Stellaris Dev Diary #63: Synthetic and Biological Ascension

[Anaris]

Debating with me pointless only because you don't debate and don't read what i try to say. Cheer.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

In "game balance" biological path seems most weak path.

Well that's most likely wrong.

Just looking over the Biological Ascension only gene modding bonuses and you can meet almost every advantage of being synthetic. Then you have additional options that being synthetic doesn't allow.

In game no one can take all techs. Materialist cant take psy tech without psy scientist, xenophobes cant take Visitor Center, individualists cant take repeatable tech that improve slaves etc. So why repeatable tech that improve lifespan cant be hided for empires with biological path?

It could be, this point flew over your head.

Biological Ascension represents a fundamental shift in the culture and philosophy of your empire so that your people embrace biological research and modification as common place and desirable. Biological Ascension isn't a type of research. It has a research prerequisite and makes other technologies available to research, but it isn't research itself.

Life extension via biological engineering and manipulation is already in the game as a repeatable technology, it is research. You now need to justify why a new technology, exclusive only to those who have taken to Biological Ascension, that does the same thing only better is a good idea. Repeating a misuse of the word 'unrealistic' isn't going to do that.

On a side note, I don't actually care if Biological Ascension gets its own exclusive technology that grants its people biological immortality. Your arguments for a moment convinced me that I should disagree with you, just by the weight of how you made them, and I recognize that as my fault.

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...so... we now speaking about future and biological path to ascention, right?

No honey, we're talking about realism. Do try to keep up.

 

[Elfwind]

All those emotions serve a purpose, hatred gives you the drive to destroy your enemies before they destroy you. fear keeps you alive. Lust keeps the planet populated. apathy helps you deal with hos absurd the universe really is, selfishness is self interest and the enlightened form of it is probably the best morality principle that mankind had produced to date, also altruism is a myth, pride? what is that word even supposed to mean? And stability is the opposite of change, in an ever changing universe there can be no stability. Also we have plenty of cultures and that's awesome. Adaptability is the only really good point you make. And strength is a nonsense word, unless you mean physical strength because then you're just plan wrong. Symbolic strength is like willpower, or being pure of heart, or any such meaningless phrase.
Most of that is a religious breakdown of the so called vices. Well turns out the vices are things evolution gave us to keep us alive.

And when human beings develop world altering power I'm sure it'll end up in perfectly responsible hands every time (/s). If you are not strong (in terms of military strength) some xeno race will eventually take advantage. Emotions still have very negative sides and the positives can be achieved through sensible thought. Pride causes vulnerabilities, it cannot be a part of a culture that survives the cold darkness of space. I have no problem with multiple cultures, but without an adaptable but stable government periods of instability offer a window for others to exploit.

I'm surprised you were unable to correlate strength with military power instead thinking I meant physical power or symbolism. In either case you give humanity too much credit, if people like Stalin or Hitler can exist once they can exist again and if they obtain means to control people utterly or destroy others they will use it, thinking themselves justified. This is why humanity needs to conquer it's emotional weaknesses or it will destroy itself.

 

[TheDungen]

And when human beings develop world altering power I'm sure it'll end up in perfectly responsible hands every time (/s). If you are not strong (in terms of military strength) some xeno race will eventually take advantage. Emotions still have very negative sides and the positives can be achieved through sensible thought. Pride causes vulnerabilities, it cannot be a part of a culture that survives the cold darkness of space. I have no problem with multiple cultures, but without an adaptable but stable government periods of instability offer a window for others to exploit.

I'm surprised you were unable to correlate strength with military power instead thinking I meant physical power or symbolism. In either case you give humanity too much credit, if people like Stalin or Hitler can exist once they can exist again and if they obtain means to control people utterly or destroy others they will use it, thinking themselves justified. This is why humanity needs to conquer it's emotional weaknesses or it will destroy itself.

Emotions have good sides and bad sides but that goes for both the classical virtues and the classical vices, and while yes you can approximate their effect through reason you're missing the point, emotions are cognitive shortcuts, they allow leaps of intuition and instincts where you would spend hours using rationality. Pride can cause vulnerability yes but lack of pride lack of self confidence is equally damaging. Pride can also push us to excel. We would be the lesser without any of these emotions. True they need to be controlled, we must be in charge of our emotions rather then them being in charge of us, but don't dismiss them until you truly understand them. And stability is just another word for stagnation. Let there be chaos and let us learn from it and cope with it and be better because of it.

