Psionic and Genetic (and storms): seriously, when?

[Archael90]

One can always hope. But I wouldn't have even a suggestion... I can't think of a single game where espionage is fun and engaging.

Endless Space 2
Espionage can be good. I wasn't asking for this, but if it already is, it should be much better.
Espionage should na a domain of small empires that can rise their Diplo power by hidden actions, force other empires to like or dislike eachother, influence people in enemy empire to dislike the war and thus rise their war exhaustion. All of this should allow espionage heavy empires to compete in galaxy even while being small.
When they announced Nemesis I thought I can be a mastermind hidden in my own ringworld totally invisible but pulling all the strings. What I got was... Some tech progression with a cooldown after some influence heavy setup, and bunch of restrictions.

 

[Nakkivene]

Endless Space 2

Gotta disagree with you there. I found hacking to be easily the most annoying and broken aspect of the game.

 

[cryptkeeper]

nice to hear they are updating those two ascensions, they really need it. I wonder if nanotech will be left in it's current state, which to me seems unfinished and unpolished. Even though they just updated prison planets, prison econopolis are very much broken.

 

[Casko]

3. It also has some of the most worthless features of any ascension, such as base intel level and encryption/decryption buffs taking up its tradition tree or the Mark of [Covenant] components (without listing them, I'll summarize that they're all bad). It is also simultaneously the only ascension which requires a certain amount of pops per planet to get most of its effects and the only ascension without massive growth and/or assembly buffs to actually make that happen.

And the fact that to get your psi corps building (where every single other ascension can just build em for free...) is exceedingly dumb. And quite frankly makes you make "pilgrims" where you move pops around planets to hit the magical 25 needed pops to upgrade capital building just to get Psi corps set up.

I would much rather have Enforces be replaced by Telepaths when I ascend. And rather than spying intel level and encryption/decryption, get some other buff, as the intel level encryption, while flavorful, does very little

5. This brings me to shroud RNG. Psionic is the only ascension that can just completely screw you over via RNG and there isn't a single thing you can do about it. From literal downside effects shroud delving, to the few solidly good things psionic actually has like components not appearing, to events like the Chosen One selection occasionally not giving you the leader you want to BE the Chosen One, or killing them if you do select them (and the Covenant Chosen One can't be refused, so if it doesn't give you a leader you want the trait on too bad one-time event over). Psionic is user-unfriendly because the way it's currently set up fights you every step of the way, which could be rewarding if it came out stronger than other ascensions which it does not.

Funny you mention components, as I've had a plenty of runs where you just have them never appear despite making my patron like me.
Similarly, I wish the said components would get buffed. as they are very much not all that great to be fair, or just come available way too late to be worth use.



Not to mention Slaanesh is just flat out the best covenant, and unless you go for a very specific Whispers stealth build or Eater conquest of galaxy run, you are almost always simply better off picking Desire, with Composer being just sad.


Also With Bio Ascension, let us play Horatio of ES2 already, and assimilate every filthy xeno make Galaxy Beautiful by making everybody and everything beautiful.

 

[Archael90]

And the fact that to get your psi corps building (where every single other ascension can just build em for free...) is exceedingly dumb. And quite frankly makes you make "pilgrims" where you move pops around planets to hit the magical 25 needed pops to upgrade capital building just to get Psi corps set up.

I would much rather have Enforces be replaced by Telepaths when I ascend. And rather than spying intel level and encryption/decryption, get some other buff, as the intel level encryption, while flavorful, does very little



Funny you mention components, as I've had a plenty of runs where you just have them never appear despite making my patron like me.
Similarly, I wish the said components would get buffed. as they are very much not all that great to be fair, or just come available way too late to be worth use.



Not to mention Slaanesh is just flat out the best covenant, and unless you go for a very specific Whispers stealth build or Eater conquest of galaxy run, you are almost always simply better off picking Desire, with Composer being just sad.


Also With Bio Ascension, let us play Horatio of ES2 already, and ~~assimilate every filthy xeno~~ make Galaxy Beautiful by making everybody and everything beautiful.

