[3.6] Ascension Paths - Rating?

[CrUsHeR]

So what's your opinion on the ascension rework in 3.6?
I'd go with this


1. Cybernetic - Basically an upgraded version of the old Bio ascension. You get 15% pop output and quick&efficient pop modding, while getting all the bonuses of being cyborg. Absolute top choice, especially for Megacorps but also Driven Assimilators.



(long silence)



2. Genetic - looks okay, didn't really have the nerve to play until discovering the new bonus techs. Basically the same as before, you need crazy amounts of food for the pop assembly (30 per Vats is way too much for Void Dwellers) and it's still Erudite or nothing, otherwise the leaders from a species get no bonuses.

3. Psionic - Horrible. Got quite a few buffs, but the downsides are the same or worse. Getting a covenant uses up your first Shroud visit, but then you also need another project to unlock it. So that's some decade(s) of society research down the drain. All covenants have significant drawbacks even without their temporary "curse" effects. With the curse you get something like "all your pops now have alloys upkeep". Green choices in Shroud dilemmas almost always are negative. Chosen One choices are almost never your ruler.

?. Synthetic - Tried to go for this a couple of times, but always got cold feet and went for Cyber instead. The reason is very simple - it takes waaay too long to unlock. By that time your leaders with top traits are long dead, overall the lack of an ascension bonus is very noticable.

[MP]

Doesn't matter whatever path you take, ultimately megastructures eclipse whatever your pops make except alloys. And with mods... There is no need for pops at all.

[Vovarush]

1) Bio
Pop growth go brrrrrrrrr
2) Synth
Full habitability, assimilation into founder species, base productivity bonus, simplifies eco if you forfeit organics entirely
3) Cyber
Allows empire hyperspecialisation, via doubling up on bio/machine traits, but higher pop up keep and inability to change baseline bio positives lock you into improving on what you start with only, because otherwise the result is meh
4) Psi
Has great leaders, better ship components and 20% upgrade to pop output from a single building slot, but suffers in pop growth and shroud randomness even with guaranteed covenant and covenant progression

[Peter34]

I've played Hive Mind a bit in the last week or so, and the Cybernetic Path has a Trait that reduces Amenities Upkeep per Pop. That sounds very attractive to me!

Also, initially, the Cyborg Traits each added an Upkeep of 0.5 CP/Pop/month but that got reduced to a much more reasonable 0.3 with one of the patches to the beta patch.

[jacobellinger]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

So what's your opinion on the ascension rework in 3.6?
I'd go with this


1. Cybernetic - Basically an upgraded version of the old Bio ascension. You get 15% pop output and quick&efficient pop modding, while getting all the bonuses of being cyborg. Absolute top choice, especially for Megacorps but also Driven Assimilators.



(long silence)



2. Genetic - looks okay, didn't really have the nerve to play until discovering the new bonus techs. Basically the same as before, you need crazy amounts of food for the pop assembly (30 per Vats is way too much for Void Dwellers) and it's still Erudite or nothing, otherwise the leaders from a species get no bonuses.

3. Psionic - Horrible. Got quite a few buffs, but the downsides are the same or worse. Getting a covenant uses up your first Shroud visit, but then you also need another project to unlock it. So that's some decade(s) of society research down the drain. All covenants have significant drawbacks even without their temporary "curse" effects. With the curse you get something like "all your pops now have alloys upkeep". Green choices in Shroud dilemmas almost always are negative. Chosen One choices are almost never your ruler.

?. Synthetic - Tried to go for this a couple of times, but always got cold feet and went for Cyber instead. The reason is very simple - it takes waaay too long to unlock. By that time your leaders with top traits are long dead, overall the lack of an ascension bonus is very noticable.

don't forget with bio you can now change racial portraits in game too, I know it's not that special but it's still a cool little addon.

[Peter34]

I assumed you could always do that, although I haven't actually tried.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by jacobellinger:

don't forget with bio you can now change racial portraits in game too, I know it's not that special but it's still a cool little addon.

