Finally found out how to effectively use Grid Amalgamated pops

[TwoTonTuna]

Two words: Compliance Protocols

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2060303098

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2060303123

As a default machine empire, I've always wondered how to effectively use enslaved pops as living batteries. Not disposable ones you melt down for energy, no, but long-term batteries that sustain your empire's energy needs for decades.

The problem is that Grid Amalgamated pops are unhappy to the extreme (-10% from slavery, -40% from Grid Amalgamated). Not only that, but they have enough political power to adversely affect the stability of a planet. There's no use trying to make them happy as well, since they'll always go down to 0% happiness even when they're fed and placed on a gaia world.

The resulting hit to stability just isn't worth keeping them around, especially since they can't survive on machine worlds iirc.

Then I noticed the Compliance Protocols decree, which gives +5 stability for each warrior drone. Stick your enslaved organics in a fortress world, and you'll have all the stability you need to drown out the unruly percentage of living batteries that wake up from the matrix.

Sure, you lose 33% output and while halving pop growth/assembly speed, but the penalties are easily offset by having 100% stability for +30% output. And if you enact the protocols on a Gaia world, you get +10% output on your meatbag slaves. They also get empire bonuses as well, so they benefit from the +5% energy repeatable tech.

Oh, and Compliance Protocols are bugged as of the current patch. They do not affect pop assembly speed, as the growth rate on my matrix world is the same as the growth rate on my empire capital.

[Space Dad]

Nice strategy, I usually play as default machines too and I'll give this a try next time.

[Axxikon]

Had a lot of fun playing like this, personally found that if you force an empire to vassal and absorb them, you can just send all of them to several fortress planets while leaving three of your robots on any of their planets which makes all of their worlds essentially new colonies for you while you're making the big bucks off of the people who used to live there lmao. Thanks for the post, I would have given up trying to make this work!

[Тривиум]

Important thing to note here is that this strategy DOES NOT WORK EARLYGAME on a non Gaia planet at least!
16 warrior drones just give around 60% stability with 43 grid amalgamated pops. This is a huge waste of productivity, as those 16 drones can be making around 200 energy credits...

[HappySack]

Nice necrobump, also stacking livestock pops is unviable now because of empire size, before then I used Synapse Drones and used the artifact relay decision to force stability to be high but it's still not really worth it.

[TwoTonTuna]

Holy blast from the past, batman!

Also this build is viable now (August 2023, patch 3.8/3.9) but not with compliance protocols and soldier drones anymore. You will need at least +1 source of minor artifacts, coordinator drones, and the 'incorporate artifact relays' planetary decision.

1) Secure a source of minor artifacts.
2) Find a gaia world. Barring that, build/colonize a ring world segment.
3) Build one energy grid and upgrade it to energy nexus. Fill the rest of the building slots with uplink nodes, upgrade them to tier 3, and get as many coordinator drones as you can.
4) Conquer/integrate biological empires and transfer all grid amalgamated biologicals to your slave world.
5) Activate 'incorporate artifact relays' decision on your slave world. This will take 100 minor artifacts and will cause each coordinator to give +2 stability for 10 years.

*Get as many reductions to empire size from pops as you can. As far as I know, that's -30% from a level 10 ruler, -20% from OTA updates civic, -10% from synchronicity tradition tree, and -10% from domination tradition tree. Then there's -20% from a level 10 planetary governor. This is absolutely necessary to prevent tech/tradition costs from spiraling out of control.

[Тривиум]

I am in tears at the two necro references lmao! :D I was kinda expecting them to be honest. My issue is that earlygame conquering pops shouldn't be this game breaking - by game breaking I mean it makes matrix build a horrible choice early even if it produces an easy Dyson Sphere lategame.

[PhamTrinli]

Originally posted by Kodesh:

Two words: Compliance Protocols

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2060303098

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2060303123

As a default machine empire, I've always wondered how to effectively use enslaved pops as living batteries. Not disposable ones you melt down for energy, no, but long-term batteries that sustain your empire's energy needs for decades.

The problem is that Grid Amalgamated pops are unhappy to the extreme (-10% from slavery, -40% from Grid Amalgamated). Not only that, but they have enough political power to adversely affect the stability of a planet. There's no use trying to make them happy as well, since they'll always go down to 0% happiness even when they're fed and placed on a gaia world.

The resulting hit to stability just isn't worth keeping them around, especially since they can't survive on machine worlds iirc.

Then I noticed the Compliance Protocols decree, which gives +5 stability for each warrior drone. Stick your enslaved organics in a fortress world, and you'll have all the stability you need to drown out the unruly percentage of living batteries that wake up from the matrix.

Sure, you lose 33% output and while halving pop growth/assembly speed, but the penalties are easily offset by having 100% stability for +30% output. And if you enact the protocols on a Gaia world, you get +10% output on your meatbag slaves. They also get empire bonuses as well, so they benefit from the +5% energy repeatable tech.

Oh, and Compliance Protocols are bugged as of the current patch. They do not affect pop assembly speed, as the growth rate on my matrix world is the same as the growth rate on my empire capital.

Congrat's you have created skynet

[Tacolover105]

Originally posted by TwoTonTuna:

Holy blast from the past, batman!

Also this build is viable now (August 2023, patch 3.8/3.9) but not with compliance protocols and soldier drones anymore. You will need at least +1 source of minor artifacts, coordinator drones, and the 'incorporate artifact relays' planetary decision.

1) Secure a source of minor artifacts.
2) Find a gaia world. Barring that, build/colonize a ring world segment.
3) Build one energy grid and upgrade it to energy nexus. Fill the rest of the building slots with uplink nodes, upgrade them to tier 3, and get as many coordinator drones as you can.
4) Conquer/integrate biological empires and transfer all grid amalgamated biologicals to your slave world.
5) Activate 'incorporate artifact relays' decision on your slave world. This will take 100 minor artifacts and will cause each coordinator to give +2 stability for 10 years.

*Get as many reductions to empire size from pops as you can. As far as I know, that's -30% from a level 10 ruler, -20% from OTA updates civic, -10% from synchronicity tradition tree, and -10% from domination tradition tree. Then there's -20% from a level 10 planetary governor. This is absolutely necessary to prevent tech/tradition costs from spiraling out of control.

Why have dyson spheres when you can have a planet full of grid amalgamated pops :)
Just tried this, thanks for the advice, bro.

[Kalemenos]

Y'all crack me up.