[Jokenjoin]

Personally looking forward to this Update and DLC. I play Stellaris often and I've seen a mod out there that adds Ascension and the Ability to build Megastructures. But the fact that it's now coming to the game as an actual feature is amazing. I'm wondering if the Devs keep track of the mods that come out or just the most popular ones. Hell, maybe they generally like how the modding community has improved Stellaris and are taking notes!

Regardless, This DLC and update seems very, very interesting. Can't wait to experiment with it!

 

[Xoatl]

I think the main Problem everyone has with Synth Ascension is very simple to explain:

As it is portayed it simply looks Half-Assed... Psi gets the Shroud, new Components, new Traits for species AND leaders... Biology gets new awesome traits, the abillity to add negative ones and remove positive ones...

Synths?
Everyone becomes a synth and thats it... And you need Synths as base tec to even go down this path.... SOOOO

Why should you? You can go down the Bio-path or Psi-path and just build Synths wherever you want, no need to invest in ascension... leader lifespan is only a Issue in early to midgame... when you won't profit from this Ascension.

Why should you invest the valuable points you could use for Mega structures or more Fleet-Capacity,Better Terraforming or Ringworlds for something you could do anyway?
You can Justify anything with RP but thats not the point... the question is:...

WHY SHOULD ANYONE USE THIS?

I think an interesting unique feature with synth could be that it's the only one that can befriend a crisis (AI revolt). While the others (Psi/unbidden and bio/preythoryn) can't do that. It ould add to a synth playthrough and go with the "asymmetry of ethos" that Wiz loves so much.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I'm not sure that getting a pass on the game's Big Boss is really much of a feature.

 

[I am Sovereign]

For a multi species empire being it based upon slavery or equality the biologial ascension path is far more powerful then the synthetic one (when you are ready to do all the micromanagment and if the sector AI does no screw up to assign the most useful pops to gain maximum net profit). As you can design a designated species for every task in your empire, even for the different types of science production.

Its not so much effective for a Purger who might should consider the synthetic ascension path.

I also think thats why hive minds are only able to integrate other species into the hive when they already completed the biological ascension path if there would be tons of species already conquered/migrated just waiting to become brought to their pinnacle of evolution by their hive mind overlords...

...it would have been just too ovepowered to give them that ability to early on. As the hive minds will get their own civics and powers, probably high growing rates and you never have to worry about ethos drift so that you can adapt your civics freely every (20?) years for 250 influence.

I'm not sure that getting a pass on the game's Big Boss is really much of a feature.

That crisis is broken and needs an overhaul or very strong buffs anyway.
Its far to weak atm and most users who encountered it would agree to that.

Actually helping this weak "crisis" which is normaly crushed by the AI in a few months would be funny.

 

[Name already in use]

Why do you think they'll show us at all? Why do you assume the options are that they "rushed" the Diary OR they have nothing to show us at all?

"Empirical study" over the last 3 years...

In all that time I have never seen a single expansion with unknown features. Every single mechanic was shown in the DDs.... Hell, they even made a DD that there is no DD bcause of holidays. Paradox always shows what is has and communicates with us. This makes them undeniably awesome...

Why should they have NOT shown everything, if they have been doing it for years?
Either this is everything or someone messed up...

If they don't show everything, why is there no hint for further content?
Why would they start with obscuring it RIGHT NOW in exactly this DD?
my explanation are the most simple I can think of, if you know any better ones, please tell me.

I'm not sure that getting a pass on the game's Big Boss is really much of a feature.

"Big Boss"... I'm always happy when they appear... that means I don't have to worry about a real crisis.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

"Big Boss"... I'm always happy when they appear... that means I don't have to worry about a real crisis.

Which should be considered a bug and not WAD. All the Crisis events should be assumed to be intended as major threats, whether they're currently bugged/not properly balanced or not.

 

[Daimonin]

And nobody from PDX seems even interested in sticking their nose in here to answer all the questions. Which also seems different from other DD's I've seen.

As for Synthetic Ascension being lamest of the 3... I gotta agree. Not only everything that Name already in use said, also the fact we don't seem to get different portraits for different synths... So you also lose out on the appearance when everyone looks the same.

