Stellaris Dev Diary #56 - Ascension Perks

[Axe99]

Cheers for the DD Wiz, and cool . I likes it . More ways in which Stellaris is very distinctly its own game, while also clearly being a sci-fi GSG as well .

You're not required to go down any of these paths, nor will every AI-controlled empire do so.

Random thought - would there be any value (or have you already?) instituted some cost/benefit to attempting to go down these ascension trees. For example, traditionalist/reactionary factions railing against these newfangled ideas and perhaps triggering a civil war, or other such challenges, so it's not a simple 'unlock slot/get perk/event chain' process, and perhaps have it that some perks are harder to get (but perhaps with more rewards) than others? Ignore if silly, or already thought of, or doing already .

 

[Winterwolf00]

Semi-off-topic but will an upcoming DD go into more detail about what's happening with the practical effects of the ethics rework? Things like buildings, edicts, etc.

And what effect will this have on the slavery system as well as ethics divergence.

 

[Radically Right Wing]

This makes me wonder: instead of turning into an (full-pledged) Unbidden, are Psionics getting an ability to summon them as allies instead?

Psionics BETTER get the ability to summon the Unbidden. Having the most powerful and most common End Game Crisis on your side sounds really really fun. I also imagine that Ascended Psionics will get to turn our POPs into energy beings like the Unidden just like the Ascended Materialist branch gets to become cyborgs. What I am wondering is what does an energy being POP do well at? I would imagine it would produce like +40% or +50% energy if I had to wager a guess, which would make it a good balance against robot civilizations who would drain energy like crazy for each POP, so they would still be opposites.

 

[Belaaron]

The Synthetic Path focuses on the replacement of biology with machinery. The first level allows you to turn your population partly synthetic through the use of cybernetics, while the second level replaces your biological pops with robots, turning your empire entirely synthetic.

Not sure what your original theme idea was, but it should be noted that such a society would be unsustainable unless ALL aspects of such systems were ENTIRELY internally self-correcting, self-repairing, and self-replicating...without exception. It would be most thematically sensible to emphasize the systemic replacement of organic structures with nanotechnology, rather than actual specific replacement organs and other discreet synthetic "body parts".

Maybe the first perk can be the typical "cyborg" style of doing things...while the second perk could be fully-realized, completely self-contained synthetic life through nanotechnology.

 

[Barry777]

The idea behind the Ascension Perks is to provide more unique unlockable features for Empires, and to provide the player with the ability to determine an 'endgame' for their species

Ascension Perks are related to the Traditions and Unity system, but is a paid feature in the (unannounced) expansion accompanying the 1.5 'Banks' update, rather than a part of the update itself. Those without the expansion will get full access to the Traditions and Unity features, but not to the Ascension Perks themselves.

So not only did I not pay for a game that I could not finish due to mid game lag so bad I just give up but now I actually have to pay for a reason to wait through all of the lag. Ridiculous. And I still don't get my 10% war happiness yet as a militarist. How about not charging people for what should have been delivered in the first place.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Random thought - would there be any value (or have you already?) instituted some cost/benefit to attempting to go down these ascension trees. For example, traditionalist/reactionary factions railing against these newfangled ideas and perhaps triggering a civil war, or other such challenges, so it's not a simple 'unlock slot/get perk/event chain' process, and perhaps have it that some perks are harder to get (but perhaps with more rewards) than others? Ignore if silly, or already thought of, or doing already .

Dealing with that sort of thing may very well be part of what the event chain is for.

Psionics BETTER get the ability to summon the Unbidden. Having the most powerful and most common End Game Crisis on your side sounds really really fun. I also imagine that Ascended Psionics will get to turn our POPs into energy beings like the Unidden just like the Ascended Materialist branch gets to become cyborgs. What I am wondering is what does an energy being POP do well at? I would imagine it would produce like +40% or +50% energy if I had to wager a guess, which would make it a good balance against robot civilizations who would drain energy like crazy for each POP, so they would still be opposites.

I don't know how many people feel this way, but I'd far rather the Unbidden weren't controllable to any degree. I'm also not a fan of the interpretation that the Psionic perks will turn you into energy beings- while that's certainly a possibility, it seems difficult to simulate within the boundaries of the game's mechanics without, you know, abandoning those mechanics.

I feel a more likely (and fitting with the pre-existing mechanics) interpretation is that it establishes some sort of group-consciousness that greatly reduces Ethics Divergence (think the Khala from Starcraft's Protoss). Psionics are, after all, heavily weighted towards the Spiritualist Ethos- which is focused on unity.

