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Stellaris Dev Diary #270 - Traditional Results (of Summer Experiments)

WARNING: This is a long dev diary, grab a coffee and enjoy!

Hello, it’s @Alfray Stryke again! Some folks might recall that back in DD#257 that we went over some of our plans for summer experiments. In particular, I planned to look at what could be done with tradition trees and gating them behind various requirements.

Traditions​

With the flexibility in how empires can choose traditions that we introduced in 3.1 "Lem", @Alfray Stryke is planning some experiments looking at introducing new tradition trees.

These are looking at how gating tradition trees behind various triggers might influence the game. There have been some ideas suggested about introducing tradition trees that are locked behind ascension perks or origins, and we're interested to see where these may lead.

Now what wasn’t mentioned is that I’ve been wanting to rework how the Ascension Paths from Utopia have worked for quite some time, with the original design framework written during Summer 2021, and this seemed like a good opportunity.

For those of you who attended PDXCON, Eladrin and I gave a presentation previewing our summer experiments which some members of our community were kind enough to share.

It turned out that these experiments proved successful internally and we’ll be moving to test them in the 3.6 “Orion” Open Beta. As a note, due to the length of this dev diary, I’ll be splitting sections into spoiler tags to make it slightly easier to read. Note that the numbers and effects of these changes may still change depending on testing results.

I’ll start by summarizing the current state of the Ascension Paths in 3.5:

  • Psionics
    • Only available to regular empires.
    • Requires Utopia
    • Two routes:
    • Mind over Matter AP followed by the Transcendence AP.
    • Teachers of the Shroud origin followed by the Transcendence AP.
  • Genetics
    • Available to regular empires and hive-minds.
    • Requires Utopia
    • Engineered Evolution AP and Evolutionary Mastery AP.
  • Synthetic Evolution
    • Only available to regular empires.
    • Requires Utopia
    • Flesh is Weak AP and Synthetic Evolution AP.
  • Synthetic Age
    • Only available to machine intelligences.
    • Requires Synthetic Dawn
    • Synthetic Age AP.
    • This isn’t really an ascension path, but I’m including it for completion’s sake.


So we (sort of) have between three to five ascension paths depending on how you look at things (mostly if you consider being cyborgs to be on the route to becoming synthetic or a separate thing). These have now been reworked so instead of an Ascension Path having a structure of two Ascension Perks which require various technologies or special projects, they each have an Ascension Perk which gives a guaranteed research option upon selection and grants access to the Ascension Path in the form of a tradition tree. Thus, under the rework we have the following:

  • Psionic Ascension
    • Only available to regular empires.
    • Requires Utopia
    • Mind over Matter AP OR Teachers of the Shroud origin.
    • Psionic Traditions.
  • Genetic Ascension
    • Available to regular empires and hive-minds.
    • Requires Utopia
    • Engineered Evolution AP
    • Genetic Traditions
  • Cybernetic Ascension
    • Available to regular empires, hive-minds and driven assimilators.
    • Requires Utopia
    • The Flesh is Weak AP (regular empires) OR Organo-Machine Interfacing AP (hive-minds) OR assimilate 30 pops (driven assimilators).
    • Cybernetic Traditions
  • Synthetic Ascension
    • Available to regular empires and machine intelligences.
    • Requires Utopia for regular empires
    • Requires Synthetic Dawn for machine intelligences
    • Synthetic Evolution AP OR Synthetic Age AP.
    • Synthetic Traditions

Each of these tradition trees has incorporated all of the benefits of the previous Ascension Paths, with some new goodies added for those that we felt needed them. Due to how traditions within the trees are unlocked we’ve found that this leads to a more gradual route through the paths instead of saving up Ascension Perk slots and then taking an entire path while the game is paused!

As expected, all values and art shown here are not final, things can and most likely will shift about during testing.

With all that preamble out of the way, let’s dive into the Psionic Ascension Path.
And thus by the commutative property of multiplication, Mind over Energy

The power of the [Root.GetSpeciesAdj] mind compels you

We shall unlock the power within the [Root.GetSpeciesAdj] mind.

Flow charts, now in purple

To access this tradition tree we either need to take the Mind Over Matter AP or have the Teachers of the Shroud origin (from Overlord) and have researched Psionic Theory.

