Update to 2.2.6 and some balance changes that I meant to implement a while ago but didn't since I stopped playing Stellaris to await optimization patches. Not sure if I'm still overwriting good vanilla changes, might have overlooked something. Likely need to reconsider the focus of the Ascension perks I added since they were originally designed to allow Machine Empires to suffer through early game (with their low energy production vs pop upkeep cost) but then scale into a monster of a late-game as their upkeep costs got cut by whatever the total % ended up being while their production rates rose from technology gains. Now they likely have decent energy all-game since Tech Drones produce 6 energy for machine empires.

Entirely removed my Bio-Reactor changes since changes from patch 2.2.5/6 make them unnecessary (Machine empires produce 6 energy / tech drone and only 5 food)

Lowered cost of Planetary Sculpting decision from 11250 Energy / 22500 Minerals -> 7500 Energy / 15000 Minerals
Based off remembering it being really boring (and time consuming) waiting for minerals to accumulate even when having significant production rates. Simply felt like the cost was higher than it needed to be given the benefit / investment.

Nerfed Synapse and Coordinator secondary-output research production from 3 -> 1 of their respective types. You get a surprising number of those jobs in your empire such that producing 3/4 a researcher for each was perhaps a bit excessive. May shift this to 1.5 or 2 in the future- needs playtesting.

Nerfed Cognition Cores Perk's Pop Energy Upkeep from -15% -> -10% as an (albeit small) cautionary change resulting from the assumed significantly increased energy available to Machine empires as a result of 2.2.5/6

Likewise,
Solar Panels Energy lowered from 4 -> 3 (vanilla value)

Some balance changes and updating to 2.2.3

Max facilities for bio empires 4 -> 1
(Bio empires could abuse robotic growth hardcore and outpace their own population growth far too hard)

Max facilities for machine empires 4 -> 2
Due to Machine Empire max growth potential being too high if you built robotic facilities on each planet rather than having one production world. Too easy to build max robotic facilities on every world and reach max pop within a few years, completely dominating bio empires extremely early on due to the sheer pop advantage.

May slightly revert this (2 -> 3) and increase facility cost/build time.

Added another ascension perk

Planetary Expansion (T3)
Requires Mastery of Nature Perk
Provides access to the "Planetary Sculpting" planet decision

Planetary Sculpting
Time: 540 Days
150 Influence, 11250 Energy, 22500 Minerals
Converts a planet into a size-25 world.

Mainly added because I wanted to be able to maximise my planets late-game, to be honest. Originally was going to make the cost scale with the difference between the planet's current size and max but Stellaris handles variables in such a way that I decided it wasn't worth the effort. The cost is up for debate but I think the largest impactors should be the time it takes the decision to finish and the prerequisites to make it available, which currently seem fair to me.

Added icon art for all of the ascension perks.

Removed the Cloning Vat building and the Geneticist job it provided.

The building didn't fit the mod and I also never really tested how strong it was since I've been running Machine Empires to test all the other changes. Given I added it on a whim I figured it better to simply remove it as I'm not even sure it's design goal was necessary. If you happen to be using it, I'd suggest not updating the mod until you finish playing that save- as far as I know older versions of the mod are saved by the workshop for people to revert to.

Ascension Perk Changes

Robotic Assembly Protocols:
Made it a T3 Perk rather than T0- far too strong for that.
Also made it reveal the Climate Restoration Tech to facilitate getting the Machine Worlds Perk as your T4


Added 3 New Perks:

Drone Design: Material Breakthroughs
Robot Pop Upkeep: -10%
Resettlement Cost: -35%

Drone Design: Cognition Cores
Robot Pop Upkeep: -15%
Robot Pop Output: +5%
The output modifier affects everything from mineral output to research and alloy production; it's a lot stronger than it seems. It can also be stacked with the "Efficient Processors" trait which does the same.

Universal Image
Terraforming Cost: -75%
Terraforming Speed: +300%
Intended as a 5th perk for coating the galaxy in Machine Worlds. For the empire that wants to expand and keep expanding.

All perks are Machine-Empire only.


Capital Structure Changes:
"Colony Shelter"
+2 Replicator Jobs
-1 Maintenance Drone, +5 Amenities

+2 Housing on all capital tiers
The replicator jobs are only on the initial colony structure, the "Administrative Array" upgrade and all upgrades after do not have the replicator jobs. The tradeoff is that you can no longer build Robot Assembly Plants on a planet unless there is an Administrative Array or higher-tier capital building. The initial jobs are to allow machine empires a slight variation on the "Pop Production World" playstyle that I prefer and so that you don't have a 500 energy and 300 mineral tax on any colony you make (from needing to resettle 5 pops and then build an Assembly Plant).