And your strength as military strength thing... are we talking game terms here because the military strength is far less important than economic strength even in our modern world. And guess what Hitler and Stalin failed, because they failed to see that military power is secondary to economic power, they underestimated the US and put their own systems under the burden of supporting a war machine they could not support. Hitler's foolish pursuit of power drove away the very people who would give his enemies powers he could only dream about.

Thus perish all tyrants. It wasn't classical vices that made these men evil nor led to their defeat, in both cases it was because they were stupid.

 

[Anaris]

Well that's most likely wrong.

Just looking over the Biological Ascension only gene modding bonuses and you can meet almost every advantage of being synthetic. Then you have additional options that being synthetic doesn't allow

Immortality, 200%adaptation, 20% buff to all production is more weak than +30% adaptation, +30 years of lifespan and/or bonuces to minerals(?)/science(20%)/happiness(5%) for a some castes of your society. I understand you.

It could be, this point flew over your head. Biological Ascension is the act of focusing your empire on researching biological engineering and manipulation. Life extension via biological engineering and manipulation is already in the game as a repeatable technology. You now have to come up with a reason to justify adding a second means of life extension via biological engineering and manipulation, and misusing the word "unrealistic" isn't going to get you there.

Do you know, everyone still take profit from robots/synth and Psionic Theory? And biology, yes. Empires with spiritual path to ascention/no path still can research this repeatable tech, because they have no acces to more powerful traits from biological path.
Synth for all -> Cybernetic path.
Psionic Theory for all -> Spiritualist path.
Simple genetic engineering for all -> Biology path.
Its simple. Stop be stubborn and admit it, "honey".

No honey, we're talking about realism. Try to keep up.

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...so... now we don't speaking about future and biological path of ascention, right?)

 

[Primarch Victus]

So, in an ultra-micromanaged playstyle, would it be viable to genemod only part of your species to be Erudites and put that part on research, gene-modify another part to be thrifty and put those on energy and so forth?

Yes, it would be interesting to genemodd our entire species into high-specialized castes -- with the Administrators and/or Researchers having the Erudite trait and Workers/Soldiers having the Robust trait, etc.

 

[Elfwind]

True they need to be controlled, we must be in charge of our emotions rather then them being in charge of us, but don't dismiss them until you truly understand them. And stability is just another word for stagnation. Let there be chaos and let us learn from it and cope with it and be better because of it.

I think we have a perspective misalignment. This is what I was trying to get at, that our emotions must not limit us or provide ourselves or our enemies the means to destroy us. Limited suffering is good for people, while it's important to have places where one can find peace of mind, too many comfort zones breed stagnation and weakness. But too much suffering also brings stagnation and even reversal. Controlled chaos and emotions would be best for humanity. A system of government built upon wisdom and vision can be stable and adaptable. We need leaders who are solution driven not agenda driven. This is what I'm trying to get at, forgive me if I lack the proficiency in words to communicate it. =) I think we're actually trying to say much the same thing, just with different words!

Thus perish all tyrants. It wasn't classical vices that made these men evil nor led to their defeat, in both cases it was because they were stupid.

Stupid as they may have been, they cost over 60 million lives compared to the 9 million lost in world war one. My fear isn't that tyrants will persist in their control, but rather that they would take us with them in their downfall. Especially with emergent technological advances giving ever increasing power potential.

While we haven't seen a world war for a while, and hopefully for the last time, space based ambition and pursuit of resources will inevitably bring conflict which underscores the need for Earth to have a considerable measure of military strength. At least the capacity to make and sustain war like you say.

