Can you only become virtual if you start as machines?

[The Shadow Rose]

Or can you become them as bio pops and still become virtual? If so how.

[CrUsHeR]

There is a Synthetic Virtual government to be unlocked after or during the synthetic ascension process.



However, it does not grant any of the extreme buffs (or debuffs) of the proper machine variant.

IIRC you only get the Virtual trait on your founding species' pops (-90% housing, +25% habitability minimum) and leaders (immortality plus generic boni) and access to the Virtual Focus policy (which only really works for empires generating their unity via trade value).

It does not grant you - first of all - the instant pop creation for all jobs. It does not grant the +175% output bonus. It does not grant the extra jobs from districts, the extra districts from ascension tiers, or the output bonus from clerks. Or anything else from the machine virtual traditions, like the changes to empire size weights.



Worst problem is that you cannot actually decide wether to become a modular or virtual empire. This is gated behind a series of arbitrary questions, in the end you can only accept.

[The Shadow Rose]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

There is a Synthetic Virtual government to be unlocked after or during the synthetic ascension process.



However, it does not grant any of the extreme buffs (or debuffs) of the proper machine variant.

IIRC you only get the Virtual trait on your pops (-90% housing, +25% habitability minimum) and leaders (immortality plus generic boni) and access to the Virtual Focus policy (which only really works for empires generating their unity via trade value).

It does not grant you - first of all - the instant pop creation for all jobs. It does not grant the +175% output bonus. It does not grant the extra jobs from district, or the output bonus from clerks. Or anything else from the machine virtual traditions, like the changes to empire size weights.



Worst problem is that you cannot actually decide wether to become a modular or virtual empire. This is gated behind a series of arbitrary questions, in the end you can only accept.

Well thats just disappointing.

[CrUsHeR]

Honestly? The Virtual Machine variant is kind of fun for the first time. But then you realize that is outperforms everything else by several multitudes.

If you pull this through with three habitats by around 2230-40, the biggest challenge is that you get interrupted by having to choose a new tech about every 1-2 months. And since your empire size never changes, it stays that powerful all the way through.

You're gonna be ahead by perhaps 50 years at this point, and the distance to other empires' tech levels just keeps growing.

So this is in fact FUBAR overpowered and needs to be nerfed.
Other ascension paths seem like a joke in comparison. Empire size and slow pop growth are very crippling for them.

Only thing holding Virtual Machines back a little bit is the bug with the Arc Furnaces; since you currently can only build 2 of those (instead of 3, +2 with Mega-Engineering) you are gonna be a bit low on minerals and alloys in the long run.