Economy crashed. Fully employed pops making almost no resources.

[BogusRogus]

I have over a 1000 hours in the game so not completely new. My alloys, energy, science etc. dropped like 95% on every world? What happened here?

[BogusRogus]

Any way to post a screenshot here?

[Grimshot]

You should be able to use f12 to take a screenshot then upload it to your profile using the overlay. Then you can post the url here.

I wont be able to help you though, I just came back from a 2 year or more hiatus and I'm relearning the game lol.

[arronax06]

Did you take the Virtuality ascension path? You get -25% resource output per colony with that ascension path :)

[Kleiner's final Form]

Are you maybe hosting the power drain entity without having noticed? That sounds like the blackout modifier.

Are you in the conquering phase? AI empires like to build the new megastructures because they're cheap, but their resource drain adds up. Happened to me too.

[BogusRogus]

I did in fact take the Virtual ascension - but should it be this bad? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3253718614

[Elitewrecker PT]

Read the last virtual tradition tooltip.

[Carog the Fat]

ouch that is painful -25% per colony..... virtual is 6 colonies max and an easy way to close colonies so you can funnel all those brains into the synaptic lathe.

[BogusRogus]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2478747265492443088/E5832BE07A96392889EEE76E8C0768A92D4B7919/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[BogusRogus]

Research as well to near zero

[Carog the Fat]

yeah virtual is max six colonies if you are iron man abandon colonies you can do it for free and build a ring world.

[HappySack]

If you want to play wide then pick one of the other ascensions. nanotech is weaker at first but scales harder and modular is all-around good but gets outscaled in the lategame by the other two.

[BogusRogus]

Ahh I see. If play wide you will be crushed. Maybe my AI just needs more NVDA chips? RIP

[Azor]

There's a planet decision that allows you to decolonize any planet for no influence cost. IT's called "Server shutdown". Use it.

Virtual ascension reduces -25% output PER PLANET, starting at % 175%. So if you have 6 planets you'll get +25% pop output. At 7, you get `+0 and it goes on. 11 = -100%, 15 = - 200%. At some point you accumulate so many debuffs that it you'll the MINIMUM pop resource output, regardless of how many buffs you had stacked.

the virtual buffs/debuffs are additive so you can have 7 planets, maybe 8 or 9. But going above will obviously cripple your economy. I usually have 7 planet max as a virtual so I get zero debuffs. I usually colonize a 7th planet for soldier jobs (=naval cap) and more alloys.


EDIT: ecumenopolis and clerks are your friends. Forget about technicians. Virtuals don't need them. With an ecumenopolis you can easily get +100% resource output from pops and a lot of trade value. Just as virtual pops are made out of thin air, so are their resources.

[BogusRogus]

Thank you Azor! That was great info. Really appreciate it. I see my problem :)

[Graknorke]

I thought the virtual penalties capped out at -75%? There's definitely a minimum, you don't start producing negative resources or anything like that.