[Hertzila]

I agree; non-spiritual psionics are far more common in sci-fi than spiritual ones. Of course Stellaris has every right to establish its own cosmology, but for a game that intentionally seems to rely on (a) referencing so many other franchises and (b) allows its players a huge degree of customization it feels like an unfortunate limitation.

I would have preferred if, say, everyone can pick the 1st Ascension Perk, but the 2nd may be limited to Spiritualists. That way it becomes more of a genetic/evolutionary thing (in that every species may get latent psychics), whereas only spiritual cultures can maintain the discipline necessary to develop these abilities further. This would not only deal with most of the customization limits, but it'd also preserve high-tier psychic gameplay as an Ethos-exclusive thing.

... I mean, I doubt robots as buildable Pops will become a Materialist-only thing with 1.5, right? Why not mirror this very sensible compromise for the Spiritualist Ethos, too?

I agree that non-spiritualists should still gain access to a (very) limited psychic tech pool. Even if it would be limited to just the psychic equivalent of the "Hyperlane Mapping" tech non-hyperlane users have that allows them to see the hyperlanes. Even materialists would see that there is something there, even if they can't really interact with it much.

I don't think non-spiritualists should gain access even to the first Species Endgame Perk. It seems like the idea behind them is that an empire will always take both, even if it's like the second and the seventh picks. Since they are mutually exclusive Perk paths, it seems like bad design to allow a player to screw their own game up by either giving up on the second Perk or forcing an ethos change.

I certainly hope AI will not be exclusive to the Synthetic Perk path, but who knows? Synthetic path does have their own exclusive thing though: converting biological pops into cyborgs and eventually synths. I imagine that is one of their unique things, rather than AIs.
I'm more worried about the Biomastery Perk path and its unique features.

 

[LordMist]

What is bio path? xenophobe or xenophile? Could it branch? One to a purity of genetics and another to diverse genetics?

I think that the bio path will be a generic path available to everyone, while the robotic path is for materialists and the psionics path is for spiritualists.

 

[Calvax]

What is bio path? xenophobe or xenophile? Could it branch? One to a purity of genetics and another to diverse genetics?

As far as we know I think the genetic engineering path is open to every ethos. It seems to build on the current system with the ascension perks giving you more trait points and significantly lowering the cost of engineering pops (which would be great, waiting hundreds of months per species in the empire is a pain).

As for other ethoses whilst there aren't ascension perks we've been shown a bunch of mechanics that are tailored towards empires, e.g:

- Different slave mechanics fit authoritarians
- Different purge mechanics fit xenophobes

 

[Hertzila]

What is bio path? xenophobe or xenophile? Could it branch? One to a purity of genetics and another to diverse genetics?

I'd imagine the Biomastery path is a generic path available to all ethos, at least for now. There might be other ordinary Ascension Perks for the other ethics as exclusives.

 

[SamuraiLordofWii]

does not start out as Spiritualist to acquire psionics by shifting their empire ethics to Spiritualist over the course of the game, and once you start down the Psionic path it is possible to continue along it even if you stop being Spiritualist

I agree; non-spiritual psionics are far more common in sci-fi than spiritual ones. Of course Stellaris has every right to establish its own cosmology, but for a game that intentionally seems to rely on (a) referencing so many other franchises and (b) allows its players a huge degree of customization it feels like an unfortunate limitation.

I would have preferred if, say, everyone can pick the 1st Ascension Perk, but the 2nd may be limited to Spiritualists. That way it becomes more of a genetic/evolutionary thing (in that every species may get latent psychics), whereas only spiritual cultures can maintain the discipline necessary to develop these abilities further. This would not only deal with most of the customization limits, but it'd also preserve high-tier psychic gameplay as an Ethos-exclusive thing.

... I mean, I doubt robots as buildable Pops will become a Materialist-only thing with 1.5, right? Why not mirror this very sensible compromise for the Spiritualist Ethos, too?

So as you may see changing your ethos is possible and you can unlock it and just change to materialist so you can have a psionics and dont need to be spiritualist to finish it just to start it. Beside that i like the idea of putting things to a ethos since in late game it could be kinda boring to face allways the same mix of robot slave psionic armys so it would make the whole game a bit more diversd since different empires bring different kind of troops and techs to the battlefield. It was also anyoing that everybody just could rush psy jump drives. I bet the other ethos get some nice bonis too and now you can creat your new race even more as you wish them. I think for rpg reasons thats great.