 

[TheDungen]

I think we have a perspective misalignment. This is what I was trying to get at, that our emotions must not limit us or provide ourselves or our enemies the means to destroy us. Limited suffering is good for people, while it's important to have places where one can find peace of mind, too many comfort zones breed stagnation and weakness. But too much suffering also brings stagnation and even reversal. Controlled chaos and emotions would be best for humanity. A system of government built upon wisdom and vision can be stable and adaptable. We need leaders who are solution driven not agenda driven. This is what I'm trying to get at, forgive me if I lack the proficiency in words to communicate it. =) I think we're actually trying to say much the same thing, just with different words!



Stupid as they may have been, they cost over 60 million lives compared to the 9 million lost in world war one. My fear isn't that tyrants will persist in their control, but rather that they would take us with them in their downfall. Especially with emergent technological advances giving ever increasing power potential.

While we haven't seen a world war for a while, and hopefully for the last time, space based ambition and pursuit of resources will inevitably bring conflict which underscores the need for Earth to have a considerable measure of military strength. At least the capacity to make and sustain war like you say.

What I am getting at is that there are no absolutes, we'll develop the way we develop and deal with the issues that arise from it.

Saying things like "this and this and this needs to happen" just limits us, locks us into certain avenues of thought that make us less able to change our tactics mid stride if we need to.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Okay, lets go ahead and try to start fresh here. I'm sorry I was so dismissive of your misuse of the word unrealistic, it's quite probable you are simply expressing what is a perfectly reasonable thought poorly. I'll try to have an open mind.

Immortality, 200%adaptation, 20% buff to all production is more weak than +30% adaptation, +30 years of lifespan and/or bonuces to minerals(?)/science(20%)/happiness(5%) for a some castes of your society. I understand you.

200% habitability looks good on paper, but everything past the first 40% is usually wasted. But in biological habitability you match that by tailoring your population to be within the same climate group of that set of planets. Gives a base habitability of 60%, tech advancements bump that up to 70% and a frontier hospital up to 80%. Now, admittedly edge here goes to Synthetics as the biological player needs to engage in two small science projects at a greatly reduced cost to perform those gene modifications.

Now, if you did want to use the 30% adaptation enhancement, which you shouldn't because it's going to cost at least 5 trait points. That would be 30% in addition to the 20% you'd get from Extremely Adaptive for a total of +50% That lets you colonize any planet in the galaxy. Even a tomb world before you get the tech that makes it's base habitability 40% has a habitability of 0%. Your 50% base gets another 10% from technology and 10% from a frontier hospital for a total of 70% habitability. If you get the tech that adds 40% to that you can scrap your frontier hospital. And a complete climate mismatch gets you 80% without the use of a frontier hospital.

20% buff to all production except food is impressive, but erudite gives +20% research and +1 leader level. Proles gives +30% mineral production. Thrifty gives +15% energy production. And delicious doubles food production, if they're livestock. If they're not livestock agrarian gives +15% food. I was being generous when I said match, a good gene engineer caste system will outstrip synthetics in every arena except energy, and maybe in energy too.

Population growth. Synthetics grow at a linear rate of 1 population every 5 years or 30 months. Biological species will grow in a curve, getting their first and most important populations significantly faster, and their last populations a bit slower. Advantage to organics.

Population cost. A synthetic costs 180 energy to produce. That is 150 energy up front, and 1 energy a month for every month of their 30 months of growth. Biological populations grow for free if you simply maintain enough food growth to support your population. Advantage to organics.

Population maintenance. Synthetics cost 1 energy to maintain, organics 1 food. Now, you'd think advantage to organics since synthetics have to treat food tiles like blank tiles, but actually this advantage goes to synthetics. Food over production is an inevitable waste, but there is no such thing as too much energy. Power hubs also create an energy multiplication effect that you don't get with food.

So, while I don't think you understood me before, I hope you understand me now when I say, from what we know right now, Synthetics are less powerful than an organic ascension empire. Maybe that'll change as more information becomes available, so you're only most likely wrong.

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...so... now we don't speaking about future and biological path of ascention, right?)

We're speaking about whether you can say mortality is unrealistic. Realism is, by definition, that which most closely adheres to reality. Old age and death is reality. I hope that explains to you why you should find a different word to use to describe your position.

 

[chrisjwmartin]

He is probably still asleep as he is in San Francisco.

Still not replied, has he. And he's only been doing a handful of replies to recent diaries, too.