What’s remained from the previous version?
  • Mind over Matter still grants Telepathy as a Research Option, requires Psionic Theory and can’t be taken as your first Ascension Perk.
  • For Teachers of the Shroud empires, the path is still partially unlocked at the start of the game and to progress requires the Psionic Theory technology.
What’s changed?
  • Mind over Matter has had the bulk of its boons either moved to the opener (the Latent Psionic trait) or the Psi-Corps tradition.
  • Transcendence has had its boons shared between the three remaining traditions.
  • The +5%/+10% Energy from jobs provided by the Latent Psionic and Psionic traits have been replaced with +5%/+10% Unity from jobs as this was more in-line with the desired focus for Psionic and particularly Spiritualist empires.
  • Telepaths previously provided a planet-wide +5% Resources from Pops modifier, this has been replaced with a +5% Resources from Psionic Pops so that non-Psionic pops in your empire no longer have their performance improved by the presence of Telepaths. However, this modifier increases to +10% when the Breach the Shroud tradition is taken, meaning that the two Telepath jobs from a Psi-Corp building will provide +20% to the resource output of the planet if all pops working are Psionic. So although a Psionic empire may have fewer pops than the other Ascension Paths, those pops should be more efficient.
What’s new?
  • Thought Enforcement is now a guaranteed research option, with the Psi-Corp tradition.
  • The Mind Readers tradition grants a new empire edict, Sight Beyond Sight. This provides some rather nice bonuses as your navy’s navigators are supplied with an abundance of Zro.:
    • +1 Sensor range
    • -15% Hyper Drive Charge Time
    • -15% Hyper Drive Cooldown
    • -15% Jump Drive Cooldown
    • +15% Quantum Catapult Accuracy.
  • The finisher for the tradition tree grants 50 edict fund and more importantly a Special Project that when completed will allow you to form a Covenant with a random Shroud Entity.

Genetic Ascension Path

In comparison, the Genetic Tradition tree is slightly simpler as the traditions themselves aren’t locked behind special projects. This is because to get the most use out of it, you’ll likely be doing a fair few special projects to modify species.
Sometimes a guiding hand is needed

Would you change who you are, if you could?

What if we could obtain genetic perfection?

Reprogram your genetic code

What’s changed?
  • The boons from Engineered Evolution and Evolutionary Mastery have been arranged to follow a logical progression through the tradition tree, with you gradually unlocking more and more advanced species modifications.
What’s new?
  • Efficient Cloning doubles the output of Clone Vats without increasing their upkeep, which should make them somewhat more competitive with empires that favour a more metallic path.
  • Enhanced Expression allows you to add another trait pick on your modified species, meaning you can cram more traits onto a species.
  • Completing Genetic traditions allows you to research special Transgenesis technologies. These technologies allow you to add Lithoid traits to non-Lithoids, Plantoid traits to non-Plantoids/Fungoids, and if you’ve harvested the DNA from certain Leviathans, you can splice some rather special traits into your species’ genetic code. The Leviathan traits available are:
    • Drake-Scaled (Ether Drake, Shard, Sky Dragon)
      • This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from a space dragon (Ether Drake, Shard, or Sky Dragon). This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
      • Cost: 3
      • Each pop produces 0.025 monthly Alloys.
      • +50% Army Health
      • Mutually exclusive with other resource generating traits.
    • Voidling (Voidspawn)
      • Cost: 3
      • This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from the Voidspawn. This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
      • Replaces all Food or Mineral upkeep with Energy Upkeep.
      • Habitability Floor on all planets of 50%.
      • Mutually exclusive with Phototrophic, Radiotrophic traits.
    • Polymelic (Tiyanki Matriarch)
      • Cost: 3
      • This trait requires that the player has harvested the genetic material from the Tiyanki Matriarch. This is presented as an event option when the leviathan is slain.
      • As budding but 0.05 assembly per pop.
  • We’ve also added a few new Advanced traits that are unlocked by Genetic Creation to cover some missing bases.
    • Vat-Grown
      • Cost: 3
      • -25% Pop Growth Speed
      • +25% Pop Assembly Speed
      • -10% Housing Usage
    • Felsic
      • Requires Lithoid
      • Cost: 2
      • Minerals from Livestock and Processing: +2
    • Natural Machinist
      • Cost: 2
      • +10% Alloys from Jobs
      • +10% Consumer Goods from Jobs

Now onto Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascension. To start with, we’ve split the Synthetic path into the two paths because it felt like a better fit to be able to wholly devote your empire into embracing cybernetics without going down the mind-uploading route.

