Synthetic Evolution feels useless in 2.2

[Tech Noir Synth]

Hey guys!
I am quite new to the game, I got into it just about a month before 2.2 hit and had a ton of fun.
But after playing the new update (also testing out the newest beta patch that just got published on the 15.12.18) I am very dissapointed with how Synthetic evolution works. I will go over several points which I dislike and try to make suggestions for make them better. Maybe I missed something so I would be happy if you guys could discuss this with me.

I am the kind of player who likes to min/max. I enjoyed the Synthetic ascencion very much before 2.2 because the old building system allowed me to have 3 different Robot types to choose from when building on planet tiles. One for minerals, one for unity/energy, one type for science. I had full control thanks to the old planet system.

In the new system, I feel like I have lost a ton of control over min/maxing my pops to make best use of their traits. I can make different types of Robos, but only 1 will grow at a time. I can not assign each pop to its job, I have to hope the system assigns it correctly, which does not always work. This frustrates me. I do not like having to click (+) and (-) to shift pops around everytime, without having a guarantee that this works. Furthermore, I will have to pay close attention to only assemple the exact amount of pops I need for each job and then switch to another kind of robot for the next job each time a new pop is assembled. This is incredibly tedious.

I suggest the following: When I create robot templates: I want to be able to tell the system: Fill all technician jobs with this type. Fill all researcher jobs with another type, fill all miner jobs with a third type. You can't expect us to pay attention after each robot pop has grown to choose the correct one to grow next. When I have 5 miner jobs open, the system should grow 5 miner robots and when I have specialist slots open, the system should automatically switch to build a different kind of robot. In the past I simply queued up these robots on planet tiles. But since you cannot queue up what robots to build anymore, the amount of micromanagement is way too high.

Next issue: The districts. In the old version, Synth evolution replaced all my food buildings with energy buildings. This was great! However, in the new version all my food disctricts stay in place! This creates huge problems. First, I end up with a ton of food which is useless for me ( I don't want organics). I know I get access to bio-reactors, but they convert 25 food into 20 energy and I do not think it is worth it to give up a building slots just for this. Maybe I am wrong and I could fill habitats or Ringworlds with this and this will become the new meta. But for now Ringworlds and Habitats seem to be nerfed a lot, so I only use planets for now for all my production.
Another huge problem: Energy districts are based on the planet RNG! Even if my planet had 6 food districts, there is no guarantee I get 6 energy districts. I would rather have my food districts all become energy districts.

Of course you might say "just use the market". But I don't want to have to keep selling food (which will become cheap and worthless over time because of supply and demand, so thats another huge nerf to Synth evolution). I want my economy to be sustainable, after all I spend an ascencion perk for it!

My last point and the biggest problem BY FAR:
When you check your robots, you can see that they only require 0,5 housing and a small amount of upkeep. This is the case as long as they have the servitude status and are not considered full citizens. As soon as you give them citizenship, they require 1 housing (so double!) and more ressources. Of course if you choose synthetic evolution, your main citizens become synths. This will also give all other synths in your empire full citizenship, which caused a huge mess! I had about 12 planets, each with tons of Robots. My total Amneties went way into the negative and my housing aswell! On my homeworld I got up to -18 housing just after synthetic evolution! Crime increased instantly, throwing negative events at me.

I read the patchnotes and saw that you guys are working on making this path better, but right now its still nowhere it used to be. In its current state, it seems to be entirely useless to go past "flesh is weak". The increasing demands destroy your economy. Synths are nerfed from before 2.2. They were at a base 20% bonus to everything, now they are only at 10% bonus and you gain another 10% from the Synth evolution perk. We do get a couple points for Robomodding, but as I already explained the system does not allow to easily assign pops for perfect min/maxing. Instead, choosing synthetic ascencion with a big amount of robots is actually a detriment to your economy, you could simply use enslaved synth with "the flesh is weak" and not suffer AI rebellions. When ascending, the housing requirement should stay the same.

What do you guys think? Did I not see an easy way to min/max my pops correctly? How do you deal with several pop types and tell the system to assign them correctly?

I hope the devs can see this and improve our beloved synths. The biggest problems do not seem to be the % bonuses, I am very happy you increased those, but the huge demands coming from ascencion.

 

[Delthor]

In the new system, I feel like I have lost a ton of control over min/maxing my pops to make best use of their traits. I can make different types of Robos, but only 1 will grow at a time. I can not assign each pop to its job, I have to hope the system assigns it correctly, which does not always work. This frustrates me. I do not like having to click (+) and (-) to shift pops around everytime, without having a guarantee that this works.

