Stellaris Dev Diary #63: Synthetic and Biological Ascension

[BlackUmbrellas]

Them continuing to use an icon is not a better point. Never have they ever thrown out a perfectly serviceable piece of graphic design while creating an expansion and that they chose to continue using the icon for "conformist" after either reassigning it to a different trait or reworking the conformist trait so it's compatible with the changes in Utopia does not prove that "ethics divergence on an individual level is still a thing."

Ethos shifting on an individual level is absolutely still going to be a thing. But it won't be the ethics divergence you think it is.

Theory: Conformist/Deviant will now boost/lower POP attraction to the governing Ethos of their owner.

 

[Peko?]

Theory: Conformist/Deviant will now boost/lower POP attraction to the governing Ethos of their owner.

The 'Ethics Divergence' modifier is replaced with a 'Government Ethics Attraction' modifier.

I can't do a "real" quote because the thread is locked.

 

[Timithios]

If you take the first ascension peak of any 3 paths. You will be automatic locked from taking a second path. That is how I understand Utopia 1.5 will work barring any major change between now and then.

Darn, oh well, someone might mod that in if that happens to be the case. Otherwise that just means I'm going to be losing out on some head canon for my primary species.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Darn, oh well, someone might mod that in if that happens to be the case. Otherwise that just means I'm going to be losing out on some head canon for my primary species.

The new implementation does basically the same thing, just through the new mechanics.

Currently in 1.4, Deviant makes a POP have higher ethics divergence and thus more likely to diverge to opposing or unaligned Ethos than the government that controls it.

In 1.5, Deviant will (likely) make a POP less attracted to the Ethos of the government that controls it, meaning outside factors can more easily sway it to joining a different Ethos.

Same in reverse goes for Conformist.

 

[Tavior]

Darn, oh well, someone might mod that in if that happens to be the case. Otherwise that just means I'm going to be losing out on some head canon for my primary species.

Hive Mind gov has it worse. They are limited to only biological ascension so you don't have an alternative choice.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Well, you have one alternate choice. Not ascending at all.

Spend those points getting your hive mind 5 extra core worlds, the ability to build space habitats, drastically reducing the cost of terraforming worlds, a massive increase to your fleet strength, extra attack power against Fallen Empires, extra attack power against end game events, or any of a number of awesome powers.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

Darn, oh well, someone might mod that in if that happens to be the case. Otherwise that just means I'm going to be losing out on some head canon for my primary species.

I know what you mean. I do hope someone mods it so we can do all three.

Hey I just thought of something: do computer controlled empires try to ascend as well?

 

[Tindalosihound]

The Tau are the only species actively researching artificial intelligence. I could say it was Syncretic Evolution but the Earth Caste are more artisans and engineers than manual labor.

This is true, but the Synthetic Ascension path is not an inevitable consequence of AI. The Tau have shown little interest in major cybernetic augmentation, and their memory engrams treated more as tools than as intelligences.

 

[chrisjwmartin]

Still no dev responses. That excuse you were all giving about "It's GDC week!" is starting to look rather untenable.

And before you fanbois reflexively call me a troll, take a look at my profile to see how many Paradox games I own. I'm concerned because I want the game to be a success and not be abandoned.

 

[Peko?]

Still no dev responses. That excuse you were all giving about "It's GDC week!" is starting to look rather untenable.

And before you fanbois reflexively call me a troll, take a look at my profile to see how many Paradox games I own. I'm concerned because I want the game to be a success and not be abandoned.

People take you a lot less seriously when you try to dismiss people who disagree with you as "fanbois".

 

[chrisjwmartin]

People take you a lot less seriously when you try to dismiss people who disagree with you as "fanbois".

Funny, as I take people a lot less seriously when they try to dismiss people who disagree with them as "trolls".

 

[jady]

Hoping for the next DD to answer all questions.

 

[Peko?]

Hoping for the next DD to answer all questions.

Don't, it wont.

 

[Iskierka]

You're wrong. The screen shot they showed of the attractiveness of the Authoritarian faction had four different empire wide affects that either add or reduce the attractiveness of Authoritarianism. These aren't aggregate from the individual populations response to your empire taking Domination Traditions. Some affects, like being in an autocratic government or your empire having Authoritarian Ethos, will create a set amount of Ethos attraction that guaranty's a certain percentage of your population will shift towards that ethic.