Cybernetic ascension is no longer unlocked via the robotics line of technologies, instead there are new technologies to represent basic cybernetic upgrades that your population has access to. This comes with a change to the Powered Exo-Skeletons technology as well.

Powered Exo-Skeletons Technologies/Improved Servomotors
Tier 1, Engineering - Industry
+5% Army Damage
+5% Worker/Menial Drone Output

Integrated Cybernetics/Adaptive Cybernetics
Requires: Powered Exo-Skeletons Technologies/Improved Servomotors
Tier 2, Engineering - Industry
+5% Habitability

Neuro-Quantum Links
Requires: Integrated Cybernetics Technologies
Tier 3, Physics - Computing
+5% Specialist/Complex Drone Output
This technology is not available to driven assimilators

Since Cybernetic ascension is now available to Hive-Minds and Driven Assimilators, they too get access to The Flesh is Weak, albeit with a changed name and description.

The Flesh is Weak/Organo-Machine Interfacing Ascension Perk
Available to regular empires, hive-minds and driven assimilators
  • Regular Empires and Hive-Minds:
    • Requires Integrated Cybernetics Technology
  • Driven Assimilators:
    • Requires: Have assimilated 30 pops.
  • Regular Empires and Hive-Minds:
    • Gain Neuro-Quantum Links research option
  • Driven Assimilators:
    • Gain Adaptive Cybernetics research option
  • Allows taking Cybernetic Traditions.
Because Cybernetic traditions are available to multiple empire types, there’s a number of tradition swaps used here to ensure they each get something different.
But the machine is strong

These upgrades will cost you an arm and leg

Our future lies in the fusion of flesh and machine.
So many tradition swaps!

  • Opener
    • Gain access to The Flesh is Weak Special Project
  • Tradition 1: Transubstantiation Synthesis
    • Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
    • Can assimilate organic species to Cyborgs (Including into/out of Hive-Minds).
  • Tradition 1: Organ Harvesting (Swap for Fanatic Purifiers)
    • Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
    • Planets with ongoing purges gain +10% pop growth speed.
  • Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
    • -10% Cyborg Upkeep
  • Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
    • Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  • Tradition 4: Assembly Standards
    • Unlocks Assembly Standards policy, allowing roboticists to assemble cyborgs instead of robots.
  • Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks
  • Finisher:
    • +10% cyborg output
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks

  • Opener
    • Gain access to The Flesh is Weak Special Project
  • Tradition 1: Transubstantiation Synthesis
    • Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
    • Can assimilate organic species to Cyborgs (Including into/out of Hive-Minds).
  • Tradition 1: Organ Harvesting (Swap for Devouring Swarms/Terravores)
    • Requires that The Flesh is Weak Special Project has been completed.
    • Planets with ongoing purges gain +10% pop growth speed.
  • Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
    • -10% Cyborg Upkeep
    • -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  • Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
    • Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  • Tradition 4: Synaptic Sub-Processing
    • -50% empire size from districts.
  • Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks
  • Finisher:
    • +10% cyborg output
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks

  • Opener
    • Assimilating Organic Pops now provides Engineering Research,
    • All resources provided from Assimilation are increased..
  • Tradition 1: Inevitable Assimilation
    • Can now assimilate Hive-Minded pops.
    • +1 Pop assimilated (per planet, per year).
  • Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
    • -10% Cyborg Upkeep
    • -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  • Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
    • Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  • Tradition 4: Crucible Worlds
    • Gain access to the special Crucible World planetary designation.
    • Crucible Worlds have greatly increased pop growth, provided by Crucible Drones, but have penalties to pop upkeep and output and have restrictions on certain buildings.
  • Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks
  • Finisher:
    • +10% cyborg output
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks

To expand upon Cybernetic Ascension, we have added Cybernetic Traits that are only available to Cybernetic pops, after taking the Integrated Anatomy tradition. These traits make use of normal biological trait point and pick limits, but are not blocked by any biological traits. The traits available to cyborgs are based off of the traits available to robotic species, however they are slightly cheaper in terms of trait points while giving the pops a small amount of energy upkeep. These traits are as follows:

