Synthetic Evolution - Probably the weakest ascension path, with the least potential?

[cbdeakin]

It seems like there is very little room for development with this path, beyond transferring pops from organic to machine.

Apart from reducing costs a bit, what are the main reasons to choose this path? It requires synthetics tech and synth personality matrix for the major project, but the payoff seems a little underwhelming, considering the scale of the project itself.

One area that has improved is the agenda's that allow easier bee-lining to the tech requirements, to unlock this path. But, it's still quite a lengthy process.

Do you choose this option for role play reasons, or strategy?

[cbdeakin]

The machine variant is OK, but the choice is more limited there anyway, so less of a concern. You get some more machine pop production.

[mss73055]

It allows you to make a mish mash of species into something manageable.
Combine this with a xenophile trade empire to get absurd immigration numbers.

[cbdeakin]

Originally posted by mss73055:

It allows you to make a mish mash of species into something manageable.

I suppose. It seems highly dependent on what pops you have in your empire.

On the other hand, genetic ascension allows bio pops to be reshaped into pretty much whatever you need /want.

How does the synth evolution path help to boost immigration?

Synth evolution in general seems a lot less extensive than psionic ascension...

One of the most obvious benefits is immortal leaders, but in the late game, it's possible to have very long lived leaders anyway. I heard with the new DLC, it's possible to gain immortal leaders anyway, if you are fortunate.

[Urk_da_WAAAGH!]

Wanted pops to work on my planets early game and went hard into immigration, by midgame the species tab was messy AF with several unoptimized species traits.

Synthetic evolution and now is only one species optimized with all the economic benefits of being a machine empire.

[cbdeakin]

Originally posted by Urk_da_WAAAGH!:

Wanted pops to work on my planets early game and went hard into immigration, by midgame the species tab was messy AF with several unoptimized species traits.

Synthetic evolution and now is only one species optimized with all the economic benefits of being a machine empire.

You don't get 0 consumer goods for pops, unfortunately, like Machine Empires. This would be cool, but it's not an option after the project is complete.

So, in some ways, you're better off just starting with a machine empire, but it depends what you want...

It would've made some sense to have this transition as well, but I suppose it's not really a full transition to a machine intelligence government, they retain their politics and sense of individuality.

You can still have oppressive autocracy with a synth evolution empire, but that's the closest you can get to 0 consumer goods I think.

[joiss90]

Originally posted by mss73055:

It allows you to make a mish mash of species into something manageable.
Combine this with a xenophile trade empire to get absurd immigration numbers.

If you are going for trade value you most certainly should go Cybernetic to stack Trading Algorithms (+25%) and Thrifty (+25%) which applies to the base production of trade jobs

[cbdeakin]

Originally posted by joiss90:

Originally posted by mss73055:

It allows you to make a mish mash of species into something manageable.
Combine this with a xenophile trade empire to get absurd immigration numbers.

If you are going for trade value you most certainly should go Cybernetic to stack Trading Algorithms (+25%) and Thrifty (+25%) which applies to the base production of trade jobs

Yeah, there's some good trade options judging by the available traits.

[cbdeakin]

A synth evolution origin (faster path) might be interesting, given that psionics already has this.

The machinist origin doesn't really do this.

[Husker_85]

You can combine the individuality of organics with the immortality of machines for extremely powerful lvl 10 leaders

[cbdeakin]

Originally posted by Isaac_Clark:

You can combine the individuality of organics with the immortality of machines for extremely powerful lvl 10 leaders

Are these better than what you can get with machine empires?

[Husker_85]

Originally posted by cbdeakin:

Originally posted by Isaac_Clark:

You can combine the individuality of organics with the immortality of machines for extremely powerful lvl 10 leaders

Are these better than what you can get with machine empires?

When leaders ascend they keep all their old human traits and gain new machine traits on top of it. So yes.

[cbdeakin]

Originally posted by Isaac_Clark:

Originally posted by cbdeakin:

Are these better than what you can get with machine empires?

When leaders ascend they keep all their old human traits and gain new machine traits on top of it. So yes.

Good point. Maybe that's it then, you get better, more skilled leaders in the long term.

[cbdeakin]

Didn't the synth Evo path get nerfed quite a bit a while ago?

Lots of people on Reddit at the time considered it to be the best option in most cases.

I suppose as the DLC (Utopia DLC) is no longer new, these things change.

[HappySack]

Synthetic used to be the strongest but was nerfed with the ascension reworks since it takes the longest to get to.

I think you can still game the system by colonizing some planets with your original species and before it completes you finish the Synthetic project to convert all your pops to robots so when your colonizing worlds finish you still have access to your old pops and can benefit from the double pop growth like you could before.

[cbdeakin]

What kind of changes or additions would people want to see to Synth Evolution then?

I guess an obvious one, would be to keep at least 1 pop of the dominant species when the synth project is complete. But, this seems like a quirk of how the game mechanics work, that probably needs a redesign.

One idea that would be a lot of work, is to have significantly longer tradition trees, or perhaps even stages (like a stage and and stage 2, that would each consume a ascension perk). This would allow more even greater specialisation over time.

So, the current Synth Evo. would be stage 1. There could be stage 2, to develop the abilities and skills of synth pops and leaders even further.

Perhaps it could even represent a different direction, like a more organic kind of synthetic, with an organic brain, that retains abilities of the original species.

Stage 3 could be optional, repeating traditions, that consume increasing amounts of unity each time they are completed, similar to repeating technologies.

Stages of ascension perks would be quite interesting for some origins, particularly the psionic origin, as they would be able to reach stage 2 relatively quickly.