At the very least, each species category should get a unique synth picture, and the AI Crisis should probably get a unique image too.

 

[Taritu]

They aren't replying because they seem to have all or close to all gone to GDC. Hopefully they'll get on it next week, because I really would like some answers about Synthetic Ascenscion.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

At the very least, each species category should get a unique synth picture, and the AI Crisis should probably get a unique image too.

I disagree that we need unique Synth portraits for every species or even every phenotypes- the Robot/Droid/Synth portraits are all similar for readability/UI purposes- you need to be able to tell at a glance what kind of POPs are on a world. Furthermore, the vast majority of species portraits across all phenotypes are of similarly humanoid proportions, which the Robot/Droid/Synth portraits match nicely while being unspecific enough that they're just "humanoid robot".

The Ascension-created Synths should have a unique colour scheme, sure, but brand new portraits? Nah.

(Also the AI Rebellion already has a unique portrait- its a spooky "corrupted" Robot/Droid/Synth with red lights and some extra glowing lines running across it.)

 

[Tavior]

And nobody from PDX seems even interested in sticking their nose in here to answer all the questions. Which also seems different from other DD's I've seen.

As for Synthetic Ascension being lamest of the 3... I gotta agree. Not only everything that Name already in use said, also the fact we don't seem to get different portraits for different synths... So you also lose out on the appearance when everyone looks the same.

At the very least, each species category should get a unique synth picture, and the AI Crisis should probably get a unique image too.

While AI crisis do have an unique portrait, slightly more red than other, but there isn't enough difference between all variation of droid/synthetic portrait themselves so I often myself checking if that is a droid or synthetic manually which should NOT be a thing at all period.

I think they may have more content to show off once they get back from PDX or in the upcoming DD.

 

[the glory of plain]

Synthetic Evolution seems lackluster indeed
biggest problem would be pop growth will be much slower then before which is weird
but cyborg looks much better then the first step of other paths
+20% habitability,bonuses to mineral production and army damage（likely similar to strong）and +40 years
cost 6 trait points for gene mod

 

[Dr. Quaz]

Can we have some more portraits for robot races considering we're probably gonna have a lot now? Just to make the different civilizations more visible?

 

[henzington]

And nobody from PDX seems even interested in sticking their nose in here to answer all the questions. Which also seems different from other DD's I've seen.

As for Synthetic Ascension being lamest of the 3... I gotta agree. Not only everything that Name already in use said, also the fact we don't seem to get different portraits for different synths... So you also lose out on the appearance when everyone looks the same.

At the very least, each species category should get a unique synth picture, and the AI Crisis should probably get a unique image too.

Wiz answers most questions and he was at gdc this week.

 

[Iskierka]

Synthetics definitely need a rework for this path to be worth it. The first step looks great, but the second is ... really bad without major changes, and then you're locked out from doing anything like level 1 synthetic and level 1 genetic, which would be much more attractive.

For starters, something I've not seen mentioned - when I tried to play an all-synth empire I noticed a fixed 15% ethics divergence increase on the synths, which made them a huge pain to manage even beyond having to build them. (Which they do at least imply you won't have to on twitter) With that you're either going to be spending a ton of effort preventing them all going off and doing their own thing and being unhappy when you try to do what you originally made the empire for, or you're locked into individualist to make it desirable, an ethos pretty much entirely unrelated to the synth ascension. Not fun.

Secondly, the portraits are going to be terrible. As has been mentioned, the lack of distinguishment is already a pain with them being so similar to droids. Furthering this, it's impossible to tell if they're your synths or were leftover from another empire you invaded, or migrated, or any such thing, so you're confused why a planet is unhappy, then notice oh, these synths have pretty much the opposite ethos of everyone else. Oh, because they're not mine. So now I need to fight to get negative ethics divergence for them against their low happiness to make the planet productive. This expansion is only going to make it worse when your ascended synths, who are presumably going to be at least slightly different, still look identical, and if they have all the other synth properties, will also diverge in ethics, screwing you over further, as well as needing a massive infrastructure rework to power them. Yes, I can prepare more power, but I need to be doing other things at the same time, I can't dedicate all power to be spare for the soon-to-be-synths over, for instance, navy maintenance.