Positive traits
These all increase pop upkeep by 0.5 energy/month.
  • Power Drills, Cost 1, +15% minerals from jobs
  • Harvesters, Cost 1, +15% food from jobs
  • Superconductive, Cost 1, +15% energy from jobs
  • Efficient Processors, Cost 2, +5% resources from jobs
  • Logic Engines, Cost 1, +10% research from jobs
  • Loyalty Circuits, Cost 1, +10% happiness
  • Double-Jointed, Cost 1, -10% pop housing usage, +15% pop growth from immigration, -25% resettlement cost
  • Enhanced Memory, Cost 1, +2 leader level cap,
  • Durable, Cost 1, pop amenities usage -0.5
  • Learning Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% leader experience, +1 leader level cap
  • Streamlined Protocols, Cost 1, -10% empire size from pops
  • Trading Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% trade value from jobs.

Negative traits
  • Bulky, Cost -2, +10% pop housing usage, -15% pop growth from immigration, +25% resettlement cost
  • High Maintenance, Cost -2, pop amenities usage +0.5
  • Power Intensive, Cost -1, increases pop upkeep by 1 energy/month.
  • Neural Limiters, Cost -2, -25% leader experience, -1 leader level cap
  • High Bandwidth, Cost -2, +10% empire size from pops

Additionally, the Trading Algorithms trait is available to both robots and cyborgs.

Onto the path of the machine…

The first thing with this that I want to address is comparing the Synthetic Age AP with the options available to regular empires was rather damning. Only +2 trait points and -33% species modification cost left a lot to be desired for any machine intelligence. Thus one of the first things I wanted to do with this was make the Synthetic path available to machine intelligences. The APs required to access this tradition tree are

Synthetic Evolution Ascension Perk
Available to regular empires
  • Requires: Droids Technology
  • Gain Synthetics as a research option
  • Allows taking Synthetic Traditions.

Synthetic Age Ascension Perk
Available to machine intelligences
  • Requires: Machine Template System Technology
  • Gain Binary Motivators as a research option
  • Allows taking Synthetic Traditions.
We're all just cogs in the machine

Beep boop beep

It is the dawn of a Synthetic Age.
A synthetic dawn approaches


  • Opener
    • Allows recruitment of robotic leaders
  • Tradition 1: Maintenance Protocols
    • −10% Robot Amenities Usage
  • Tradition 2: Optimization Algorithms
    • +10% Robot Output
  • Tradition 3: Synthetic Age
    • Requires the Synthetics technology to be researched
    • For Non-Purifiers:
      • Grants the Synthetic Evolution Special Project
      • Can assimilate organic, robotic and machine species to Synths (after completing the special project).
    • For Fanatic Purifiers:
      • +10% Robot Assembly Speed
  • Tradition 4: Prefabricated Components
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
  • Tradition 5: Solid-State Actuators
    • +2 Robot Modification Points
  • Finisher:
    • +1 Trait Pick for Robots.
    • +1 Roboticist job added to capital building

  • Opener
    • Can assimilate robot and machine species into your primary machine species.
  • Tradition 1: Maintenance Protocols
    • −10% Machine Amenities Usage
  • Tradition 2: Optimization Algorithms
    • +10% Machine Output
  • Tradition 3: Efficient Power Systems
    • +1 Trait pick for Machines
  • Tradition 4: Prefabricated Components
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
  • Tradition 5: Solid-State Actuators
    • +2 Machine Modification Points
  • Finisher:
    • Machine leaders gain the Synthetic trait.
    • +1 Replicator jobs added to capital building

Some of the changes we’ve made here could be considered fairly spicy as we’ve reduced the sheer amount of robot assembly that you could gain by no longer scaling the number of roboticists by the tier of the capital building. Though, of the changes we’ve made, the ability to convert all species (including other empires’ robots) into your synths is one of my favorites.

Another change we made alongside this rework was that the Mechanists origin has lost their -5% robot upkeep modifier in exchange for +15% robot build speed, +1 robot trait pick and having the Machine Template System technology available as a research option from the start of the game.

That's it for this week! Be sure to join us Monday, October 10th on twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive at 3 PM CEST (UTC + 2) where Game Director Eladrin will be showing off the Combat Rebalance live on Stream!

