Synthetic Rebellions exist to Punish Spiritualist

[GOLANX]

Prove me wrong.

Spiritualist is the only ethic that cannot give robot intelligence citizenship which effectively acts as an immunity to a synthetic rebellion. Spiritualist is a bad ethic without Rebellions, they just make it worse. Any other empire will easily avoid the rebellion, they have an immunity button and the rebellion doesn't provide any valuable benefits over the long term.

So question is,
Do we remove synthetic Rebellions as a bad system? (Bonus the devs will feel bad they removed content from Synthetic Dawn DLC and might add cosmetics as a replacement).
Do we rework Synthetic Rebellions so they effect more than just spiritualist Empires and/or are worth letting play out?
Do we leave the System as it is and slap a warning on the Spiritualist Ethic so it is clearly dileniated as a challenge Ethic?

Obviously I'd prefer a rework, synthetic pops should have several issues they care about not just citizenship, wether or not you have a rebellion shouldn't be dependent on the presence of an I win button but should be based on a combination of luck and how you play your cards.
There shouldn't be a lot of right or wrong answers, allowing the rebellion to happen should be a High risk High Reward scenario, you could pick up technologies, traditions, modifiers, Buildings, jobs and more that you wouldn't have had access to otherwise, same goes if you choose to become the Rebellion, you would have access to things no other machine empire would have. If you avoid the rebellion you get the benefits of extra stability, you don't lose the pops or ships you would have lost in a war, but those potential rewards from letting things play out will not be attainable.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

it doesn't give you immunity against the rebellion next door

 

[Dragatus]

You can also just, you know, not research synths. Synths are only really worth researching if you're going for synthetic ascension. Otherwise their only" advantage" over droids is that they can take ruler jobs, which 99,99% of the time is utterly irrelevant.

You can also get the robot rebelion from researching sapient ship computers, but if you're a spiritualist you might as well go for psionic ascension and precognition computers. So you again solve the problem by just not researching the tech that triggers the rebellion.

Spiritualist ethic is still getting the shorter end of the stick compared to materialists, but robot rebellion does not factor in it.

 

[A2ch0n]

You can also just, you know, not research synths. Synths are only really worth researching if you're going for synthetic ascension. Otherwise their only" advantage" over droids is that they can take ruler jobs, which 99,99% of the time is utterly irrelevant.

That would be true if not nowadays the automated research feature exist. If only repeatables are left, this is a really good option if you don't want to min/max and stack modifiers. The problem is, this feature does reseach dangerous tech. More important, it give it priority... So yeah if you don't want to use automation you can skip synths of course. But it feels a bit meh.
There should be a tech list with priorities for the automated research, so you can give it the lowest priority possible. That would at least solve that problem.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

You can also get the robot rebelion from researching sapient ship computers

This is a noob trap, tbf.

Most "Are these machines alive?" mechanics and lore are tied to the Synthetics technology, which is marked as a dangerous tech for this reason. It's not as obvious that Sapient Combat Simulations can trigger the AI rebellion.

 

[Anarcomu]

There should be a tech list with priorities for the automated research, so you can give it the lowest priority possible. That would at least solve that problem.

Also, I don't use missiles and strike-craft, and I would absolutely want auto-research to skip these indeed (this, and food/leader lifespan when playing synth)

 

[Cry_Havok]

All this is part of the long running problem with Spiritualist the comes up ad nauseum. Spiritualist gives a bonus to a weak resource while kneecapping the use of the best techs.

It's also a lore disaster.

Spiritualist: "We think Robots don't have souls, lets make a thinking machine and then be surprised when it rebels." "Oh, a cosmic entity from beyond the stars that might be a god we never even worshipped. Sure, selling or gambling our souls is a great idea."

 

[InvisibleBison]

Are spiritualists underpowered compared to other ethics? Yes.
Does the AI Uprising reflect that underpowered state? Yes.
But there's no reason to think that spiritualism is being "punished" in some way. It's just evidence that Stellaris isn't a well-balanced game, which is hardly a surprise.

 

[Archael90]

Do we rework Synthetic Rebellions so they effect more than just spiritualist Empires and/or are worth letting play out?

It is worth playing. Fighting rebellion allows you to use cheap synth slaves/servants even as xenophile, and egalitarian.

Do we leave the System as it is and slap a warning on the Spiritualist Ethic so it is clearly dileniated as a challenge Ethic?

No.
I would rather allow spiritualists to have "safety button". When droid asks for soul. Spiritualists, as those who are only ones that trully believes soul exists, should have option to say "yas" and reconsider their beliefs, and in the long run allow for synth rights and stop being stagnated.

 

[SaintD]

This is a noob trap, tbf.

Most "Are these machines alive?" mechanics and lore are tied to the Synthetics technology, which is marked as a dangerous tech for this reason. It's not as obvious that Sapient Combat Simulations can trigger the AI rebellion.

It's a bright red, flashing danger tech. If you got caught by the clearly marked trap, that's a you problem.

 

[evilcat]

There should be an option to take controlled losses and avoid uprising one way or another. Either as Hotfix project or dismantle malfunction units. Losing half empire because rng isnt fun and interactive.
Unfortunetly there is also a risk that nearby empire or your vassal get rebelion and that player's agenda will not solve. There will be WAR.

Or introduce civic which will allow spirutalist to use robots as hands of the god emperor, like this one

New Civic: Soul in the Shell

New civic idea for Spirtualist empires, which not only allow robots, and dont burn them on sight, but even use them as walking idols. Soul in the Shell Introduce robotic trait and job (as servant) Divine Idoll, which allows robot to serve as...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

It's a bright red, flashing danger tech. If you got caught by the clearly marked trap, that's a you problem.