You always could change the portraits, but only within the same species group (mammalian, reptilian etc)

Originally posted by Vovarush:

1) Bio
Pop growth go brrrrrrrrr

Unless you add pop growth traits, the difference is minimal. Because Cybernetic does not only get to replace robot assembly with pop assembly, but you also get the upgraded robot assembly building with an extra replicator job. They just needed to adjust the crystal upkeep of those, since the original machine building adds 2 jobs for the same price.

Also the way how sprawl works, it is always better to have more output, and Cybernetic gets a flat 15% as well.

3) Cyber
Allows empire hyperspecialisation, via doubling up on bio/machine traits, but higher pop up keep and inability to change baseline bio positives lock you into improving on what you start with only, because otherwise the result is meh

Have you actually tried it thoroughly? Because with the included robo modding points, and the extra trait picks, you should have 6/6 points/picks on all species who already used up all points. So you always end up with some spare points, unless a species already arrived upgraded in your empire.

Technically you get 20% research for 3 points (intelligent + logic engines), which costs 4 for bio empires (erudite) and the free Cyborg trait on top for another 15% resources. And the double 25% trade value for 3 points is priceless.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by MP:

Doesn't matter whatever path you take, ultimately megastructures eclipse whatever your pops make except alloys. And with mods... There is no need for pops at all.

Right. No need for pops, ascension, pah! Why even bother with megastructures. Just start the game and declare yourself winner.

[Vovarush]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Originally posted by jacobellinger:

don't forget with bio you can now change racial portraits in game too, I know it's not that special but it's still a cool little addon.

You always could change the portraits, but only within the same species group (mammalian, reptilian etc)

Originally posted by Vovarush:

1) Bio
Pop growth go brrrrrrrrr

Unless you add pop growth traits, the difference is minimal. Because Cybernetic does not only get to replace robot assembly with pop assembly, but you also get the upgraded robot assembly building with an extra replicator job. They just needed to adjust the crystal upkeep of those, since the original machine building adds 2 jobs for the same price.

Also the way how sprawl works, it is always better to have more output, and Cybernetic gets a flat 15% as well.

3) Cyber
Allows empire hyperspecialisation, via doubling up on bio/machine traits, but higher pop up keep and inability to change baseline bio positives lock you into improving on what you start with only, because otherwise the result is meh

Have you actually tried it thoroughly? Because with the included robo modding points, and the extra trait picks, you should have 6/6 points/picks on all species who already used up all points. So you always end up with some spare points, unless a species already arrived upgraded in your empire.

Technically you get 20% research for 3 points (intelligent + logic engines), which costs 4 for bio empires (erudite) and the free Cyborg trait on top for another 15% resources. And the double 25% trade value for 3 points is priceless.

Bio doesnt get just some more pop growth, it gets a lot more of it. You can pair fertile with budding which is an absurd amount of growth. And my main gripe with cyber is inability to fully specialise each type of pop by swapping not only machine but bio traits too. Though i had an internal debate of putting it above synth.

Originally posted by jacobellinger:

don't forget with bio you can now change racial portraits in game too, I know it's not that special but it's still a cool little addon.

That's what happened to Star Trek Klingons.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

you need crazy amounts of food for the pop assembly (30 per Vats is way too much for Void Dwellers).

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

Unless you add pop growth traits, the difference is minimal. Because Cybernetic does not only get to replace robot assembly with pop assembly, but you also get the upgraded robot assembly building with an extra replicator job. They just needed to adjust the crystal upkeep of those, since the original machine building adds 2 jobs for the same price.

Clone Vat:
30 Food for 4.5 Bio Assembly
The building has an Upkeep of 2 Energy
No Job required.

Upgraded Robot Assembly Plant with Cybernetic Ascension:
4 Alloys for 4.5 Bio Assembly
The building has an Upkeep of 8 Energy and 2 Rare Crystals.
Requires 2 Jobs.

I honestly don't see how you can say that Clone Vats are too expensive when you're willing to use Robot Assembly Plants. The two jobs that are not required by the Clone Vats will already produce the 30 Food needed as Upkeep in the later parts of the game.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by MP:

Doesn't matter whatever path you take, ultimately megastructures eclipse whatever your pops make except alloys. And with mods... There is no need for pops at all.

Only if you play with Gigastructures, and even then they're important due to reality simulators and Alderson discs.

