Question for Wiz Dev Diary 63

[WolliMW]

Hey @Wiz,

ich hope your living good in San Francisco
because there are many questions reagarding the last Dev Diary i summed up the questions up to #336 (maybe updating later ).
maybe you got time to answer them

@ALL: i tried to take only questions and only once

may the shroud be with you.

Regarding Synth:

So any chance for half robot-half species portraits? Do robot pops grow naturally or have to be produced when you fully transfer? And does gene modding still take forever- could be pretty annoying to unlock all this new stuff and have to wait 10+ years to implement it.

Wiz, will the Synthetic Ascension change how the rebellion thinks of you?

So you can force convert conquered pops into glorious synths?

One question mentioned in another thread - did we get more Droid portraits?

Questions:
1. Will there be random non-state-approved cybernization like it is with gene modding?
2. Will the synthetic ascencion path allow for further upgrades to synths and can we upgrade other species after we have already done so to ourselves?

Is the ascended species identical to synths? Do they grow from energy surplus like other pops grow from food, or are they constructed? Do synths now have a bonus to army damage, or is it impossible to recruit armies from them (forcing you to recruit robot or android armies)? What happens to the traits of the original organic species, are they retained in any way?

So does the synthetic ascension path require you to build all of your pops or will they still grow over time?

How will the synthetic path work with the AI rebellion? If it spawns is it just game over or will you be able to ally with/fight the Robot Empire?
And does converting your population to cyborgs or synths take time or is it instant?

YAY! Can't wait for Banks and Utopia!
Are Deviant and Fleeting getting thier own icons, instead of being recolors of the icons for thier opposites?

So, how does my new robot species react to the AI uprising crisis? Particularly if I play benevolent xenophile Robots?

Another question. If you go full synthetic will sector AI replace all food buildings with other buildings (power plants)?

Question:
Will the mechanical ascention be a species/race right? I am thinking about a nasty empire, with caste systems, where only the Chosen are allowed to Ascend, inferior races doomed to be in perpetual slavery. Doable?

Will there be a difference between your newly robotised pops and existing robot pops?
Or will existing robots in your empire become primary pop culture?
If the later, would other robots in other empires be considered your primary pop as well?

Hmm, what happened with "Leadership - Androids allowed" policy? You can have synth leaders without ascension perks.

So if an authoritarian empire with caste system go the synthetic ascension way can have enslaved synths in their mines and happy synths on energy and research tiles?In the same empire but without the synthetic ascension, could synths be enslaved?

I like the idea of Synth Ascension, but other than the name, there is no portrait difference between empires who went for Synth Ascension?

I don't know if this has been asked before(if it was sorrry!) but if you transform all of your pops to synths and then conquer another empire, do their pops get transformed instantly or is it like purging?

Perhaps Synth Ascension could benefit from some techs that make you more masters of the materiel universe I do not know may be add some necron and borg inspired tech and nanomachine tech could help balancing? @Wiz

Will traits of the original species be totally removed when doing that? I.e., would Thrifty and Agrarian base species become Thrifty and Agrarian Robots, on top of Normal Synth bonuses?
Does our empire just become a bog standart Synth Empire?
What about conquered people? Can we re-apply it?
How will that interact with the Materialsit FE? Highly Spiritualist Empires?
Are the "uploadies" considered the same as normal Synths for mechanic purposes?

Question: Will becoming an Empire of Robots drew the ire of a "Keepers of Knowledge" fallen empires?

Quick question:
Conquering planets from empires following Biological ascension seems like it wouldn't be much of a problem, you've just got new POPs with unique traits, but what about POPs from Synthetic or Psionic empires? Do you treat uploaded POPs the same as any other robots (including disassembly if that's your policy)? Can you have psi-latent POPs from conquest or immigration?

So regular Synthetics will still exist?

1. Will cyborg upgrade include all POPs? What about slaves? Will it go by species or by planet, similar to genemods? Any impact on consumer goods cost, for making implants?
2. Same about synth upgrade - all POPs or choose?

I kind of wish the synthetics path had been explained in more detail, since we don't have anything in game that does that now.
Will these automatically transform the entire population? Just the founding species? Will there be projects to do so? Do they use something like the genetic modification menu? Can I specify by species or planet? Will I be able to modify one pop at a time? If aliens decide to migrate to my planets, will they be automatically assimilated? Does a particular pop always have to go cyborg first or can you jump to full synthetic if it's available? If I go full synthetic, will I be able to side with the robots in the AI revolt crisis?

can we rename species being gene-modded too??
also does entire population mean entire population, or entire primary species population?

Regarding Biological:

Do we still need to own species' homeworld in order to genemod them? And how is AI rebellion go along Synthetic ascension?

Given that you're currently looking at gene modding have you considered allowing us to modify pops on colony ships

Question. If I gene mod a species to be super good at mining and another for research etc will the sector AI place them on the appropriate tiles to max their benifit or am I going to be annoyed?

Can we be able to modify species if we have no trait points left? We could add negative traits and that way have points... @Wiz

As for the biological ascention
- are there still only two techs that grant a gene point? So atm there would be 7 points max.
- if you remove the intelligent trait would it free up the 2 points it used up?