I don't disagree with that.

I do disagree with the implementation. I don't think it's intuitive to have two separate and unrelated "We've developed sapient machine life!" technologies.

It'd be a lot more intuitive to make Synthetics the technology for deciding if your machines are alive, which I'm sure most players already think is the case.

 

[Archael90]

It's a bright red, flashing danger tech. If you got caught by the clearly marked trap, that's a you problem.

I had an event once yet i have never developped any of robot techology except powered exosceletons... and i have salvaged sapient combat computers from debries, but since i had 0 robots, and AI was fully forbidden i thought its not a problem i have tech (that i DID NOT researched) yet those computers exists only in theory none of such units was made to start anything... yet rebellion happened...

 

[Strangedane]

Rebellion exists to give spiritualists easy access to psionic cyborgs.
Why wait for the ai to eventually synthetic ascend, when you can just have your own robots do it for you.

The rebellion is trivially easy to crush once it shows up, and it's a chance for a free trait.
Much like how we get rapid breeder and strong from settling a low hab planet and making certain people are miserable.

 

[Zagreb 887]

Rebellion exists to give spiritualists easy access to psionic cyborgs.
Why wait for the ai to eventually synthetic ascend, when you can just have your own robots do it for you.

The rebellion is trivially easy to crush once it shows up, and it's a chance for a free trait.
Much like how we get rapid breeder and strong from settling a low hab planet and making certain people are miserable.

You're not guaranteed to get a driven assimilators rebellion. Most of the time, it's bland Machine Intelligence or Exterminators. Getting the DA require a bit if savescum.

 

[Strangedane]

You're not guaranteed to get a driven assimilators rebellion. Most of the time, it's bland Machine Intelligence or Exterminators. Getting the DA require a bit if savescum.

Which part of the word "chance" gave you the impression I said it was guaranteed?

 

[DeanTheDull]

Prove me wrong.

Good spiritualists don't have AI rebellions because good spiritualists don't have AI in the first place. You're confusing them for Xeophobes.

Having robots in general is a minor -5 penalty for spiritualists, the lowest faction opinion penalty possible. But not forbidding AI is itself a -10, and having Synths is a -20. At this point your faction dis-approval eclipses all gains you can have without going Psionic Ascension. If you are engaging with AI research as a Spiritualist, you are fundamentally not pursuing a Spiritualist ethic-based run strategy that would be using the strengths of the Spiritualist ethics faction (high ethics attraction and ease of making faction happy). You have no synergy reason to pursue Synthetics- it reduces your empire's happiness, stability, and influence.

But AI is a pre-requisite for a Synthetic rebellion. Ergo, to have the pre-requisite for an AI rebellion, you must already be not pursuing a Spiritualist build. You can not run into the problem unless you are playing anti-synergetically with the Spiritualist mechanics.

Synthetic Rebellions are far more of a mechanical punishment for Xenophobe empires, because having citizen-AI needed to avoid the rebellion is itself what degrades the ethics attraction of a Xenophobe empire. Xenophile- one of the strongest ethics attractions in the game- is based around having free non-slave alien species in your empire. Synths count. The only way to retain your Xenophobe ethical majority is to not have free Synths.

This is where Synth Rebellions as a mechanical punishment actually punish a playstyle, because the Xenophobes who are trying to lean into the xenophobe faction will get burned for not giving full citizen rights.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah, the issue with Spiritualists is more that being able to double produce pops is way way too powerful in a game where pops are the greatest source of power, and they don't like it when you do that.

 

[Ryika]

Yeah, the issue with Spiritualists is more that being able to double produce pops is way way too powerful in a game where pops are the greatest source of power, and they don't like it when you do that.

Spiritualists can do that, though. Allowing robots is -5% faction happiness - hardly relevant compared to the boost from robots.

 

[Archael90]

Good spiritualists don't have AI rebellions because good spiritualists don't have AI in the first place. You're confusing them for Xeophobes.

Having robots in general is a minor -5 penalty for spiritualists, the lowest faction opinion penalty possible. But not forbidding AI is itself a -10, and having Synths is a -20. At this point your faction dis-approval eclipses all gains you can have without going Psionic Ascension. If you are engaging with AI research as a Spiritualist, you are fundamentally not pursuing a Spiritualist ethic-based run strategy that would be using the strengths of the Spiritualist ethics faction (high ethics attraction and ease of making faction happy). You have no synergy reason to pursue Synthetics- it reduces your empire's happiness, stability, and influence.

But AI is a pre-requisite for a Synthetic rebellion. Ergo, to have the pre-requisite for an AI rebellion, you must already be not pursuing a Spiritualist build. You can not run into the problem unless you are playing anti-synergetically with the Spiritualist mechanics.

Synthetic Rebellions are far more of a mechanical punishment for Xenophobe empires, because having citizen-AI needed to avoid the rebellion is itself what degrades the ethics attraction of a Xenophobe empire. Xenophile- one of the strongest ethics attractions in the game- is based around having free non-slave alien species in your empire. Synths count. The only way to retain your Xenophobe ethical majority is to not have free Synths.

This is where Synth Rebellions as a mechanical punishment actually punish a playstyle, because the Xenophobes who are trying to lean into the xenophobe faction will get burned for not giving full citizen rights.

One thing here tho - yu can give synths full citizen rights as xenophobe, and at the same time you can enslave all synths in species menu, not politics, and those slaves do not start rebelion.