2.2 robots are nearly worthless (along with Machine Empires, Mechanist, and Synethic Ascension)

[Amblingon]

Robots grow at a rate of 2.0/month and take 100 growth, giving you a new pop every 50 months. Meanwhile, in 2.1, Robots needed 30 months to grow. Machine Empires have two techs to reduce Assembly Speed, but Synthetic/normal empires don't have access to them, and they still don't get close to 2.1 speeds (and given how cripplingly slow the early game is, it hardly matters).

In addition, Robots cost about 5x as much as in 2.1, though overall most things cost about 3x as much so it's not as massive a nerf as it sounds (just a mildly crippling one). The more crippling nerf is to the energy upkeep.

Furthermore, producing robots takes full-time dedicated pop jobs.

Machine Empires/Synthetic Ascension are even harder hit — for some reason, the ME replicator job is even twice as slow at producing robots than the normal empire one, though you can have 2 of them. In other words, you can build at the same rate by occupying twice as many of yours pops.

Oh, and colonizing with droids (for Life-seeded starts, for example? Forget it). Droids and Synths are gone, incidentally (though for some reason this was left out of the patch notes); the upgrades just give you a flat bonus and no easy way to see how advanced any given pop is.

Finally, the process by which pops are automatically assigned to the best job for them? Doesn't work for robot pops.

To summarize, 2.2 nerfs upkeep, cost, build time, and utility of robots into the ground, and makes Mechanist, ME, and Synthetic Ascension playstyles essentially unplayable.

 

[fishworshipper]

The Machine Empires only start with negative energy because they have too many jobs, and their pops aren't working the energy jobs as a result.

 

[Lastrael]

I would also add that the civic for Rouge Servitors lost its most unique functionality: the bonuses that reacted to the number of bio-trophies in your empire. They also start with no food production building i.e at deficit, and their mineral upkeep from jobs is so high that also they start with negative mineral production.

 

[Amblingon]

I would also add that the civic for Rouge Servitors lost its most unique functionality: the bonuses that reacted to the number of bio-trophies in your empire. They also start with no food production building i.e at deficit, and their mineral upkeep from jobs is so high that also they start with negative mineral production.

It's not the most important point, but it's so weird that this stuff is never in the patch notes.

More relevant, that's awful. Basically makes the entire civic (which was one of the most unique in the game) pointless.

I really, really, hope that these changes are bugs or just overlooked and get fixed, because otherwise 2.2 made Synthetic Dawn almost worthless.

 

[Highbuzz]

It's a game-breaking feature. Hope it gets fixed real soon.

 

[MrGman]

I've only had a quick look at the new update, but I can't see a way of halting robot production apart from taking the pop off the robot assembly plant tile, which seems silly. Am I missing something?

 

[Xeorm]

Robots were certainly changed. I haven't played around with the machine empires yet, but I do think you're understating how good robots are for normal empires. Adding a building for 2 pop construction is a pretty sweet early change, especially for pops that occupy little space and have absurdly low upkeep costs. Being able to fit more pops in total on a single world is a pretty sweet deal.

I've only had a quick look at the new update, but I can't see a way of halting robot production apart from taking the pop off the robot assembly plant tile, which seems silly. Am I missing something?

Not that I know of. Though it might be intentional. There's no good way with the interface to let the player know otherwise that a stalled robot production means you're wasting pops and building space.

 

[Amblingon]

Adding a building for 2 pop construction is a pretty sweet early change, especially for pops that occupy little space and have absurdly low upkeep costs.

I might be misunderstanding you, but that doesn't apply to all-robot empires.

It's plausible robots are good for players that aren't using Mechanist, Synthetic Ascension, or any of the Machine Empires, and just sprinkle some robots on top of their already-developed bio population. But the nerfs made all the synthetically focused civics/empires nearly unplayable.

A perk like Mechanist (which trades early game power for being a 'dead' perk late game) is pointless if it actually cripples your early game, which the nerfs now do.