I just realized something: if the Biological Ascension Path gets Gene Warriors which are the best army in the game and do a whole lot of damage than psionic armies, won't those who take the Biological Ascension Path be overpowered in comparison to the psionic Ascension empire?
Also if I remember correctly, all of the Fallen Empires use Gene Warriors. So what does that mean exactly?
And why lock the Gene Warriors behind one of the Ascension paths? I can understand psionic armies but the mechanical Ascension Path doesn't get an army so I'm not sure what's going on here.

1. Have you considered portrait swap (within same category) as an additional perk for advanced gene modding?
2. Any cooldown on repeated modifications of same POPs?
3. Can the exclusive traits appear randomly? On non-player species only perhaps?
4. Any changes to uplifting? IIRC there was a bug that modifying uplifted species would remove happiness bonus.

also would it be possible for pops to refuse becoming mechanical in that ascension?
maybe fanatic spiritualist or dissident pops could reject it and stay the old species??

Mixed Questions:

Earlier some kind of special events for these paths were mentioned, are they still a thing?

Is there likely to be any resistance to these changes? Feel like Spiritualists, for a single example, at least in terms of how the game has approached Spiritualists in the past, might not exactly be happy with being forced into Synthetic bodies or being cybernetically augmented. I guess egalitarians with a concept of liberty might also not be be big fans of compulsory modifications. Any likelihood of it producing unrest or angering factions?

Can xenophobe empires choose either the biological or the synthetic ascension path without penalties?

Hmm, if we transform our people to bots or gene mod them, do our armies transform accordingly during the project?
Or will we have army holdouts that we'll have to dismiss and then have to retrain said forces?

Wiz you mentioned in the top post that the shroud is a new mechanic, is that mechanic extensible via modding?

 

[bronze Void poison]

we needed this

 

[Milten]

"Hmm, what happened with "Leadership - Androids allowed" policy? You can have synth leaders without ascension perks."
Ahem, that was rhetorical question.

 

[Stadhouder]

Yeah @Wiz, screw your jetlag, WE NEED ANSWERS!

 

[The_Meme_Man]

@Wiz senpai is going to notice me? ^o^

 

[Spidee]

Good job putting them together...let's keep it on page one

 

[bronze Void poison]

we still have heared nothing

 

[I am Sovereign]

We should all thank this guy WolliMW for his work. It defnitly took some time to make that summary. Wiz could hire him ; ).

may the shroud be with you

Sooo.....thats a thing now?

 

[jady]

Good summary, hoping for some answers.

 

[alteration]

I can answer some of the questions for you

So any chance for half robot-half species portraits? And does gene modding still take forever- could be pretty annoying to unlock all this new stuff and have to wait 10+ years to implement it.

1 - No for a simple reason, they should then adapt that for each single portrait and for each single DLC that will come out in the future, that's why psyonic path doesn't add cool effects like glowing eyes.
2 - They already said many times that the perks reduce the required time by A LOT

One question mentioned in another thread - did we get more Droid portraits?

Well, if the answer was "yes" they would've confirmed that already, however, since many people are asking for this, I guess they might reconsider (very unluckily).

Is the ascended species identical to synths? What happens to the traits of the original organic species, are they retained in any way?

1 - Yes
2 - No

Given that you're currently looking at gene modding have you considered allowing us to modify pops on colony ships

This 1 is a very good question

 

[bronze Void poison]

and still no anwsers

 

[Fade2Gray]

I'm love to hear about whether or not there is friction within your empire to any sort of ascension. If you are converting over into synths, maybe you have folks who are eager to leave behind their fleshy parts for good, where as some are scared of it and are going to resist. You could have multiple methods for how to handle it.

You could make it all strictly voluntary, but it takes the longest with the benefit of low resistance. At the other end, you could have forced conversions, where it provokes all sorts of resistance...

up to and including a massive empire wide civil war.

Considering other routes of ascension, such as ChaosThe Shroud, you could have even more outlandish issues pop up from it.

 

[bronze Void poison]

wow the lack os anwsers is telling.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

The only thing it tells us that the devs are doing something besides answering questions on this thread. Draw further conclusions at your peril.

 

[Stadhouder]

wow the lack os anwsers is telling.

It sure is. It's telling that now that they have communicated a release date, they can't afford to folly around on the forum as they have to make sure the expansion is actually finished by that time.

 

[Fade2Gray]

I'm looking forward to getting our answers with the upcoming release of the new DLC. I'm sure once its out they will have more time to stroke the egos of the overly entitled.

 

[bronze Void poison]

no answers still

 

[Milten]

no answers still

Just stop already. This is simply an embarrassment right now.

 

[Wizzington]

We're really busy finalizing Utopia right now, but I'll quickly answer some of the most frequently asked questions. Further answers will have to wait, sorry!

There are no new droid portraits, but it's something we do plan to add in the future.

Your new synthetic race will include any previously built synths, and you create more pops by building them.

When you complete the synthetic evolution, any farms worked by synths or Pops turning into synths turn into power plants.

Non-awakened Keepers of Knowledge will not attack ascended synth empires, but awakened ones will.

Armies are rebalanced so that gene warriors are no longer simply best at everything.

You will be able to modify species at any time, the 'must have trait points' restriction is gone.

You do not need to own a species' homeworld to modify them.

 

[henzington]

Pretty awesome the farms automatically convert.