[CrUsHeR]

No idea why you felt the urge to necro a beta thread from 6 weeks ago, anyways:

In the live version, Bio ascension is basically the poor/stupid man's Cyber ascension.

Why? Cyborgs get assimilated automatically for the following effects:

+15% output (5% of which specialist-only but that's what matters most)
-10% upkeep
+20% habitability
+40 years leader lifespan (so you starting leaders will likely survive until de-facto immortality through tech)
+ automatic leader traits for all (which tend to be better than synth leader traits even)

So it is super relaxed because your pops are already superior before even modding them; though the cybernetic traits + regular traits are also better than the bio traits.
2x 25% trade, 2x 10% research, while bio doesn't even get a global resource output nor leader traits besides Erudite.


The argument of food vs. alloys:

Food is a resource you build as "on demand", there is literally nothing to spend food on besides selling surplus on the market. You are fine with +10 / month at game start, and you are fine with +10 / month by 2500.

While alloys is something you need to increase to 1-3k / month anyways. Build an ecumenopolis early, see the balance climb from +100 to +500 to +1000 in no time.
So comparing 4 alloys with 30 food doesn't really make sense, because 2-4 less alloys is something you don't even notice on your bill, while 30 less food is always a heavy hit. And you can always promote farmers to metallurgists, but not the other way round.

The only leniency i can give is that e.g. a megacorp can get subsidiary vassals which help a lot with basic resources, but not with alloys. And only if you don't change the contract.


Additionally, Cybernetics is much easier to unlock because the tech is tier 2 which always drops reliably, while Gene Tailoring is tier 3 and has the tendency to not show up for decades during which you have 0 pop/leader bonuses and complete uncertainty whether you should start saving unity + 1 perk slot or not.

Ironically, completing the Cyber tree also makes finding Gene Tailoring more likely because you already get all the abovementioned bonuses without modding your pops.

[CrUsHeR]

BTW i also changed my stance on Psionics.


Did this one game where - well, i cheated a bit by activating ALL precursors because i expected Psionics to be crap as always. So that is quite a boost because you get the Zroni, Baol, Cybrex and First League all combined, plus a huge load of unity from completing all the crappy precursors (10k each). And the other relics still have some minor effect.


Not sure if they secretly nerfed the negative shroud stuff by the end of the beta, but i had practically zero negative outcomes. Also got the Whisperers covenant on first shroud visit, and this one is really powerful. I think they also nerfed the project costs for shroud/covenant.

With the upgraded Whisperers Telepaths, it gets quite crazy. You have around +75 unity, +150 or so research, and +30% resource output on every planet with 25+ pops - with only 2 pops working 1 building. And the empire-unique sanctum makes your capital production go nuts.
The telepaths are finally pulling their weight, you can even make use of habitats (which used to be my biggest concern, their slot not being worth it, no longer the case)

Then you still get the upgraded robo-plants for decent synth assembly (iirc synths also get the telepath bonus). I think i had around 3k research before 2270 and doubled that by 2300... WITHOUT conquering a single planet, and 0.25x habitable planets.

Lastly, if you build those WW missile + Hangar battleships fleets, the Psi Shields become very noticable for fleet power, because you can actually equip them long before Dark Matter tech (since the missiles cost very little power)

I think this was the strongest game in quite a while, but as mentioned with cheated precursors, and lots of luck in other places (brain slug, impossible organism, rubricator, early fen habbanis, research bonus on remnants expansion planets, etc)


Probably gonna put Psionics on #2 right after Cybernetics.

[CrUsHeR]

Oh and, a word about Synths.

> Currently bugged with the wrong template assimilation, that's why this is the worst atm

> Not sure if new feature, but you can also assimilate your old robot species into your main species synths (actually great so nobody is affected by the Ghost Signal)

> Synthetics tech always comes comparably late, however....

> ... you can somewhat compensate for the late ascension, because if you know you won't have this as your second or third perk, you can safely take e.g. Arcology Project in that slot instead. So if you directly upgrade your trade/research planets to Ecu, this is an insane boost for research and unity.

[mss73055]

Currently you can find synthetics in a digsite. I managed to get it 35 years into the game, at 50% completed. It took 6 years to research the remainder.
41 years into the game I unlocked its ascension.
45 years into the game I had a full synth empire.