Stellaris: Distant Stars - The L-Gates and L-Cluster, Explained (2024)

One of the best additions to Stellaris was changing the galaxy's political, territorial and economic landscape is the introduction of the L-Cluster. Introduced as a huge part of the Distant Stars story DLC, the L-Cluster is a large cluster of star systems typically located north-east of the galaxy and inaccessible through the regular hyperlane network. The only way to access the L-Cluster is by activating one of the L-Gates found throughout the galaxy.

Similar to the deactivated Gateway megastructures found in random star systems, the L-Gates look entirely the same but require much more effort to activate. They can only spawn within a black-hole system, very close to the center.

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The L-Cluster was once home to an empire that mastered nanite technology, a strategic resource that can only be found and mined within the cluster. These nanites are extremely valuable on the galactic market and can be used for several different applications. They are used in the upkeep of a planetary building known as the Nanite Transmuter, which can transform one nanite resource node to produce +2 strategic resources of exotic gases, volatile motes and rare crystals. Up to 50 nanites can be used to enact a strategic resource edict known as Nanite Actuators, which provide a 10 percent boost to research speed for all technologies for roughly 10 in-game years at a time. Nanites can also be used to install the Nanite Repair System module, an engineering technology that can only be acquired from defeating the Scavenger Bot Guardian, which may or may not spawn in a random star system.

When first discovering an L-Gate, a special project will be added to the situation log. To activate an L-Gate, an empire will have to acquire 7 L-Gate Insights, which can be obtained in various ways, such as investigating anomalies, defeating certain enemies and researching the rare L-Gate Insight repeatable Voidcraft technology. You can also ask the Curator Order for an Insight every decade for 5000 energy credits. While these anomalies can appear early in a game, they won’t count towards any Insight unless an L-Gate has already been discovered, so it’s better to leave themalone until then.

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Once 7 Insights have been collected and own a system with at least one L-Gate, the activation technology in the physics branch can be researched. This begins a special project to activate the L-Gate. This project will take 180 in-game days and requires a science ship present at the gate itself.

Now that the cluster has been accessed, what will we find there? One of four outcomes can occur, each of whichis decided at the start of a new game. Reloading a previous save will not change what appears in the L-Cluster. Once an L-Gate has been activated, it can never be closed again and can be used by any empire’s ships or space-born entities.

The most common result of opening the L-Cluster is unleashing the Gray Tempest, a large fleet of nanite warships that can bea huge early game crisis. All remaining L-Gates in the galaxy open simultaneously and bring an invasion force. If a Grey Tempest Fleet bombards a colony world to 100 percent devastation, that world will be transformed into an uninhabitable nanite world.

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Grey Tempest fleets are equipped with powerful energy weapons and strike craft. An empire should equip its ships with lots of shields and point defense systems to counter these enemies. The crisis can be ended by making way into the L-cluster and finding a factory station that manufactures the nanite ships and destroying it. Once the factory is gone, all Grey Tempest fleets will deactivate and the cluster will be open to claim. Given the possibility of unleashing this galactic crisis well before any empire is strong enough to resist, it can be a huge gamble to open it early in a game.

The second outcome of accessing the cluster can be to encounter the Dessanu Consonance, a unique AI empire that occupies the L-Cluster. The Dessanu provide the first empire to contact them with +1 strategic resources of living metal, exotic gases, volatile motes and rare crystals. With this huge boon comes a condition: your empire is to never enter the L-Cluster's central system and never asks the Dessanu about nanites. If either of these conditions are violated, the Dessanu will become hostile, and you will lose your strategic resources from them.

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The third possible outcome is to discover that the L-Cluster lies abandoned and ruined. But when surveying a random nanite world, a level 3 anomaly can occur for your scientist to investigate. They find a nanite entity that has taken the form of a member of the species that discovered it. Known simply as Grey, you can ask it to join your empire as an extremely powerful asset. Grey can take 3 forms by reforming itself for different roles: a level 10 governor leader to govern a colony of your empire, a Titan-class nanite warship with a fleet power of roughly 40k and a nanite warform army, that can launch a planetary invasion on any enemy empire. Given that Grey is made of endless nanites, the entity is considered immortal, and even if any one of his forms is destroyed, he will return after 10 in-game years.

The final and most rare outcome is the spawning of the L-Drakes. Seemingly unrelated to nanites at all, up to 4 drakes will exit the L-Cluster and travel to separate, random systems. They will never be hostile unless attacked, but the empire that first activated an L-Gate can gain control of one or more drakes by sending a science ship with a scientist to the systems they’ve nested in. Aside from their blue tint, the L-Drakes function identically to the Ether Drake of the Leviathans DLC.

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