Not sure what your original theme idea was, but it should be noted that such a society would be unsustainable unless ALL aspects of such systems were ENTIRELY internally self-correcting, self-repairing, and self-replicating...without exception. It would be most thematically sensible to emphasize the systemic replacement of organic structures with nanotechnology, rather than actual specific replacement organs and other discreet synthetic "body parts".

Maybe the first perk can be the typical "cyborg" style of doing things...while the second perk could be fully-realized, completely self-contained synthetic life through nanotechnology.

Do we have any reason to doubt that Stellaris' Synths are self-repairing (or at least capable of easily producing replacement parts for themselves)? I mean, we have a fully-synthetic empire already in-game: the AI uprising shows that Stellaris' robotics are advanced enough to produce an entire self-sustaining civilization.

 

[smjjames]

Anybody want to speculate on the Voidborn ascenscion perk that is shown at the edge of the screenshot?

Maybe it's something like Starchild or it involves abandoning planets and living entirely in space, but as with the conversion to energy beings, that may involve making an entirely new mechanic.

 

[hironolind]

Anybody want to speculate on the Voidborn ascenscion perk that is shown at the edge of the screenshot?

Maybe it's something like Starchild or it involves abandoning planets and living entirely in space, but as with the conversion to energy beings, that may involve making an entirely new mechanic.

Would be very fitting to the name of the patch, since the Culture from Iain Bank's novels had long ago abandoned planets.

 

[iniudan]

Anybody want to speculate on the Voidborn ascenscion perk that is shown at the edge of the screenshot?

Maybe it's something like Starchild or it involves abandoning planets and living entirely in space, but as with the conversion to energy beings, that may involve making an entirely new mechanic.

I already mentioned it earler, but Void Born is the term in 40k for human who live are born and live in space, most of them are a bit quirky due to regularly going through the warp, across multiple generations.

My guess is that it increase fleet cap in some way, due to part of your population living permanently in space on your ship and station, which is something needed as to make tall empire militarily viable, as they cannot rely on having lot of spaceport.

 

[Radically Right Wing]

I don't know how many people feel this way, but I'd far rather the Unbidden weren't controllable to any degree. I'm also not a fan of the interpretation that the Psionic perks will turn you into energy beings- while that's certainly a possibility, it seems difficult to simulate within the boundaries of the game's mechanics without, you know, abandoning those mechanics.

I feel a more likely (and fitting with the pre-existing mechanics) interpretation is that it establishes some sort of group-consciousness that greatly reduces Ethics Divergence (think the Khala from Starcraft's Protoss). Psionics are, after all, heavily weighted towards the Spiritualist Ethos- which is focused on unity.

I would certainly hope that Ascended Psionics will get a lot better than just *your Ethics Divergence has now been reduced. That would likely make the Psionic path objectively the worst Ascension path to go down. If one allows you to mod your race into a super race giving you a minimum of +4 Trait points, and likely somewhere between -60% and -90% gene modification cost (the first tech gives you -50% and wiz said further techs will give you more of a discount than that) and the Synthetic route replaces every POP in your Empire with a better, and more productive artificial POP which does not have Ethos (meaning that you permanently have 0% Ethics Divergence) then the Psionic path can't possibly stop at giving a boost to Ethics Divergence alone. How would that ever be able to compare to the other two?

Here is a few things that I would speculate for the Psionic Ascension, firstly in the Dev Diary it says that you will be able to reach and "communicate with" beings living in "another Dimension", so right off the bat I am certain that it is talking about the Unbidden, whether we can ally them, call a truce with them and release them into the world so they will attack everyone but us, or gain some sort of Unique techs from them without allowing them through is uncertain, but being able to communicate with the Unbidden alone is going to be something useful. Which leads me into my other thought, why would the Unbidden be interested in communicating with an Empire which is Psionically ascended? They are not normally interested in diplomacy with meat-based lifeforms, the other two forms of Ascension alter the POPs of each Empire that takes them, clearly there will be some sort of alteration of the Psionic Empires POPs and I can't imagine it would not have at least something to do with energy beings.

A few other things that might come from Advanced Psionics
-Mind controlling Defensive Armies to remotely invade an enemy planet without landing troops
-Psionic Armies that can mind control armies they are fighting against (more likely)
-Psionic Espionage?
-I am guessing an upgraded version of the precognition interface

I don't know what future Psionic techs will hold in them, but I have been looking forward to an expansion of Psionics for a very long time. And hopefully we have some really fun ones coming!