And three that are very not empire-wide; one planet-based, one completely individual, and one species-based (if there's no way to enslave only part of a species). The wording is also that a Pop is attracted to it, implying on an individual level - not broad-based movements across the whole empire. Having slaves on a planet increases attraction to authoritarian, but only for that planet. So the attraction value is aggregate, else there's no point it even existing as it would be irrelevant with different planets having different situations.

They either removed it, or revamped it so heavily that it is no longer applicable to your complaints and no longer suitably described by the term Divergence. Either way you're splitting hairs here. Ethics divergence used to operate either by shifting your population either towards your empire ethos, or away in a random direction, thus the use of the term divergence. Your strategy was 'mind control lazers' 'unity temples' and 're-education plants.' In the long term, you converted deviant populations to your own ethos and you stopped having problems with them. You still seem to think this is how it will operate despite presumably having read the explanation that it no longer will operate that way.

As of Utopia what happens is that your populations will shift ethos to reach a mean close to the attractiveness stats that you can see on the page I linked. This mean is reached by a combination of local affects AND empire wide affects and populations affected by these local affects will also have a higher percentage chance of being the ones that shift into that ethos to bring you up to the mean. Mind control lazers may still be a thing, but if they do anything, it's going to be a bonus to the attractiveness of your empire's ethos, it won't be flipping the switch on some populations so that their ethos shift towards you instead of randomly away from you.

I feel I really should point out they never said getting rid of ethics divergence. At any point. Just getting rid of the randomness factor and making it more meaningful where they diverge to. That 100% does not in any way preclude pops that are fundamentally less attracted to the main ethos, which means there are more pops who are attracted to the others, who will still be a problem to address in non-individualist empires - which was the entire point that you're restricted to either individualist, or spiritualist to pull them into your own ethos strongly enough.

If you're looking through individuals anyway, no information is obscured and the portrait picture gives no additional information <...>

I'm looking through individuals on a basis of "okay, their bar is about here, so they're fine but these ones are a problem. Why, where did they come from, when, will this resolve itself given more time or do I want to more actively address it?"

And all of this is predicated on the assumption that the AI will even regularly take Synthetic Ascension as a path.

How? Synths still exist without synthetic ascension - they are the prerequisite for the first stage of it. AI wouldn't have to ascend at all and this will still be a massive pain when both your normal synths, their synths, and uSynths all look exactly alike

 

[celethiel]

yay! *makes my primary species delicious, so that we can canabalistically eat ourselves out of existance*

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I feel I really should point out they never said getting rid of ethics divergence.

No, what they did was describe a complete overhauling and reworking of how pop ethos works that makes the idea of ethics divergence incompatible.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-54-ethics-rework.987286/page-2#post-22182723

Someone quoted this post earlier, the thread is locked now since it's an old developer diary, but earlier you claimed the existence of Conformist and Deviant icons proved ethics divergence was still a thing. By the same reasoning, finding out now that Conformist and Deviant no longer affect ethics divergence must give you some inkling that you're wrong about this?

 

[Timithios]

The new implementation does basically the same thing, just through the new mechanics.

Currently in 1.4, Deviant makes a POP have higher ethics divergence and thus more likely to diverge to opposing or unaligned Ethos than the government that controls it.

In 1.5, Deviant will (likely) make a POP less attracted to the Ethos of the government that controls it, meaning outside factors can more easily sway it to joining a different Ethos.

Same in reverse goes for Conformist.

I'm thinking this was supposed to be a response to someone else.

 

[Vahouth]

So Wiz won't answer no questions?

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

So Wiz won't answer no questions?

Yeah, that'll get you a response. Because if a developer rushing against a deadline with a long list of things he'd like to include and the knowledge he can't implement all of them no matter how hard he tries wants anything, it's to establish a precedence where people in the forums can summon hm by name.

 

[AndragonLea]

Oh Wiz, I summon ye appear for me!
*lights incense candle and chants nonsense*

This will surely solve all my problems... Surely.

It stands to reason.

*rotates patented Wiz prayer beads*