I do what fits my empire, but mostly composer or whisperer.

 

[Holiness]

4. Give machines a soul already, we know they have it but You just keep ignoring it :v

I'm not sure why people want machines to have souls so badly. I kinda enjoy the distinction. Lol. Things will become bland if everyone choose to do anything.

 

[Archael90]

I'm not sure why people want machines to have souls so badly. I kinda enjoy the distinction. Lol. Things will become bland if everyone choose to do anything.

You may still treat them as soulless toasters just like currently

 

[Nyrael]

I'm not sure why people want machines to have souls so badly. I kinda enjoy the distinction. Lol. Things will become bland if everyone choose to do anything.

I agree (it's kind of the point), but also disagree (Psionic robots are one of SF fantasies).

So I'd like a middle-ground: there should be a certain event that causes the Animator of Clay (a Shroud Entity related to robots) to offer souls to machines, allowing them to Psionically ascend (can't be taken if one of default three Ascension Paths was taken). If the Empire is Gestalt, it changes it to an Individualistic Machine Empire. I think there is already a similar event, but it could be expanded if a certain DLC is activated.
If too many Machine Empires take it, it should cause a Crisis where all Fallen Empires become hostile as it reminds them of Cetana, with one even awakening to more properly purge the robots (minus the machine one, that one only cares about the Contingency).
And of course, an Origin that starts you with soul-filled Robots who must Psionically ascend.

 

[Mech_infect]

1. A massive amount of the ascension's power is locked behind specifically the God-Emperor event, which cannot fire for megacorps at all. It also forcibly shifts ethics and government type, which removes locked civics that aren't compatible with it as-changed. This means, for example, that it is impossible to have Sovereign Guardianship and actually functioning psionic ascension simultaneously, because this event behind which much of the power of psionic is locked will remove Sovereign Guardianship when it removes militarism. It is extremely arbitrarily restrictive, which is true of psionic generally because it is so locked to spiritualism (and authoritarianism, and dictatorial/imperial).

This is the point I touched on in my discussions about what the game needs. Better and deeper interaction between all parts of all mechanics and role-playing moments. And now some parts are far behind others and cannot adapt to certain plot and role-playing combinations.

 

[FleetingRain]

The expansion team works on very long timelines.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I hope, for whatever psionic rework they have planned, that they're going to keep most of the themes they have (including the definitely-not-WH stuff), but added:

• The ability to opt out of a pact and not be drastically penalized.
• The ability to opt out of a Chosen One (or at least the Divine Sovereign portion) and not be drastically penalized.

For the former, there's already plenty of inspiration in the definitely-not-source-material: the Emperor of Man stands in stark contrast to the Chaos Gods. Lean into the Divine Sovereign as a replacement.

For the latter, you could either do something like the Mystical anomaly (you have a choice of investing the lacuna of psionic energy from that event into a single person to create a chosen one or to distribute it among your people) or build some kind of complete alternative that prevents the Divine Sovereign from being elevated (which also acts as a backup option if you don't get the Chosen One, through bad luck).

---

In fact, all the pieces for both are already there: if the Divine Sovereign and Pact were mutually exclusive (and the power level of both were higher), you'd get a setup much like in WH: your choices are making a pact for power with shadowy entities from the realm beyond mortal understanding, or elevating a champion to stand against them and using that to increase your power, free from their meddling.

It's very odd that the only option to be competitive is to somehow do both. If they just gave Psionic ascension a big dollop of generic power, and made those two options mutually exclusive, I think it would be better off.

ex. Make Patrons not show up if you have Divine Sovereign. Make Divine Sovereign not show up if you have a patron. And give the psionic finisher a whopping +20% resources from jobs to psionic pops.

Patron-fans are left almost exactly where they were before (except with an extra councilor slot, and a weaker Sanctum). Divine-Sovereign-enjoyers don't get pact bonuses or penalties, but get something vaguely akin to Instrument of Desire instead (with a few extra % resources from jobs).

