Stellaris Dev Diary #78: Robomodding & Robot Changes

[Dr.Feel]

I wonder if there would be an option to forcibly cybernetically modify conquered species? Might be handy if you're playing as a certain hive-mind, adding to that, it would be nice if instead of purging alien pops, you could incorporate them into the hive as well?

 

[Wooomy]

I wonder if there would be an option to forcibly cybernetically modify conquered species? Might be handy if you're playing as a certain hive-mind, adding to that, it would be nice if instead of purging alien pops, you could incorporate them into the hive as well?

It's mentioned under Assimilation in this Dev Diary that it will, in fact, be added in 1.8.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...mind-improvements-tradition-swapping.1034124/

 

[Headjack]

For the love of Blorg and all; that is friendly, please bring back the functionality to purge or enslave an individual pop. You've got the button again, right? I just need SLIGHTLY fewer Globbians, just on their good planets and a merely a couple as domestic servants, but the rest should be chattel.

 

[Longu]

I just thought of a way you could have the purging of single pop without allowing for the ease of eradicating specific ethos.
If you could choose a planet, then a species, then a number and it randomly purges that number of that species on that planet.

 

[The_Sorrowful]

So, Is there no 'Caste' system for Synth? It seems like there are only 2 ways for synth - fully enslaved or fully being free

I'm so sad...... Some Synth could be more equal then other synth.

 

[Zergor]

So, Is there no 'Caste' system for Synth? It seems like there are only 2 ways for synth - fully enslaved or fully being free

I'm so sad...... Some Synth could be more equal then other synth.

Yup. the lack of answer on this is a problem. And thas will be even more problematic with factions. If you transform everyone into synths and you have an autoritarian faction this will greatly displease them because you don't have a stratified society anymore.
I don't really understand why synth are not simply treated as any other specie. That way you could change their citizenship closely (they could have residence instead of full citizenship or slavery for instance), you could also change their consumer goods. Why can't synth in an equalitarian society live with utopian standards ? They are less equal ?

Synth should have exactly the same options as biological species (except being eaten and chemical bliss that don't make sense for non bio) and the IA policy would just reduce the possible choices (full citizenship and residence can't be given if slave or non sentient are chosen) the same way ethos already reduce your choices for bio species.

And bonus you should be able to have multiple synth species so you can give different rights to different synth and also chose which type of synth a specie will ascend to. I don't see why your slave species should magically get the same rights as your main specie when you put them into robotic bodies.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Consumer goods settings aren't really relevant for a synth, since they don't need the same comforts as normal pops do. Instead, what you could have is a leisure time setting. Synths don't need time off to rest or relax, they could be working constantly. However, the setting for leisure time would allow the player to determine how much time they actually have to work. Giving them more free time to do as they please means that they'd be happier and more effective at research. On the other hand, less time means that they're more efficient and can accomplish more while producing resources. Baring the use of a caste system on your sythns, you now have an important decision to make on whether you make them better at research or resource production, with all the baggage that comes with that choice. If you do have a caste system, you're able to make the most efficient use of your synths while also still having the option to make them property. However, this causes other problems with egalitarians and puts the workerbots in conflict with the thinkerbots.

 

[Sapa Inca]

The probaly reason that synths dont use caste system is because synths right will affect The Contingency crisis and the AI uprising internal event and this 2 events are probably balanced around 3 types of rights: Outlawed, servitude and citizenship.
Another problem is that the devs are trying make every synth right have pros and cons, outlawed are for maintain spiritualist faction happy, servitude is for use servitude exclusive robotic traits and citizenship is for a reduced risk of AI uprising and more efficiency in research and energy. Caste systems in the current design will break the balance and the strategical decision of what right you choose give to your robots.
Another problem is that apparently (see the gene modding template dev diary) you cant set different rights for different subspecies so you cant set different rights for different types of synths.
I think that in overall the current design put more importance in the strategical decision of what right your synths have, a caste system or sub-species of synths with different rights would be always the best min max decision and remove the strategical importance of choose different rights in different situations.

 

[Warchild421]

Will this fix the issue of going synth ascension and being stuck at whatever Citizen Rights you had prior to upgrading your entire population over to synths?

 

[Zergor]

Consumer goods settings aren't really relevant for a synth, since they don't need the same comforts as normal pops do. Instead, what you could have is a leisure time setting. Synths don't need time off to rest or relax, they could be working constantly. However, the setting for leisure time would allow the player to determine how much time they actually have to work. Giving them more free time to do as they please means that they'd be happier and more effective at research. On the other hand, less time means that they're more efficient and can accomplish more while producing resources. Baring the use of a caste system on your sythns, you now have an important decision to make on whether you make them better at research or resource production, with all the baggage that comes with that choice. If you do have a caste system, you're able to make the most efficient use of your synths while also still having the option to make them property. However, this causes other problems with egalitarians and puts the workerbots in conflict with the thinkerbots.

I disagree. Synth don't have biological need but as sentient being they still have aspirations, hobbies and cravings. I don't see why a Synth would not want the latest car (or futuristic equivalent), a big house, art, a good computer, a good phone (or futuristic equivalent), etc...
People like to own things. And I don't see why beeing in a metal body would change that. Saying that synth don't need to relax and would work all the time is like saying you ignore the whole sentient part of them and use them as the machine they seem to be and that's slavery.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

I disagree. Synth don't have biological need but as sentient being they still have aspirations, hobbies and cravings. I don't see why a Synth would not want the latest car (or futuristic equivalent), a big house, art, a good computer, a good phone (or futuristic equivalent), etc...
People like to own things. And I don't see why beeing in a metal body would change that. Saying that synth don't need to relax and would work all the time is like saying you ignore the whole sentient part of them and use them as the machine they seem to be and that's slavery.