There are two things to do here. First, take a big, deep breath, and accept that you can't min/max your pops anymore. You're not supposed to, the system isn't designed for it, and when you try, you're fighting the system rather than playing in a way that it works for you. For generalist planets, you just have to accept that you can either make pops generally powerful and have traits improve most things or you can make pops specialized and their traits will be useless sometimes but more powerful other times. The sooner you accept this new state of affairs, the sooner you'll enjoy yourself more.

Second, you can actually do some min-maxing, but you need to do it on a planet level. If you specialize a colony as a pure mining world, and don't dedicate any districts at all to the other two types, you will ensure the 5% boost to minerals, and you can robomod all your pops to be mineral focused to gain a lot more benefit. This often means building less than the max number of districts, which may seem insane, but remember that a colony with less districts contributes less to empire size, which is a small boon. It also means you can focus more resources elsewhere.

Another huge problem: Energy districts are based on the planet RNG! Even if my planet had 6 food districts, there is no guarantee I get 6 energy districts. I would rather have my food districts all become energy districts.

Yeah, there are some issues with energy with both synthetic empires and machine empires. I suspect that the food-to-energy building is a band-aid and that they might have something coming out later to improve things. If not, then I think they just need to buff machine and synthetic empires so that their energy generation jobs generate 6 energy instead of 4. Farmers produce 6 food instead of 4, and I think that would help level the playing field. You still have less flexibility since food-based deposits are much worse, but this would improve things.

Also, remember that as a synthetically ascended empire, you should have access to trade value. This can generate an enormous number of energy credits that isn't constrained by deposites. Machine empires don't have that, but they do eventually get a terraform option that frees up districts entirely... The job production imabalance is the main issue, not the deposit issue.

I honestly don't even think expecting the player to plan for the synthetic ascension and build up a large stockpile of energy and start moving farms over to something that can help with energy is that much to ask of you. It's a huge change to your empire; requiring some planning makes the event deeper by providing some challenge and extra thought you should put into it.

This will also give all other synths in your empire full citizenship, which caused a huge mess! I had about 12 planets, each with tons of Robots. My total Amneties went way into the negative and my housing aswell! On my homeworld I got up to -18 housing just after synthetic evolution! Crime increased instantly, throwing negative events at me.

To be honest, I think this is fine. Giving synthetics full rights is essentially freeing an enormous number of slaves all at once, which has massive impacts on society. The bright side is gaining happiness bonuses and such, but you should need to make preparations in order to make this transition a smooth one. It adds more challenge to the game and transforms decisions that were just no-brainer clicks of a button into something that requires careful consideration and preparation.

There are other examples of this elsewhere in the game. People have reported having refugee crises leading to overcrowding and unemployment. People have crashed the market in a way that crippled the entire galactic economy in the middle of a crisis. These sorts of economic mini crises should be approached in the same way as things like the Khan, the galactic crises, piracy, and so on.

All that said, I'm not saying synthetics and machines don't need help. The consensus on that is pretty strong. But some parts of this are just the gameplay getting deeper and players needing to play smarter.

 

[Bankipriel]

Couple things.

1) Monthly sales on the market don't do very much (if anything) to effect trade rates. You can start trading 10 food/month week one, keep it forever, and it will not (at least in my experience) effect market rates. So, the key to using the market well is through small to moderate monthly sales. Using those bulk buy/sell options should be for emergencies only, else you are doing your economy a disservice.

2) Robots seem to be a very situational strategy now. Their number big upside low housing & low consumer goods cost, as well as 200% habitability, which really just means consistently low consumer goods cost across all planets, as well as allowing for agri- or mining-worlds that are not habitable enough to easily utilize for your founder species.

a) if robots aren't going to up your CG (consumer goods) game, then for heaven's sake, don't use them. Base food growth is higher than base energy production, so an authoritarian empire using stratified society is going to be able to utilize large bio-worker population planets *much* more efficiently than can readily done with robots. There may be an argument for robots in there somewhere due to their lower housing usage ... but even if the housing usage can be turned to a significant advantage, it's going to rely on high density population, which is not going to be relevant until, at least, mid-game.

b) if robots are improving your empire through low CG usage, make darned sure you have the industrial production to cover upgrading them into any kind of society that's going to require giving them more CG's.

c) if you plan to utilize robots, attempt to single focus planets as much as possible (only mining, or only agriculture), as it will allow you to batch upgrade all the robots on planets efficiently to the new "mining model," or the new "agri-model," etc.

3) great idea on setting planetary job-pop priority, e.g. telling a planet to use agri-bots for farms, and mining bots for mining. Again though, in so far as you are able, keeping planets to one type of robot each seems to be a good way to work around the pop-job assignment difficulties.

4) I agree, the synthetic ascension seems pretty close to useless, and more than that, an actively detrimental empire change in most cases, since it will require a massive restructuring of the empire's economy to switch from food to energy upkeep. I guess it might not be an issue if you get a dyson sphere online first, or some other massive energy surplus? I don't know. Pretty unappealing, regardless.