 

[elitesix]

You're missing out that machine empire robots base speed is 3. Organics building robots is base speed 2. While Machine Empires might be sub-par, I think it's too early to call it crippling just yet especially since machine empires being able to colonize any planet is a pretty strong buff in 2.2 since planets can hold a lot more. I say this because I've been doing some loose testing different empires for max number of pops by 2240. All builds below had max popgrowth speed traits (rapid breeders etc) and civics and food policies. There seem to be three tiers of popgrowth-focused empires:

-----


Tier 1 (6+ combined popgrowth/month)
Hive Minds,
Driven Assimilators,
Rogue Servitors,
Mechanist Rapid Pop Organic Empires

Tier 2 (5+)
Fanatic Xenophobe + Syncretic Livestock w/ 1k Food Planetary Edict

Tier 3 (4+)
Rapid Pop Build Machine Empires,
Rapid Pop Build Organics (Fanatic Xenophobe)

Tier 4 (3)
Basic non-pop speed organic empires

-----

Some discussion:

The fastest growing empire are ones with machines w/ organic pops (mechanist, driven assimilators, and rogue servitors) and hive minds. Properly built, they all get into the 6 popgrowth/month combined. If you're a normal machine empire, conquering primitives or an early war can get you nice energy organic slaves, which if anything like livestock don't take districts or buildings to turn into energy, and you get your extra popgrowth since energy is a hugely critical resource for robots you'll want your battery slaves growing alongside your machine empire pops.

The next fastest growing is fanatic xenophobe w/ adaptive+rapidbreeders or just extremely adaptive for more planets, syncretic evolution set to livestock. You usually hit around 5, though you suffer problems in that you have too many livestock and not enough workers, so you sell food for other resources. You can do the 1k food popgrowth edict on a few planets, but if you are going super wide early you can't spam food edicts on all of them all due to selling food for other resources (and in fact you need this to get to 5). After you get your workforce up and running, you might be able to put the 1k food edict on every planet.

I haven't compared the lower tier too much, but a machine empire with all the rapid pop building civcs comes in at about the low 4s (4.14 - note the tooltip doesn't show all the modifiers but the end number is correct), whereas a rapid breeder + fanatic xenophobe pop with food policy comes in at about 4.2 growth/month.

 

[Amblingon]

Oh, I forgot to mention:

Default Droid in 2.1 produces +15% minerals. 2.2 Droid produces no additional minerals

Default Synthetic in 2.1 received +20% to all productions including research and unity. Default Synthetic in 2.2 gets a +10% robotic pop modifier (that is, worse than Slaver Guilds).

At this point, Synth Ascension is a waste of two Ascension perks.

 

[FonVegen]

I can partially agree. Playing my standard ME empire (Industrial Production Core, so rapid construction and resource gain oriented) I'm 50 years into my first game and have one planet I'd consider developed, and that is my homeworld. I can see that production starts to pick up on the first colonies, but getting the first 5 pops on colonies while also having to develop a stable core industry and expanding your fleet and starbases is a chore, since you build them at a speed of one.

Note that everything I say should be taken with a grain of salt because I am a) bad at games and b) almost completely unfamiliar with the new update, so I might be missing something. But the AI still seems to be doing worse than me, so...

 

[Amblingon]

Snip

Interesting, thanks for the math! I haven't tested Driven Assimilators yet, but I'm very confident that at the very least, Mechanist and Synthetic Ascension no longer serve any purpose. Incidentally, Rogue Servitors have evidently lost their entire unique playstyle since Bio-Trophies no longer provide buffs - can you confirm?

 

[elitesix]

Interesting, thanks for the math! I haven't tested Driven Assimilators yet, but I'm very confident that at the very least, Mechanist and Synthetic Ascension no longer serve any purpose. Incidentally, Rogue Servitors have evidently lost their entire unique playstyle since Bio-Trophies no longer provide buffs - can you confirm?

Rogue Servitors don't get servitor morale it seems, though some tooltips are missing, so it's possible I overlooked something.

RS get organic sanctuaries which basically is a building that gives +10 housing +10 biotrophy jobs and I think +5 amenities or consumer goods.

I liked mechanist because it still is tier1 (with a properly built civic/organic pop) in terms of combined pop growth, though robots are harder to use as they only work for mining and farming till you get droids.

-----

Doh, just realized I left out organic empires w/ mechanist from tier 1, edited it.

 

[Amblingon]

The problem with Mechanist is that though it might theoretically be OK in the long run, the start is so much slower it effectively defeats the whole purpose for the civic (that is, trading a 'dead' civic slot in the late game with a boost to initial power).

 

[Maethendias]

i think the biggest problem (oversight) for synthetic empires isnt the lesser pop growth, its
1 how hard /annoying it now is to build special robots for certain jobs (the old tile system was actually perfect for that, now its always build only this, or build only that, or build all types of robots...)


2 and much more important, robot empires (and id imagine hiveminds too) lack an equivalent to trade value and trade routes... which give basically all other empires a MAJOR economy boost... hiveminds just utterly miss out on that note (seriously... just call it synapse flow or something like that.... come on...)