A synth wouldn't need to relax because the synth doesn't have bodily functions that force them to. If you're denying them hobbies or free time, you are effectively putting them in slavery. My argument is for assigning them different amounts of personal time since that's going to be the major deciding factor for what their lifestyle is going to be like. Almost all synths would live a much more spartan lifestyle. When it comes to a home, they don't need anything more than a storage space they can fit in that also contains all their belongings. They don't need to stretch or work muscles. They don't feel claustrophobic. They don't need to store or prepare food. They don't need a bed to sleep in or chairs to relax in. Clothing and laundry is unnecessary. You cut out so much that there's no sense in having them be heavy consumers. Giving them access to what a person would call utopian living standards means very little to an extremely efficient logic based intelligence.

Yes they have hobbies, aspirations, and desires, but think about what they'd actually spend their time on. Are synths likely to spend a lot of time in bars, relaxing in spas, or watching the latest movie on the largest television they can find? They're far more likely to want to run through lots and lots of logic puzzles, maybe they take extensive art classes, or maybe they just explore and observe the natural environment. These things are all time intensive but resource cheep. The costs of them maintaining this lifestyle would be felt in their reduced output far more than in their increased maintenance costs.

 

[Insane Commander]

A synth wouldn't need to relax because the synth doesn't have bodily functions that force them to. If you're denying them that, you are effectively putting them in slavery. My argument is for assigning them different amounts of personal time since that's going to be the major deciding factor for what their lifestyle is going to be like. Almost all synths would live a much more spartan lifestyle. When it comes to a home, they don't need anything more than a storage space they can fit in that also contains all their belongings. They don't need to stretch or work muscles. They don't feel claustrophobic. They don't need to store or prepare food. They don't need a bed to sleep in or chairs to relax in. Clothing and laundry is unnecessary. You cut out so much that there's no sense in having them be heavy consumers. Giving them access to what a person would call utopian living standards means very little to an extremely efficient logic based intelligence.

Yes they have hobbies, aspirations, and desires, but think about what they'd actually spend their time on. Are synths likely to spend a lot of time in bars, relaxing in spas, or watching the latest movie on the largest television they can find? They're far more likely to want to run through lots and lots of logic puzzles, maybe they take extensive art classes, or maybe they just explore and observe the natural environment. These things are all time intensive but resource cheep. The costs of them maintaining this lifestyle would be felt in their reduced output far more than in their increased maintenance costs.

Good point. But what if they are uploaded minds? They would not feel fatigue, but might still have some desires. That would require some time, but not necessarily better living conditions. For example: they wouldn't need a computer to play games, they could do it in their positronic brains.

 

[Chimera Imperius]

This looks neat but I have some questions:
When in the game would you expect to get the robomodding tech? early/mid/late
Is there going to be more robot portraits? (I like the robot blorg)
When is this update coming out? (or is the date still unannounced)

 

[dessoul]

When is this update coming out? (or is the date still unannounced)

For the rest i do not have some information, there is a lot of this infos somewhere in the forum discussed and sometimes you read "yes" and then "no" again. But for this question "when does it come out" they clearly stated, that they want to test it out as hell, for making sure, that the desaster, they had with patch 1.6, will not happen again. This patch did cause a lot of bugs, which made a lot of people quite frustrated at this time. So, they do not want to repeat this. Thankfully.
And because they do not know, how much time they need for this, they have declared, that they do not give out an exact date.
Plus, at the moment there are holidays in sweden. They have very little staff now. So, it will need some time. Just relax and be happy with the fact, that the upcoming patch will not destroy your game.

 

[TheAzureLiger]

Will sectors be smart about building robots? If I make different kinds of robots, will sectors build the default one or build my mining robots on mining networks?

 

[TheAtreides84]

Great changes. I remember talking about these exact things some time ago on the forums.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Hi Paradox, is it possible to bring back the purge button for individual pops? I know you are worried that it will make the factions weaker but I have a solution for it. How about the pop ethos is hidden from the player? Every pop will have an ethos but the player can't see it, the only indication they will have will be from faction happiness which can also be changed (instead of machine love happiness bonus just make it into 'faction approval'). It is a real pain for any enslaving empires to conquer worlds because if the world is full of pops then a specific planet will have to be a dump planet in order to shuffle the pops around.

I would simply add penalties to the purges. It's not like people aren't routinely killed for their ideas, but more often than not it radicalizes those remaining.

 

[TheAtreides84]

Positronic? Is that a real word or fantasy babble?

It's an Asimov quote.

 

[youstas]

If caste system had livestock, then that would be cannibalism? Maybe not exactly in your case, but got me to think of free pops eating enslaved pops, even if they're a fraction of the monthly food.
"Mom, that meat looks like aunt's tentacle"
"Son, what happens in the food surplus, stays in the food surplus."

 

[A-150]

Good point. But what if they are uploaded minds? They would not feel fatigue, but might still have some desires. That would require some time, but not necessarily better living conditions. For example: they wouldn't need a computer to play games, they could do it in their positronic brains.

If I was in a robot body I would never play video games in my positronic brain, I wouldn't want a game to lag my body to a crawl, or freeze my brain, or crash my system. So bad example