 

[Delthor]

There may be an argument for robots in there somewhere due to their lower housing usage ...

I use them as nearly free growth. They're extra pops for some extra minerals, one job, and one building. When I'll take 10% pop growth and some amenities for consumer goods, two jobs, and a building, I'll 100% take robots. Especially since I'm almost always materialist. Though I honestly wouldn't use them much outside low habitability on any empire that isn't a materialist.

c) if you plan to utilize robots, attempt to single focus planets as much as possible (only mining, or only agriculture), as it will allow you to batch upgrade all the robots on planets efficiently to the new "mining model," or the new "agri-model," etc.

This is definitely the number one way to get the most out of pop specialization. And it's true of gene modding, too. Many things in the game push you to specialize planets. The fact gene modding is on a planet basis, the planet type bonuses, etc.

 

[Tech Noir Synth]

Hey guys, thanks for your input.

I never tried the monthly trade so this might be a way to get around having a ton of excess food.

On the topic of min/maxing. I like the idea of specializing entire planets. I am pretty much doing this already, but I stil end up with a couple districts and pops which are not gaining full efficiency from their traits. For Robomodding, you still have traits for 15% minerals/energy/unity or food output. You can also choose a bonus to science output. However, these is also a new trait for 3 points which increases all output by 5% if I remember correctly. So for those of you who don't want to spend as much time micromanaging, this might be the way to go.

I still hope that atleast for Robots we will get the ability to specifically assign pops to jobs. I know many people request this, and atleast for Robots it does make sense to assign them for the job they were build for.

But the biggest problem is the huge upkeep and housing increase when giving your synths increased citizen rights.
As of now, we can conclude that its not possible to min/max as much as you used to before 2.2, so the benefit of synthetic ascencion is way smaller. It is better to keep your synths in servitude and not go past "flesh is weak". After all, the best use for robots is simply the fact that they grow alongside your pops and growth is the most important stat now.

Currently Synthetic evolution is not worth the perk slot and I hope this will change in the future. Housing needs to stay the same and min/maxing needs to stay possible for not only robots, but all species and trait modifications through easy assignment of jobs.

 

[fodazd]

My personal opinion:
-> I agree that you should have more control over which robot-templates should go to which jobs.
-> If you don't have enough energy-districts, use city-districts or ecumenopolis to produce trade value. Yes, robots are worse at this than organics because they don't have an equivalent of the thrifty trait, but it is still pretty good in my opinion.
-> I'm not sure what my opinion is on automatically freeing all the synths when you ascend, but having your main species continue to use only 0.5 housing and amenities even at full citizenship would probably be too strong.
-> The +10% from jobs due to synthetic evolution in the new patch is a *further nerf* in my opinion, since -10% upkeep was stronger.

 

[Bankipriel]

I use them as nearly free growth. They're extra pops for some extra minerals, one job, and one building. When I'll take 10% pop growth and some amenities for consumer goods, two jobs, and a building, I'll 100% take robots. Especially since I'm almost always materialist. Though I honestly wouldn't use them much outside low habitability on any empire that isn't a materialist.

Yes, good call. I totally forgot to mention the growth factor, which as you said, is one of the central strengths. I tend to play authoritarian empires, and with their low CG usage, robots aren't very appealing.


Speaking of nothing to do with with robots XD but on the topic of growth: the most fun I've had as a regular empire so far has been with an Imperial, Authoritarian/Militaristic/Xenophobic, Post-Apocalyptic empire, with rapid breeding and adaptable (w/ whatever negatives you mind least to balance points). Starting habitability on all worlds is 70, or 100 on tombs. If you don't mind restarting a few times, you can get "a new generation" agenda from your emperor/empress, for another 10% growth bonus. I was able to colonize so wide, so fast, with such low CG overhead on my workers, I felt like I was playing a hive. Good times.

But yeah, I used to play mechanist a lot. I hope we get a few tweaks and a few more pop management tools to make robots a bit stronger and less cumbersome. As much as I don't want them to make habitability penalties stronger, I wonder if making poor habitability more punishing might be a good way to increase the power of robotic pops.

 

[Pootino]

• Energy districts are limited, but trade isn't, use trade to sustain your robots.
• Attempting to min max population is useless right now, best way is to make a single template with efficient processors and mass-produced, they would still get +25% resource production on everything.
• Last time I tried to play synth I got the bug that made my main ascended synth specie having full citizenship rights but without the possibility to spawn rulers, however the rest of the my robots were still slaves and I had the option to choose if give them citizenship or leave them as such. I'm not sure if it will implemented in the future but it would be nice if it would be always possible to leave your normal robots slaves while your ascended synths remain free.