And it give the ethos some kind of speciality. So gameplay wise it make a lot sense and help make the game a bit more alive sinc you now really can meet total different empires and there ethos matter in way more ways. Befor ethos just gave you some bonies but it neverreally make you total different then other empires exept some buldings any maybe some potical decisions.
The game is also really mod friendly i bet there is soon after realse a new mod which remove that resitriction and i rember also that people complained it can be to dull to play with to mutch freedome befor they added shiproles to the classes. because you could easy overun all with corvetts since there was no limitation for how you can use ships.

 

[Roddo]

I have my moneyzz ready.
BRING IT ONNN

 

[Xoatl]

I agree that non-spiritualists should still gain access to a (very) limited psychic tech pool. Even if it would be limited to just the psychic equivalent of the "Hyperlane Mapping" tech non-hyperlane users have that allows them to see the hyperlanes. Even materialists would see that there is something there, even if they can't really interact with it much.

I don't think non-spiritualists should gain access even to the first Species Endgame Perk. It seems like the idea behind them is that an empire will always take both, even if it's like the second and the seventh picks. Since they are mutually exclusive Perk paths, it seems like bad design to allow a player to screw their own game up by either giving up on the second Perk or forcing an ethos change.

I certainly hope AI will not be exclusive to the Synthetic Perk path, but who knows? Synthetic path does have their own exclusive thing though: converting biological pops into cyborgs and eventually synths. I imagine that is one of their unique things, rather than AIs.
I'm more worried about the Biomastery Perk path and its unique features.

I don't think its fair to say an empire will always take both, maybe for the AI. But if what Saint suggested is implemented even that will be minimized. I have a couple playthroughs in mind that involve hybrids and some of the other ascension perks like megastructures.

 

[SnakeInATopHat]

Cool, I'm hyped again

 

[Atlantians]

Will the FEs have any opinions about regular empires trying to look into the Shroud? Will the spiritualist FEs gaze into the Shroud from time to time, or have they learned better?

Maybe they made the shroud?

Kind of like how the Vorlons made telepaths.

 

[VoodooEconomist]

The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father

 

[Me_]

Like many others, I too hope that spiritualist FE will get some role in following this path. I also wonder: what will happen if more than 1 species achieves transcendence?

 

[Esurnir]

Am I correct to assume some of the good stuff like psi jump drive and precog computers will now move to the shroud?

 

[Hertzila]

I don't think its fair to say an empire will always take both, maybe for the AI. But if what Saint suggested is implemented even that will be minimized. I have a couple playthroughs in mind that involve hybrids and some of the other ascension perks like megastructures.

You're not forced to, but why would you ever only take one, unless you really want to spend the Ascension Perks elsewhere? The first seems more like a stepping stone to the second than a Perk in its own right.

There are 8 Ascension Perk slots, so you do have plenty of space for other stuff. You might not even want to take any Species Endgame Perks and just go full Badass Normal with the other Ascension Perks.

 

[tanny]

What bad could happen going for +100% everything for 50 years? At worst I may abandon marked world. If several marked then so do other empires marked? Above all else I can sacrifice 30% of my planets just for that. And even out research, out produce AI rebellion. What bad could happen? The worst is to start off small again. But if AI rebellion can. Why can
t I?

 

[EU3NOOB]

 

[Madzai]

We want to make the ethics more distinct by giving them more unique mechanics, basically.

But wouldn't it put the progression on the rails too much? I mean would be there any reason to play as Spiritualistic Empire but not to go down Psy-path? Or to stop half-way down the path?

 

[Caspoi]

The biology path will probably be available to everyone to those of you worried about being unable to "ascend" due to wrong ethos combination.

 

[Hertzila]

What bad could happen going for +100% everything for 50 years? At worst I may abandon marked world. If several marked then so do other empires marked? Above all else I can sacrifice 30% of my planets just for that. And even out research, out produce AI rebellion. What bad could happen? The worst is to start off small again. But if AI rebellion can. Why can
t I?

How about 90% of your worlds get marked and after the time, your worlds simply die? Or get invaded with an absolutely ridiculously large psychic force? Wiz seemed pretty clear that it's generally a very bad idea. I'm expecting something closer to the birth of Slaanesh rather than a few Shroud Cultists.

 

[tanny]

Question:
In what way will this devdiary update affect the spiritualist Fallen Empire?

Spiritualists build dyson sphere. Materialists build science nexus. xenophile build sensor tower and xenophobe on ring world to keep everyone else away. Is that OK?

 

[TheWalkingLost]

We want to make the ethics more distinct by giving them more unique mechanics, basically.

Does that translate to things like Robots being for Materialists only?