Of course, it would be better to have something more in depth (Give the Divine Sovereign a pseudo-pact! Make the other pacts give their own civics, with their own thematically appropriate councilor position! Have the locus of power always make a chosen one, but have it create a Chosen of the X if you have a pact already!), but "make the two big power options mutually exclusive, and give a compensatory buff" gives the player a ton of flexibility.

---

That you have e.g. two "chosen" leaders (though they can potentially be the same leader) already sort of implies that they were, at one point, supposed to be mutually exclusive. Perhaps they decided that they couldn't get too close without GW sending them nastygrams, or they realized the power level was still too low, and found it easier to remove the mutual exclusivity than to build more stuff.

 

[Holiness]

I agree (it's kind of the point), but also disagree (Psionic robots are one of SF fantasies).

So I'd like a middle-ground: there should be a certain event that causes the Animator of Clay (a Shroud Entity related to robots) to offer souls to machines, allowing them to Psionically ascend (can't be taken if one of default three Ascension Paths was taken). If the Empire is Gestalt, it changes it to an Individualistic Machine Empire. I think there is already a similar event, but it could be expanded if a certain DLC is activated.
If too many Machine Empires take it, it should cause a Crisis where all Fallen Empires become hostile as it reminds them of Cetana, with one even awakening to more properly purge the robots (minus the machine one, that one only cares about the Contingency).
And of course, an Origin that starts you with soul-filled Robots who must Psionically ascend.

The way the current shroud lore is laid out. I don't even see how a shroud God could even see something that doesn't have a soul. But, sure I guess. I'm no gatekeeper. But gatekeeping isn't a bad thing in my opinion. I just don't want a age of wonders 4 scenario, where almost everyone can end up in the same place if they wanted to. It makes beginning choices matter less

 

[Abdulijubjub]

The way the current shroud lore is laid out. I don't even see how a shroud God could even see something that doesn't have a soul. But, sure I guess. I'm no gatekeeper. But gatekeeping isn't a bad thing in my opinion. I just don't want a age of wonders 4 scenario, where almost everyone can end up in the same place if they wanted to. It makes beginning choices matter less

The Animator/Mender of Clay already exists in game; it's a Shroud entity that's interested in synthetic/machine beings. It can both repurpose a gestalt into an individualist empire of those machines (if you choose to swap) and, through a different event, intervene to rewrite Cetana to be less broken. The Warform has also been blessed by the Animator of Clay, and is actually capable of becoming psionic, despite being purely a machine.

And "Shroud interaction = soul" is canonically Spiritualist dogma, not necessarily actual reality. Machine or synthetically ascended empires can step bodily into the Shroud, despite having no "soul", through either crisis path, so clearly something is off with that interpretation.

The game intentionally leaves it ambiguous whether the Shroud just naturally makes an echo of biological minds because of some quirk of their structure (which machines/synths lack), or if consciousness really does arise from the Shroud (making your Shroud presence your actual "soul" in a more concrete sense), and robots do lack a soul (and are just imitating consciousness). Spiritualists say it's the latter. Materialists (once they learn of the undeniable reality of the Shroud) would say it's the former.

It's worth noting that even Fanatic Materialists can take psionic ascension.

 

[SS Boss]

I generally prefer dropping bits of information and letting you infer things from them, but I'll state it outright:

Biological Ascension and Psionic Ascension will both be elevated to the level of Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascensions during 2025. They will not be in the same release, as they are too different from each other. (Cybernetic and Synthetic Ascensions shared more common themes.) I didn't want Psionics to be left behind for another year though. It's in a better state overall than Biological Ascension, so would have been a lower priority.



They're both already well in development, we've been reading threads about them for a long, long time. The feedback threads will mostly affect the Custodian team's efforts though might tweak some things the expansion team is working on.

The expansion team works on very long timelines.

So you are basically saying that the Season 09 pass is a must...

