the remains of your patience and continue.
8. Start the paradox launcher and open the list of mods

The mod we installed should be in this list, and if you did everything correctly, the red triangle about the wrong path error will not appear next to its name. If it is, go to step 6 and make sure you did everything correctly.
9. But even this is not enough for the mod to work in the game. In addition to all the above, we also need to create a playset in the launcher where we will add our newly installed mod. Unlike the first steps, everything here is obvious and simple, so this process does not need an explanation.
10. Now you can launch the game by choosing your playset (from the drop-down menu on the main launcher screen). The mod you installed should work.
It is worth noting that you cannot play multiplayer with other players if your mods affect the gameplay in any way. For multiplayer with these mods, all players must have the same mods in the playset, or play with a playset that contains only cosmetic changes, or no mods at all.

If you followed all the steps and everything is working, congratulations, well done, and you now have the sacred knowledge of how to install mods on Stellaris. Hopefully, you can find some really cool mods in our mods section that are worth the trouble.