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  • Will the materialist faction be satisfied by the existence of cyborgs alone? (Currently, a lack of robots will make them angry, but that might happen more often now that cyborgs can be assembled.)

I hope they just remove that altogether. There's plenty of arguments for going down the other ascension paths that fit within a Materialist ethos, not all of us want to kill ourselves and be replaced with a toaster that has our memories, that's a silly idea and the materialist faction are big dumbdumbs for being unhappy that their empire instead chooses to perfect their organic shells.
 
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So, +1 AP slot for people choosing an ascension path... But -1 tradition slot for the regular traditions because of that...

Hum. Does the devs' consider having one more tradition slot on the vanilla game ? OR a special slot (or 0 slot cost) for the ascension tradition ?

Having a +1 empty slot for AP is really good. But one less slot for regular traditions... Hum. Not convinced since yes the buffs of an ascension tradition are good but others from a regular tradition are too... Before we did not have to choose on that...
I'm kind of okay with this. The seventh tradition slot is usually not very impactful in my opinion, usually if I even get to that point in my games it's more of a "which one of the traditions I haven't picked yet actually does something useful" rather than still picking things that I particularly care about having. After prosperity, supremacy, and discovery the traditions become a lot less impactful. Mercantile is enabling for trade builds and gets picked first on them but is situational. Expansion used to be the best pick as a first tree but isn't nearly as good anymore in that role compared to prosperity. Subterfuge is good if you are going for a psionic max evasion destroyers build. Adaptability is useful on void dwellers and a couple other empire types but isn't that good otherwise. I rarely find domination or harmony to be very useful. Synchronicity is pretty bad except for hive minds.
synth ascension is literally the best in the game roflmao
Synthetic was only the best in the late game, early it is outclassed by psionic currently. But going forward I actually think genetic ascension might be the best by far in the late game if these changes are made as stated in this dev diary. Genetic going from 3 monthly assembly before modifiers to 6 is crazy when you consider that synthetic is going to drop down from 8 to only 4 monthly assembly if I'm reading things correctly (one job from the robot assembly plant plus one job from the capital). They doubled genetic ascension's pop assembly and gave them access to a buffed version of the budding trait that can presumably still be combined with fertile, and halved synthetic.

My early thoughts on the new ascension paths' roles, in no particular order:

1) Psionic:
Should still be generally strong early game and can be cheated with teachers of the shroud. It gives the most efficient pops in the early game, and the fleet buffs are the best out of all existing paths. I expect psionic to still be the strongest ascension path for any early war builds and maybe multiplayer. You have lower pop growth but you get significant bonuses early game and can use them to snowball while other empires are still building pops and don't have a major advantage yet.

2) Genetic:
I kind of explained it above, but I expect genetic to be the new best ascension path for late game and high crisis multipliers due to the insane pop growth speed and advanced traits. Overtuned makes genetic ascension quite strong already, and you can stack a bunch of traits boosting research output that no other path can match. It has weaker fleet buffs than the other paths but the economic advantage should more than make up for it in the late game. In particular the new advanced trait that improves alloy output will be key to building up massive fleets. Its pops aren't as efficient at making alloys as psionic or synthetic, but this helps close the gap and it should just have more pops than the other two now.

3) Cybernetic:
I think cybernetic will be somewhat of a jack of all trades, master of none ascension path. It does a little bit of everything but not as well as the other ascension paths. Cybernetics have some of the advantages of synthetics with machine traits and improved habitability, and access to cheaper versions of robot traits is basically "we have genetic ascension at home". The pop growh will be low, but there is a 15% bonus to generic cyborg pop resource output sprinkled in there which is very strong if not quite as good as synthetic or psionic. If the leader traits stay the same, the cybernetic leader traits are all strictly worse versions of the synthetic ones, and the increased pop energy upkeep per cybernetic trait could cripple economies if not properly planned for. A 100 pop empire adding a cybernetic trait will suddenly need 50 more energy, which is not always in the budget. This might have some interesting synergy with relentless industrialists, radiotrophic, and tomb worlds, though that might be a bit of copium from me.