I think his heart's not in it any more since he made all that money on the stock flotation.

 

[Caspoi]

Since the introduction of global food, which will come with the DLC discussed, there is no longer any real "food overproduction" until you reach the point where you can't grow your pops due to lack of empty tiles or lack of pop existance.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I'm not familiar with global food? How is it different than our current system of excess food giving a small increase to population growth?

 

[SevenSerpents]

I'm not familiar with global food? How is it different than our current system of excess food giving a small increase to population growth?

Global food makes it so food is a collected resource a la minerals and energy credits, as opposed to being limited to the world it's on.

 

[Lord Lag]

Here's what I'm curious about: How would a synth ascended empire and an AI uprising interact?

 

[Xoatl]

Global food makes it so food is a collected resource a la minerals and energy credits, as opposed to being limited to the world it's on.

The term "global food" is misleading because what we have now is technically "global food". Perhaps galactic food would be more appropriate. This is a similar problem I had with names like Erudite and Mechanists. English is already a complicated language now imagine Swedes trying to English to the rest of the English speaking world.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Okay, very nice and a welcome addition. Any idea whether they're going to add a 20% food multiplier tile building?

Either way I'm still gonna go ahead and give the edge to Synthetics. Though it's much closer.

 

[Tholok]

@Wiz

Feedback on this ...
I think in general, it would be great to be able to mix and match a little and get at least some of the lower level abilities of the three paths regardless of which you choose. I would like to play 'psionic' with gene warriors, in particular. In general for the specialisms I would like to get some new stuff rather than divide up old stuff.

Biological Path
Specialist buildings? Ship components? Hulls? Nightmarish xeno-warriors?

Synth Path
I would like to be able to keep my existing species portrait and also have the option of having it hologrammatic. There is no reason why an advanced species could not make their robot bodies look like their old biological bodies. This would not require new art but I would like the option of having something other than the unappealing, existing synth portrait.

I would like more to be made of uploads.

Specialist buildings? Ship components? Hulls? Nightmarish xeno-warriors?

In fact ... Psionic Path
Specialist buildings? Ship components? Hulls? Nightmarish xeno-warriors?

 

[Xoatl]

@Wiz

Feedback on this ...
I think in general, it would be great to be able to mix and match a little and get at least some of the lower level abilities of the three paths regardless of which you choose. I would like to play 'psionic' with gene warriors, in particular. In general for the specialisms I would like to get some new stuff rather than divide up old stuff.

Biological Path
Specialist buildings? Ship components? Hulls? Nightmarish xeno-warriors?

Synth Path
I would like to be able to keep my existing species portrait and also have the option of having it hologrammatic. There is no reason why an advanced species could not make their robot bodies look like their old biological bodies. This would not require new art but I would like the option of having something other than the unappealing, existing synth portrait.

I would like more to be made of uploads.

Specialist buildings? Ship components? Hulls? Nightmarish xeno-warriors?

In fact ... Psionic Path
Specialist buildings? Ship components? Hulls? Nightmarish xeno-warriors?

Some of that is already there. The dev diary makes mention that the gene-seed purification tech is available after going down the bio path. Similarly the psionic path unlocks psionic armies and the psicorp building.

 

[Lothmar]

Since the introduction of global food, which will come with the DLC discussed, there is no longer any real "food overproduction" until you reach the point where you can't grow your pops due to lack of empty tiles or lack of pop existance.

True but as we've seen its the smallest cap (even with varying policies) except for maybe influence ranging from like 100-1000 between the two empires.
Granted if everything over the 'storage' goes towards pop growth then yes it's great, it'd be equivalent to spending extra energy to more quickly manufacture a robot or extra resources to more quickly build a building and in the late game with surplus I usually wish that was a thing.

 

[Meneliki]

I apologize if this has already been covered.. but with regards to the new 'delicious' trait that we can gene-mod in.. how will this compare to setting species as food?

i.e. species a) Cull + Delicious vs. Species B) Process into food

which generates more food? Because of species A culling + Delicious approaches the efficiency of Processing species B, it kindof de-values processing species. Unless you actually specifically want them to die.

Just wondering how the 2 sums compare.

Thanks