The housing change is simply so you can let the planet grow a little before you need to invest in districts and the amenities change is to compensate for needing two pops as Replicators on any new colony. You lose the 5 free amenities and gain the Maintenance Drone jobs you would normally have for Administrative Arrays and up.

Updated to 2.2.2
Re-implemented job changes over new job files in order to ensure the 2.2.2 changes weren't overwritten unless I specifically changed them.

Cloning Facility:
Build Time: 360 Days -> 540
Mineral Cost: 750
+2 Geneticist Jobs
Requires two specific T4 techs to build

Geneticists:
Pop Growth: +50% -> +35%
Upkeep: 2 -> 10 Consumer Goods; 35 -> 35 Food (No change)


Non-Machine Roboticist Job:
Robot Production: 2 -> 1.5
Upkeep: 9 -> 6 Minerals; 3 -> 2 Energy
This makes Non-Machines exactly 25% worse at building robots than Machine Empires are and their maximum build rate is also 25% lower due to the lower growth per job. Very slightly more expensive than Vanilla (5.333 minerals per growth versus vanilla's 5 min / growth).


Bio-Reactor
Removed inherent Upkeep/Production Values
Now provides +2 Biofuel Drone jobs
Three Structure Tiers (2 Jobs / 5 Jobs / 10 Jobs)
Tier 2 / 3 cost 90 / 210 Volatile Motes but have no Mote upkeep in order to keep the strategic resource economy largely the same as other empires.

Biofuel Drone:
Produces: +11.4 Energy
Upkeep: 12 Food

This makes converting food into energy 5% worse than simply making generator districts and producing energy that way. Either way you are using 3 jobs (2 farmers and 1 biofuel drone or 3 tech-drones) but the Bio-Reactor method will produce 11.4 Energy whereas the Tech-drone method will produce 12, a 5% difference.


Starbase Modules: Solar Panel
Energy Output 3 -> 4
This is because Trade exists for Non-Gestalt empires and Trade Hubs inherently produce +2 Trade Value by themselves. The effective 2-energy difference between a Trade Hub and a Solar Panel is more than compensated for by the inherent TV produced by a planet's population (30-80 TV on a populated planet seemed fairly normal to me).

Added thumbnail ;)

Nerfed upkeep costs slightly

Non-Machine Roboticist:
6 -> 9 Minerals
3 -> 3 Energy

Machine-Empire Replicator:
4 -> 6 Minerals
2 -> 2 Energy

(Non-Machine is still exactly 50% higher resource cost than the Machine-Empire job)
Non-Machine is 2 total resource upkeep higher than the vanilla value (10 minerals v 12 mixed resource) but it still provides double (2 growth) compared to vanilla (1 growth).

Altered Machine-Empire "Bio-Reactor" building:
Energy 20 -> 16
+1 Tech-Drone Job (Total base energy output remains the same; Tech-Drones provide 4 energy)

Idea behind this change is so that Bio Reactors can benefit from Technician research and provide a few extra jobs when you cover an agrarian world in them to convert the food into power (since the ratio is better given farms give +6 food versus +4 energy from tech-drones)

Currently this is resulting in a ~10% energy output buff from technology affecting technicians in my test game so I may drop the total base output on Bio-Reactors to 19 Energy / 20 Food to lower the early-game gains but still allow for some mid-late output gains once youve invested in research.

Added Building: Cloning Vats
1 Structure Cap / Planet
+2 Jobs (Geneticist)
Geneticists provide +50% Growth (biological) each; 12 Energy, 36 Food Upkeep
Requires two T4 technologies to construct (T4 Society Researcher Output +20% and the T4 Farmer Output tech)

If you use the "Better Priorities" mod I have noticed it conflicts with the changes to non-machine Roboticists and will likely prevent the addition of the Geneticist job as well. Right now I'm not sure if I can fix it but I do have an idea for a way to do so.

Lowered Structure Caps
Non-Machine Robot Plant 4 -> 2
Machine-Empire's Plant 6 -> 4

Ignoring % modifiers from other sources this means a maximum of +8 Production / Month for Non-Machine
and 16 Production / Month for Machine (30 for Machine w/ the Ascension Perk I added)

Keep in mind that is 16 production maximum per individual planet. The only thing stopping you from having every planet be a 16-robot-production-per-month assembly world as a machine empire is the upkeep costs on the Replicator jobs. This is compared to ~12 growth on a late-game Bio planet, which is around the highest I have personally seen.