Driven Assimilators: Why do you have a second species?

[Havoc]

Just a question about the driven assimilators:
Why do you have a secondary species? What is that species for? I thought that this species was for everything you "persuade" to join you. So everything you assimilate will turn into that particular species.
But so far every species I assimilated just stayed the same but with the cybernetics trait?

[Cryten]

Because you have a species of Cyborg drones who grow and live under the machine empires consciousness. When you take over planets you will assimilate those pops into new cyborgs who can continue to work for your empire though they will not colonise other planets without you sending machines first and importing them through forced migration.

Think of yourself as borg. Your machines are the great machine structures that make up the consciousness of your species and your cyborgs are the bodies who maintain the structure. We will add you biological distinctiveness to our own. We are borg.

[Havoc]

To be honest, I've never watched Star Trek. So I only know that there is such a thing as Borg and that they assimilate, but I don't know what the assimilated organisms look like. So they just put cybernetics on whatever species they can find and leave their overall appearance intact?

[Cryten]

Basically yes. Their individuality experience and traits are absorbed into the whole (In star trek). In the game you are turning pops into cyborgs as drones to the central intelligence and putting them to work. If you want an analogy thats easy to understand think of it as an rts where units can do basic things themselves but all major decisions are done by you.

[MushyNed]

I always considered they were the makers

[Havoc]

Damn. I really wanted to assimilate all into that one species I created. :(

[Cryten]

You want synthetic ascension. With that you turn everyone into synths. But Robots are different to synths since synths still have their personality.

[Kitten Food]

unfortunately synth assimilation is much better than robot assimilation. i was hoping they would update robot assim to be more 'borg' like, but its just not powerful at all and is more of a hassle...plus you get -50% growth penalties, which is crazy bad.

[Havoc]

Well. 50% Sounds bad but we're about 100 years into the game now. And it doesn't really matter how fast the assimilated species grow since the robots build like crazy.

[Havoc]

But what happens to new species you acquire after you did the synth special project? Can't really remember what happened then. :/ Did they really turn into your "main" species?

[Meewec]

Originally posted by Havoc:

But what happens to new species you acquire after you did the synth special project? Can't really remember what happened then. :/ Did they really turn into your "main" species?

synth ascension converts everyone into the same synth species

[Cryten]

Separate synth ascension from robot empires. Gestalt Robots never become synths and cannot do any ascension. They get their benefits baked into their empire (100% hab from the start, no factions or consumer goods or trade. Superior energy credits production, science costs energy allot more machine points for traits). The flesh is weak and synthetic ascension are ascension perks that only belong to organic empires.

Robots remain robots and driven assimilators gather enemy pops into their empire as cyborg servitors. It is literally a different way to play the game than organic empires much like Hive Minds are.

Robots are not synths. Synths are not robots. Synths have personality and demand amenities, politics and consumer goods, and have Happiness. Organic empires do produce Robots but they then turn them into lifeforms like themselves unless they force them to remained enslaved in servitude. And bad things can happen on that path.

[Danny]

Originally posted by Havoc:

Damn. I really wanted to assimilate all into that one species I created. :(

You can go full synths and make everyone one single machine template ^^