All for a specialist pop that anyone can get access to. If they haven't significantly reworked synths in general, particularly to not lose the original much more specific and useful benefits of your species, I probably won't try this path until there's a mod that allows one of one, one of another, or similar diversification. Which is disappointing, because thematically, it was my favourite idea.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

For starters, something I've not seen mentioned - when I tried to play an all-synth empire I noticed a fixed 15% ethics divergence increase on the synths, which made them a huge pain to manage even beyond having to build them.

Ethics divergence is being completely redone. It's no longer based on specific populations drifting randomly, but instead is an empire wide tendency towards embracing specific ethos that is based on a combination of government choices and variables affecting an individual populations situation. So likely this won't be an issue.

Secondly, the portraits are going to be terrible.

Fair enough.

or any such thing, so you're confused why a planet is unhappy, then notice oh, these synths have pretty much the opposite ethos of everyone else.

Population ethos is also being redone. No longer will your populations have a fully formed ethos world view. Instead each population is given a single, non-fanatic, ethos that determines which faction they fit into. So, it's possible your materialistic militant authoritarians could invade a group of fanatically egalitarian materialists and you'll discover they have a bunch of egalitarians who hate you, but if they're synths, they'll probably also have a lot of materialists who are okay with you, a few militants who love you, and even fewer authoritarians who really love.

Point being the entire planet won't be a problem, there'll at least be one minority who discovers living in your empire is what they've always wanted. With the exception of xenophoboes, their xenophobe population will always be dicks.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/stellaris-dev-diary-54-ethics-rework.987286/

 

[Iskierka]

Ethics divergence is being completely redone. It's no longer based on specific populations drifting randomly, but instead is an empire wide tendency towards embracing specific ethos that is based on a combination of government choices and variables affecting an individual populations situation. So likely this won't be an issue.

I know about the ethics divergence rework. It still specifies individual species and such have their own tendencies, so a baseline ethics divergence modifier on synths would still be relevant and, until specified otherwise, can be presumed to still be present, so you still have to deal with them tending away from your preferred ethics, bizarrely, more than biological species would.

"while an alien empire purging pops of a particular species will massively increase the attraction for xenophobic for the species being purged." <-- logical extension of this is that a species can still have a preference for divergence, so their attraction to differing ethics will be increased. It's not a true empire-wide preference seen in the bars across the top, but an aggregate for all the preferences of all pops, which will be worse for those with high inherent divergence.

Population ethos is also being redone. No longer will your populations have a fully formed ethos world view. Instead each population is given a single, non-fanatic, ethos that determines which faction they fit into. So, it's possible your materialistic militant authoritarians could invade a group of fanatically egalitarian materialists and you'll discover they have a bunch of egalitarians who hate you, but if they're synths, they'll probably also have a lot of materialists who are okay with you, a few militants who love you, and even fewer authoritarians who really love.

Point being the entire planet won't be a problem, there'll at least be one minority who discovers living in your empire is what they've always wanted. With the exception of xenophoboes, their xenophobe population will always be dicks.

A minority don't prevent the problem, the rest still need to come to agree with the standing ethos, and with so little distinguishing them, you'll have no idea without individual testing which ones likely came with invasion so can be expected to take time, or are troublemakers of your own, or various other issues of getting a clear picture when every single species in the galaxy builds identical "Synth" species.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

It still specifies individual species and such have their own tendencies, so a baseline ethics divergence modifier on synths would still be relevant and, until specified otherwise, can be presumed to still be present,

Did you not read the entire paragraph explaining that they didn't like the random nature of ethics divergence and so were revamping that process into individual ethics having an attraction value? It has been stated otherwise, Ethics Divergence is out, your complaint has been addressed.

Now, if synths have a bonus to ethic attraction values, making them more prone to shifting to the ethics most attractive within your empire, this would actually make them better, not worse. Because the system that had pops shifting ethos randomly has been revamped, so flexibility in ethos changes, a buff to the new 'ethics attraction' stat, would allow your Synths to integrate faster into your new society.