 

[Psykhes]

1. A massive amount of the ascension's power is locked behind specifically the God-Emperor event, which cannot fire for megacorps at all. It also forcibly shifts ethics and government type, which removes locked civics that aren't compatible with it as-changed.

As someone who never goes for the God-Emperor because I do not like the ethic shift, why is it so powerful?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

As someone who never goes for the God-Emperor because I do not like the ethic shift, why is it so powerful?

You get a council position that gives +1% resources from jobs, per level, from telepaths.

Functionally, +20% resources from jobs across the entire empire, with another +30% on the planet with the Sanctum. A bit more, with Statecraft. A bit less, if your leaders aren't at/near 10 yet.

 

[HFY]

I'd like it if Psionic empires had a chance to put their Psionic Focus into something specific as an end-of-ascension decision, and that could mean:

... an Ethic:
- Authoritarian could mean Chosen One eternal ruler with all its knock-on benefits.
- Spiritiualist might mean you then choose one of the current Pacts, which get re-worked to all be compatible with Spiritualist.
- Xenophile might make you more able to communicate & assimilate xenos into Psionic pops.
- Xenophobe might get special perks for their founder species, and some kind of mind-control to suppress xenos (who are forbidden from being Psionic).
- Egalitarians might get some kind of Radio Free Europe broadcast (except psychic so can't be blocked by non-Psi empires) which foments Egalitarian feelings in foreign bio-pops, plus some crusade bonuses when fighting Authoritarians.
- etc.


... a Civic:
- Undead-users might get some even more horrible armies & ships now that they can command souls as well as bodied, e.g. undead Void Clouds, plus some buffs for Necromancers and Zombie Clerks.
- Environmentalists / Gaia Seeders / Tree of Life / Agrarian Idyll empires might awaken the subconscious spirit of their beloved natural planets, getting a bonus which compensates for not going full Ecu / Ring World.
- etc.
- (Not all Civics should be represented, just some flavorful ones which could use a buff.)


... an Origin:
- Void Dwellers might get some kind of additional bonus for pops in systems with a Black Hole or other spacetime-abusing feature (wormhole? gateway?) and certainly for building a hab in the Shroud Witch system.
- Ocean Paradise might awaken the star-spawn from the deeps of their homeworld, making it even bigger and giving extra bonuses because the star-spawn is delighted at their efforts.
- Fear of the Duck would be invaded by terrible Psy-Ducks.
- Here Be Dragons gets to turn their space dragons into Psychic Space Dragons, which are obviously better, and gets psychic dragon propaganda which improves their diplomatic power.
- Mechanist gets to make psionic robots. Nobody else gets this. It should be strong because the origin is otherwise wasted on this ascension.
- etc.
- (Again, not all Origins should be represented.)


The idea would be that you get ONE of these things, so they can be compact and pretty buff, because you don't get one of each.

 

[Mech_infect]

I'd like it if Psionic empires had a chance to put their Psionic Focus into something specific as an end-of-ascension decision, and that could mean:

... an Ethic:
- Authoritarian could mean Chosen One eternal ruler with all its knock-on benefits.
- Spiritiualist might mean you then choose one of the current Pacts, which get re-worked to all be compatible with Spiritualist.
- Xenophile might make you more able to communicate & assimilate xenos into Psionic pops.
- Xenophobe might get special perks for their founder species, and some kind of mind-control to suppress xenos (who are forbidden from being Psionic).
- Egalitarians might get some kind of Radio Free Europe broadcast (except psychic so can't be blocked by non-Psi empires) which foments Egalitarian feelings in foreign bio-pops, plus some crusade bonuses when fighting Authoritarians.
- etc.


... a Civic:
- Undead-users might get some even more horrible armies & ships now that they can command souls as well as bodied, e.g. undead Void Clouds, plus some buffs for Necromancers and Zombie Clerks.
- Environmentalists / Gaia Seeders / Tree of Life / Agrarian Idyll empires might awaken the subconscious spirit of their beloved natural planets, getting a bonus which compensates for not going full Ecu / Ring World.
- etc.
- (Not all Civics should be represented, just some flavorful ones which could use a buff.)