4) Synthetic:
Should still be okay, but very much nerfed. The halving of its pop growth doesn't completely cripple it but it will make it much worse than it currently is. Synthetics will still have the best generic pop output bonuses as they benefit from up to 25% bonus robot output. They won't be as good as before late game because of the lack of pop growth, but they do benefit a lot from the changes to mechanist with the extra 15% robot assembly. The ability to assimilate every pop you conquer into your species is still very strong, and still has the advantage of being the most convenient and simplest ascension path from an empire management perspective. In terms of fleet buffs, they are only behind psionic. In battleship duels having 10% extra range cannot be understated since it will always give you the first strike in battle. It's also the only option for (non-DA) machines and should be a substantial buff to machines over the existing synthetic age perk so there's that.
 
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What’s remained from the previous version?
  • Mind over Matter still grants Telepathy as a Research Option, requires Psionic Theory and can’t be taken as your first Ascension Perk.
What’s changed?
  • Mind over Matter has had the bulk of its boons either moved to the opener (the Latent Psionic trait) or the Psi-Corps tradition.

I'm not a balance expert but I think the boni of the AP and the opener should be swapped, this will both make you play a bit more with a not fully developed Psionic Species and uniform the opener for Regular and Teachers of the Shroud Empires. Anyway we'll see with the Open Beta how this will feel.

  • Enhanced Expression allows you to add another trait pick on your modified species, meaning you can cram more traits onto a species.
  • Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks
  • Finisher:
    • +10% cyborg output
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks

It seems a bit strange to me that the Cybernetic Ascension grants more trait picks than the Biological one. But as said previously we will draw our conclusions in the Open Beta.
 
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I would also give the cybernetic ascension to the normal machine empires and Rogue Servitors with a few changes.
This way machine empires have a choice between ascension (full machine or incorporation organics)

  • Opener
    • +50% pop growth (gives ME normal pop growth)
  • Tradition 1: Inevitable Assimilation
    • Can now assimilate organics.
  • Tradition 2: Metabolic Reprocessing
    • -10% Cyborg Upkeep
    • -10% Empire Size from Cyborgs
  • Tradition 3: Integrated Anatomy
    • Allows add/remove cyborg traits (based off of robot traits) to cyborgs
  • Tradition 4: Crucible Worlds
    • Gain access to the special Crucible World planetary designation.
    • Crucible Worlds have greatly increased pop growth, provided by Crucible Drones, but have penalties to pop upkeep and output and have restrictions on certain buildings.
  • Tradition 5: Modular Cybernetics
    • -50% Modify Species special project cost
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks
  • Finisher:
    • +10% cyborg output
    • +1 Biological Trait Picks
 
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- Cybernetic ascension having its own flavor. Right now it seems that it is still "finding its footing". I sense massive cyberpunk potential here!
- Talking about that, I still believe that ascension-unique civics are a good idea, really, as long as they are added as their own civic slot, rather than replacing regular civics and thus, homogenizing empires
I'm imagining a Mega-Mecha-church. Basically if Priest (2011) and Cyberpunk had a baby.

Also somewhere in the cyborg tree there is a statement that they can assemble cyborg pops... I wonder if we'll be able to assemble cyber-zombies?
vWEN51c.gif


- More diplomatic consequences for fulfilling ascension paths. There is a ton of potential here for emergent narratives now that there are many diplomatic systems in place (vassals, federations, galactic custodianship...)
23rd century witch burnings by unhappy materialist pops vs psi-awakened ones are needed.
 
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All good things! I'm particularly looking forward to cybernetic hive minds, I feel like that's gonna be my go to. Could they get their own version of Mechanist, where they have +10/15% assembly, +1 trait point, and a powered exoskeletons research option?

Also, the Drake trait is fairly weak for what it offers. 3 points for a limited amount of alloys and you can't have any other resource boosting traits. If you have several hundred pops with the trait, you're making less than 10 alloys a month. Since this is a mid/late game thing, it should be a fairly powerful option. Even just .15 would net you several dozen additional alloys per few hundred pops, but .25 might be preferable given the cost and restrictions.
 
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"Machine Synthetic tradition finisher: machine leaders gain the Synthetic trait"

mr-bison-street-fighter.gif
 
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On that last note, if your making a small change to the mechanist origin, could now be a good time to let us choose robot appearance at game start? Like for sycretic and necroid. I'm fine not being able to Gove them traits I just wanna pick their appearance haha
 
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These traits make use of normal biological trait point and pick limits, but are not blocked by any biological traits.
Its a pity that biological point are used and not robotic ones as like this there will be a lot of available trait picks but with little trait points to spend, especially when compared with biological ascension +6 points.
 