A minority don't prevent the problem, the rest still need to come to agree with the standing ethos, and with so little distinguishing them, you'll have no idea without individual testing which ones likely came with invasion so can be expected to take time, or are troublemakers of your own, or various other issues of getting a clear picture when every single species in the galaxy builds identical "Synth" species.

It's okay, you're not going to be squinting your eyes at happiness bars to cope with 'troublemakers.' For two reasons, you can no longer purge individual populations and you'll find troublemakers are actually addressed from the new Faction screen. Worried that planet is going to rebel? Well, stop looking for trouble by reviewing every individual conquered synth on the Quebec colony, instead check the attitude and influence of the Parti Québécois faction. From there, you can also do things about them, like spend influence to crack down on those French Canadian whiners, or give into their demands of a dual official language.

Your complaints come from a narrow and incomplete view of the changes coming from the Utopia expansion. I don't blame you for this, the Utopia expansion isn't out yet. Still though, relax, they know what they're doing.

 

[Iskierka]

Did you not read the entire paragraph explaining that they didn't like the random nature of ethics divergence and so were revamping that process into individual ethics having an attraction value? It has been stated otherwise, Ethics Divergence is out, your complaint has been addressed.

Now, if synths have a bonus to ethic attraction values, making them more prone to shifting to the ethics most attractive within your empire, this would actually make them better, not worse. Because the system that had pops shifting ethos randomly has been revamped, so flexibility in ethos changes, a buff to the new 'ethics attraction' stat, would allow your Synths to integrate faster into your new society.

Perhaps you missed detail in that dev diary. Your empire overall does not have some abstract level of attraction for each that is universal to all pops and they'll all share it - the attraction across your empire shown in the screenshots is aggregate of the attraction to them by different pops. Nothing in the dev diary says that they've removed the concept of ethics divergence - in particular, nothing says they've removed conformist or its counterpart. The dev diary specifically talks about attraction of different ethos changing for different species, so it is still operating on an individual level, just a less random one. This still means that a species with a baseline +15% divergence will tend away from your empire's main ethics, making it harder to deal with them. It may be less apparent that they individually have more divergence, as its effect will be increased aggregate values of attraction for differing ethos within your empire versus if you didn't have any synths, but they will still cause problems, and it will specifically be the synths doing it.

It's okay, you're not going to be squinting your eyes at happiness bars to cope with 'troublemakers.' For two reasons, you can no longer purge individual populations and you'll find troublemakers are more addressed from the new Faction screen. Worried that planet is going to rebel? Well, stop looking for trouble by reviewing every individual conquered synth on the Quebec colony, instead check the attitude and influence of the Quebec Independence faction. From there, you can also do things about them, like spend influence to crack down on those French Canadian whiners, or give into their demands of a dual official language.

Your complaints come from a narrow and incomplete view of the changes coming from the Utopia expansion. I don't blame you for this, the Utopia expansion isn't out yet. Still though, relax, they know what they're doing.

You presume I aim to deal with it by purging. I'm looking through individuals to see what their ethos are, figure out why they're different, determine if this planet needs attention in that regard such as symbol of unity or orbital mind control laser, or if I just need to give them a bit more time because it's not been very long. Things are greatly obscured with all the synths being the same, regardless of who created them, except in some back-end factors you don't see.

EDIT:

Found an even better point. Return to post 1 in this topic. The icons for "Conformist" and "Deviants" are still available traits. Ethics divergence on an individual level is still a thing, just less random where they diverge to, and no longer happening with distance.

 

[Zarpaulus]

Okay, so the Necrons went down the Synthetic path.

The Eldar started down Psionic and then stagnated.

Humanity fractured into a thousand small empires, some of which started on Psi.

Then the Emperor committed his Imperium to the Biological path and conquered the lesser empires, annexing their psi-latent POPs.

The Tau are just starting on Synthetic.

 

[Caspoi]

Okay, so the Necrons went down the Synthetic path.

The Eldar started down Psionic and then stagnated.

Humanity fractured into a thousand small empires, some of which started on Psi.

Then the Emperor committed his Imperium to the Biological path and conquered the lesser empires, annexing their psi-latent POPs.

The Tau are just starting on Synthetic.

Both the emperor and the Old Ones would have arguably taken both the biological and psionic path.