... an Origin:
- Void Dwellers might get some kind of additional bonus for pops in systems with a Black Hole or other spacetime-abusing feature (wormhole? gateway?) and certainly for building a hab in the Shroud Witch system.
- Ocean Paradise might awaken the star-spawn from the deeps of their homeworld, making it even bigger and giving extra bonuses because the star-spawn is delighted at their efforts.
- Fear of the Duck would be invaded by terrible Psy-Ducks.
- Here Be Dragons gets to turn their space dragons into Psychic Space Dragons, which are obviously better, and gets psychic dragon propaganda which improves their diplomatic power.
- Mechanist gets to make psionic robots. Nobody else gets this. It should be strong because the origin is otherwise wasted on this ascension.
- etc.
- (Again, not all Origins should be represented.)


The idea would be that you get ONE of these things, so they can be compact and pretty buff, because you don't get one of each.

I'll just stop and say it again (I wrote this in their vision diary) - we need to deepen the interaction of what already exists. Personalize and deepen the role-playing interaction of all parts of the game + "thematically flavorful" interaction of EVERYTHING that exists. So that there are such thematic combinations as you wrote. Ideally with unique events, situations, etc.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

1. I like the idea of making Divine Sovereign and Covenants mutually exclusive, and of there being a new non-authoritarian alternative.

2. I think "Divine Sovereign" should be a unique government, rather than a civic.
(There should also be a "Divine CEO" equivalent.)
(This might however clash with the idea of replacing the Imperium sovereign civics with unique governments.)

3. Death Cults should get a sacrificial edict to dodge Covenant consequences.

4. Death Cults should interact with Divine Sovereign; perhaps a bonus to xp and a temporary bonus to effective ruler level?

5. Death Cults should have a sacrificial edict for turning pops into Zro.

6. Entering the Shroud should cost Unity, not Energy Credits. A further option would then also be to drop the cooldown timer and let the empire's production of Unity be what effectively determines how often the Shroud can be visited.

7. Ethereal/energy species portraits should be part of the Psionic DLC, and represent an alternate or further ascension path. Ethereal/energy species could perhaps eat Unity (hello Ori), extract Unity production from subjects, purge organics for Unity, and/or .

8. Void Clouds should get a free update in the patch besides the Psionic DLC, allowing them to migrate and have a midlife crisis of their own. Otherwise, what was the point in them being left untouched by both the cosmic weather update and the space fauna update?

9. All ascension paths should have a policy option for dealing with those not properly ascended: leave as free residents, assimilate, enslave, or purge/displace.

10. One simple explanation for organics having an easier time with the Shroud and psionics could be that psionic abilities work with quantum-level manipulations. Electric circuits would be too rigid / big scale, but quantum processors would be getting close enough for psionic interactions to be possible (but also too late most of the time, as other ascension paths would often be picked before then).

 

[Abdulijubjub]

2. I think "Divine Sovereign" should be a unique government, rather than a civic.
(There should also be a "Divine CEO" equivalent.)
(This might however clash with the idea of replacing the Imperium sovereign civics with unique governments.)

Based on the way they reworked cybernetic/synthetic, I strongly suspect this is the way they're going to go with this.

Basically, they made the psionic Imperial authority already. Now they just need to go back and make the psionic democracy/oligarchy/dictatorship/megacorp.

6. Entering the Shroud should cost Unity, not Energy Credits. A further option would then also be to drop the cooldown timer and let the empire's production of Unity be what effectively determines how often the Shroud can be visited.

I could easily see it as something (very vaguely) akin to agendas's launch mechanic, where you can delve on a regular basis for free, but can pay extra to go early. Essentially: it has a cooldown, but unity production effectively translates to cooldown reduction.

But outright removing the cooldown in favor of a big unity cost would be brutal for empires that don't excel at unity production, and make delving a "run through all the events until we have all the buffs up for the next 10 years" thing for empires with strong unity production.