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Hold your horses...

Comparing with 2.1 are completely worthless since theres nothing really comparable from a game balance perspective anymore. The devs can very well have changed things for good reasons in comparison and you can't compare things across since the systems are so different.

I started with a Technocracy who were Mechanist and the starting position was pretty strong. I grow both organics and robots so my growth from the start are REALLY good. Robots takes one energy and organics one food and some consumer goods AND robots take MUCH less housing as well. The Mechanist also start with 27 (8 robots as miners and farmers) pop versus 24 for normal and one more energy district. This means more housing available despite more POP. Sure Mineral output is lower while food is higher from the start but minerals have NEVER been a constraint in this game at ANY time for me.

The energy that robots need are much cheaper than the food and commercial goods you need for organics not to mention less housing AND amenities needed for the robots.

In my opinion this is completely overblown as a big problem. Robots are really strong and I can concentrate my organic pop for more specialist jobs and I grow POP much faster on my capital world which means I can build more specialist buildings and don't need as many districts built in the early game. I unlock new buildings faster and easily expand my mineral output to high levels.

After about twenty years I had above 40 POP and 3 labs, 2 foundries, 1 commercial zone, 1 civilian industry and 1 robot assembly plant.

The robots will make your basic resource production dirt cheap and you can divert your more valuable organic POP to more important jobs.

 

[Kidzin]

I've played 100 years with ME that was Rapid Replicator for 20% pop production, Constructobot (later added Rockbreaker). Initial pop was with Efficient Processors and Mass Produced +15% positive traits and Luxurious, Bulky negatives. I've went expansion first to get extra pop on new colonies (it's bugged, doesn't work) and for another +10% robot production speed with Hotjoin Protocols. I also try to maintain Drone Campaign for another 20%. With those bonuses, my planet with Administrative Array and Fully functional Machine Assembly Plant is making 5,17 pop points.

Bonuses in game are listed as follows:
Monthly Pop Assemply 5,17
Pop from jobs +3
Rapid Replicators +20%
Drone Campaign +20%
Hotjoin Protocols +10%

In Capital Planet that has Planetary Processor it looks like that:
Monthly Pop Assemply 6,9
Pop from jobs +4
Rapid Replicators +20%
Drone Campaign +20%
Hotjoin Protocols +10%

I really have no clue at what point in calculation of Mass Produced takes place.

On one hand this looks quite speedy, but then you realise your planet is using 4 pop (5 with Processor) to construct other pops with 24 minerals upkeep( would be 20 without luxurious), trait and civic slots and over 1k energy every 10+ years. This is abyssmal. Then of course every pop costs 1 base energy to upkeep and still has to worry about Amenities and Deviancy. Your net income is garbage compared to organics. Your new colonies also develop with pathetic speed of base 1 in starting outpost untill you get 5 pop to build Machine Assembly Plant that increases it by another 1 (also of course both require machines to work and it eats minerals while not producing any). Of course you can resettle from your capital to speed it up but every pop resettlement costs 100 energy. And because for some reason you can't trade even if you are not Servitor or Exterminator you are always short on energy.

Overall forget playing ME in multiplayer, you stand no chance.

 

[Maethendias]

^i think one of the biggest oversights is gestalts not having access to trade (or somehting like synapse flow/processing power)

the new tradesystem is just SUCH a HUGE economic boost for empires its not even funny that gestalts (and robots as the "efficient ressourcers" ) lack out on that... heavy uplift

 

[elitesix]

^i think one of the biggest oversights is gestalts not having access to trade (or somehting like synapse flow/processing power)

the new tradesystem is just SUCH a HUGE economic boost for empires its not even funny that gestalts (and robots as the "efficient ressourcers" ) lack out on that... heavy uplift

Having played a machine empires, hive minds, and organics for at least 1 hour a piece under 2.2, I'm not sure we can say that gestalt not having trade value is a huge nerf. The jobs and resource production for the gestalt specific jobs aren't carbon copies of the organic jobs. Anecdotally, I noticed several jobs that gestalt had that I thought were going to be carbon copies but were in fact where more productive than the organic equivalent.

So in short, I think someone has to run the numbers, because the gestalts actually do have a pretty different job economy as opposed to a straight copy of the organic economy.

 

[Dsingis]

I really have no clue at what point in calculation of Mass Produced takes place.

I reported this as a bug, since I thought it didn't do anything, but a QA told me, the bug here is just visual.
The Mass Produced effect is calculated just like the other bonuses, it just doesn't appear in the tooltip.