 

[Oscot]

I already mentioned it earler, but Void Born is the term in 40k for human who live are born and live in space, most of them are a bit quirky due to regularly going through the warp, across multiple generations.
My guess is that it increase fleet cap in some way, due to part of your population living permanently in space on your ship and station, which is something needed as to make tall empire militarily viable, as they cannot rely on having lot of spaceport.

I think Voidborn is more likely to enable, as someone mentioned previously, space habitats to put Pops in, The-Culture-style.

Especially since Wiz's list of things intended for 1.5 explicitly had that in it.

 

[Axe99]

Dealing with that sort of thing may very well be part of what the event chain is for.

Absolutely, hence the 'ignore if you're already doing this' . However, it also may very well not be (given what we know so far), so thought I'd throw the idea around in case the idea wasn't in play. Wasn't trying to cause trouble.

 

[Milten]

I already mentioned it earler, but Void Born is the term in 40k for human who live are born and live in space, most of them are a bit quirky due to regularly going through the warp, across multiple generations.

In Stellaris terms "voidborn" are just space animals.

 

[smjjames]

In Stellaris terms "voidborn" are just space animals.

That screenshot is the first time the word 'voidborn' has ever been used in Stellaris, pretty sure of that.

I think Voidborn is more likely to enable, as someone mentioned previously, space habitats to put Pops in, The-Culture-style.

Especially since Wiz's list of things intended for 1.5 explicitly had that in it.

You may be right on that. We already saw a glimpse of the one which enables ringworlds.

Also, for the whole 'psionics reaching and talking to beings who dwell on a higher plane', it didn't make me think of the Unbidden, it made me think of more like the Elder Gods, you know, Cthulhu and all that. Hell, the event that gives your scientist the psionic trait is very Cthulhu-esque.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I would certainly hope that Ascended Psionics will get a lot better than just *your Ethics Divergence has now been reduced. That would likely make the Psionic path objectively the worst Ascension path to go down.

Forum ate my reply: short form is that I'm sure there are additional bonuses in-line with "reduced ethics divergence" that aren't "make planets irrelevant" or "control endgame crisis units".

Like, maybe you could increase ethics pressure on nearby civs to make them fit your beliefs? Force them to become spiritualists, force a change in government? Stuff like that.

It's also not as if the game is lacking in extradimensional forces with no clear ties to the Unbidden- why not give the Psionics path something more like that instead of retreading old ground, if that's really what they're aiming for?

 

[jjbarton12]

Will Ascension perks also cause cosmetic changes to buildings and ships? Like When you become a synth empire, will your ships now look more like (or completely like) the AI Empire ships?

 

[Questionable]

I am SUPER hype for the Banks update at this rate it's gonna be the best one yet!

 

[Radically Right Wing]

Forum ate my reply: short form is that I'm sure there are additional bonuses in-line with "reduced ethics divergence" that aren't "make planets irrelevant" or "control endgame crisis units".

Like, maybe you could increase ethics pressure on nearby civs to make them fit your beliefs? Force them to become spiritualists, force a change in government? Stuff like that.

It's also not as if the game is lacking in extradimensional forces with no clear ties to the Unbidden- why not give the Psionics path something more like that instead of retreading old ground, if that's really what they're aiming for?

I really like the idea of being able to shift the Ethics of neighboring Empires to destabilize them or use some gunboat diplomacy to force them to ally you, thought I still hope that Psionics are connected to the Unbidden since it seems like the Biological might be connected with the Prethoryn Scourge and the Synthetic is very likely to be connected with the AI Rebellion (which they should also make trigger more often) but regardless I don't think that they need to do away with planets, I am imagining the energy POPs on each planet still occupying their tiles, but providing buffs to energy production of planetary defense whether they can help defend against ground Units, Orbital Bombardment, or both. I can think of a million ways to implement good Psionics but being able to shift your neighbor's Ethics is up there near the top for sure.

 

[smjjames]

It's also not as if the game is lacking in extradimensional forces with no clear ties to the Unbidden- why not give the Psionics path something more like that instead of retreading old ground, if that's really what they're aiming for?

Theres not very many though, there's the void dragon (though it came from a long dead universe, not another dimension), the dimensional horror, and the Horizon Signal.

I agree though, the Psionics ascension end with the 'beings on a higher plane of existence' should be separate from the Unbidden.

 

[Promethian]

In the same screenshot we see a perk for a rather hefty bonus against FE. Voidborn might be a similar perk against the Unbidden or Prethoryn.