What is the most suitable ascension path for an Aquatic species?

[al_x_ator2411]

I have access to all ascension paths and am puzzled as to which one would be more suitable for an Aquatic (angler/catalytic/idyll/hydrocentric) empire.

By most suitable I'm not asking for the most OP/meta but one that doesn't go against the strengths or flavor/theme of the build.

(So maybe no full synthetics; if I wanted to play robots, I'd start as robots).
So any ideas about the remaining 3 paths? Which one do you usually choose when playing Aquatics?

[Bishi]

Well Aquatic plus pacifist food builds generally want to find some way to get some more specialist production at some point. You don't really need the habitability bonus of Cybernetic, and if you hate robots so much (P.S. Synths have freewill btw) there is also no point going that path if you aren't spamming robot workers.

That just leaves Psionic and Genetic. Erudite can get you diet-lite fleet bonuses of Psionic and much better growth so I tend to favor Genetic over Psionic. Psionic assimilation can tank your economy sometimes so I tend to prefer it on more Xenophobic empires. Genetic works with either playstyle.

[al_x_ator2411]

It's not like I hate synths. I just dislike that they have the exact same portraits and traits as the gestalt robots.

Anyway, thank you very much for your input. I was leaning towards Bio-ascension too.

Cybernetic is the only path I never tried before and wanted to try it in one of my future campaigns. Is there a build that works best with Cybernetics?

[crgzero]

If you're not looking for OP,,, then just pick which ever makes you happy to play. Can you see your dolphins becoming robots/cyborgs, do you see them hacking their own genome, or maybe becoming masters of the mind.

I don't tend to play organic species, but on the rare occasion that I do I tend to pick whatever appears to line up with what they've become in a round about way. Did I get lucky and get a few pops with psychic abilities, sweet that's their path then, was I constantly forced into war then I'm probably gonna pick synths, depending on mods I may pick bio but that's usually when I've had a peaceful run.

[Kalemenos]

Aquatics are one of my favorite. I usually go genetics hard and strong, and as quickly as I can pull it off. The bonuses are fabulous. Others that help a lot:
- Hydrocentric. It decreases cost of terraforming, and gives a 10% buff on food, minerals, and energy. I make all the planets oceans and all the species ocean-preference, and many species I also give the aquatic trait for the bonuses. So it pairs well with genetic. Then I specialize planets and then further specialize species for specific planets. While it never turns the whole planet 100% one preferred species (they move around on their own), it adds bonuses to bonuses.
- Since they're strong on the basic resources, Technological ascendency compliments the advanced resource of research. I also compliment with species traits like Intelligent/Erudite, and Traditional for the unity bonus.

By mid-game I have so many resources, and am exceeding the AI on research and unity, that its quite amazing. The down-side is that an aquatic-trait species has a hard start to the game, as it doesn't inhabit other planets well. A possible solution is to start the game any way that seems good to you, and then when you get genetics, then change your traits to the aquatic trait when you can terraform many planets cheaply into ocean worlds.

Can you get the aquatic trait with cybernetics? If not, genetics might be more powerful than cybernetics.

[al_x_ator2411]

I didn't know you can add or remove the Aquatics trait after the start of the game (I thought it was like Lithoids or Necrophages). I did a bio-ascension very recently and there was no option to add it (I did already own the DLC). While I could add the plantoid pop assembly trait. I must recheck the Wiki...