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It's also the only option for (non-DA) machines and should be a substantial buff to machines over the existing synthetic age perk so there's that.
Substantial buff???
You have to give up a whole tradition tree for those effects. Seems like a neutral change at best.

Seriously what is it with you guys and being ok with base ME's being the only ones without a proper ascension?
Everyone else gets completely new abilities, but the ME's are supposed to be fine with some barebone production boni?
 
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Is taking a covenant the intended playstyle for Psionic? Because it seems lame to force one ascension style into being villains all the time if you take it, or forcefully hamper yourself by never taking one.
 
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I personally feel, that psionics would still be the weakest with these traditions.
I agree it's gotten the worst deal as far as the details in THIS dev diary go, but wasn't the consensus before that psionics was the best ascension choice? Because of all the hidden goodies you get from your adventures in the Shroud and all that. They said they buffed the ascension paths they thought needed it, and people are always ripping on bio for instance so that's why it feels so good here.
 
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Ah hell yeah, Cybernetic Ascension! Time to become a perfect fusion of Flesh and Metal, Man and Machine!

I'm surprised you guys didn't give Robots an option for a "Reverse" Cybernetic Ascension (Organic Ascension?) in which the machines themselves choose to become more organic in order to obtain greater knowledge of the universe and the organic experience.

I like only one Ascension perk for Ascension instead of two, that always seemed redundant. Now there will be an extra AP pick, which might make other Ascension Perks more competitive
 
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Ooh, shiny, but while you're at it, could you revisit applying species/robot changes to pops? Right now it's just a boring special project that instantly converts everyone to the desired new subspecies, but instead you could use gene clinics/clone vats or temporarily repurpose robot assembly plants to gradually turn the population into their ultimate form. Kind of how assimilation for psionic and cybernetic empires works in the current patch, but a bit more interesting. It would also solve the problem of constantly having to micro immigrants and manually turn them into a desired template once in a while, with a default species right set on "modify" the planets would automatically update them to the better template
 
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Cybernetic Traits

Positive traits
These all increase pop upkeep by 0.5 energy/month.
  • Power Drills, Cost 1, +15% minerals from jobs
  • Harvesters, Cost 1, +15% food from jobs
  • Superconductive, Cost 1, +15% energy from jobs
  • Efficient Processors, Cost 2, +5% resources from jobs
  • Logic Engines, Cost 1, +10% research from jobs
  • Loyalty Circuits, Cost 1, +10% happiness
  • Double-Jointed, Cost 1, -10% pop housing usage, +15% pop growth from immigration, -25% resettlement cost
  • Enhanced Memory, Cost 1, +2 leader level cap,
  • Durable, Cost 1, pop amenities usage -0.5
  • Learning Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% leader experience, +1 leader level cap
  • Streamlined Protocols, Cost 1, -10% empire size from pops
  • Trading Algorithms, Cost 1, +25% trade value from jobs.

Negative traits
  • Bulky, Cost -2, +10% pop housing usage, -15% pop growth from immigration, +25% resettlement cost
  • High Maintenance, Cost -2, pop amenities usage +0.5
  • Power Intensive, Cost -1, increases pop upkeep by 1 energy/month.
  • Neural Limiters, Cost -2, -25% leader experience, -1 leader level cap
  • High Bandwidth, Cost -2, +10% empire size from pops
Wait, some of the effects here are different, are some of these being changed for robotic species too?

Like Durable and High Maintanance affecting amenities usage instead of upkeep, and Learning Algorithms also affecting leader level cap?
 
Does that mean you can't have Synthetic pops and machine leaders (for regular empires) without going down the Synthetic ascension path?
It's the thing that stood out the most for me, and I don't like it. An empire with organic co-existing with synthetic as equal is a staple of sci-fi, and removing that lower the RP options in Stellaris. I want to play as an empire with psionic space-wizard existing side by side with fully sapient synth citizens.
Also, I feel that the pop assembly nerf for synthetic is a bit too much. Should be fine with 3 assembly job, especially with the boost for organic assembly.
 
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