To ascend or not ascend, that is the question. Is it better to ascend or spend slots on....

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Except robot leader/ruler are actually immortalized already. I saw something official somewhere. Ahh found it!

Exactly, they explicitly stated that synthetics would be immortal as an advantage for that play style. No such explicit statements were made for Hiveminds so, even if it's just for 'gameplay reasons' and not because they have a different interpretation of the abstraction than you, we can assume Hivemind leaders are going to die.

 

[Tavior]

Exactly, they explicitly stated that synthetics would be immortal as an advantage for that play style. No such explicit statements were made for Hiveminds so, even if it's just for 'gameplay reasons' and not because they have a different interpretation of the abstraction than you, we can assume Hivemind leaders are going to die.

Except right now to me, Hive Mind feel too much like playing as a non-Hive Mind government type without happy, faction, and a immortal ruler.

I don't think civic choices will be enough to make them feel difference from non-Hive Mind Govt. Primarily because you only get two picks and I seriously doubt they will be enough.

Until we know more about Hive Mind unique civic and their effect on gameplay, ranging from huge game changer to minor impacts, I will still feel Hive Mind is underwhelming and unattractive to play.

 

[Peko?]

Do you have any proof? I am asking because I have yet to see any proof one way or another.

Pretty much this.

Exactly, they explicitly stated that synthetics would be immortal as an advantage for that play style. No such explicit statements were made for Hiveminds so, even if it's just for 'gameplay reasons' and not because they have a different interpretation of the abstraction than you, we can assume Hivemind leaders are going to die.

 

[Tavior]

Pretty much this.

Synth already have LOT going on for them.

Immortal leader/ruler along with longer live expectation for one/two ascension peak respectively.

Using energy instead of food and take roughly less planet tiles due to 20% planet bonus building.

20% boost to habitability at cyborg one ascension peak.

boost mineral/army damage for one ascension peak.


PSI got a whole overhaul to add in lot of mechanic in additional to "The Shroud". They may ending up being equal or better than Synth. They have PSI army, "special PSI planet building". Once they unlock the second PSI the entire race become PSI-capable in additional will also unlock PSI in other race that live in your empire yet have to unlock it.


Biological is mostly tinkering with your empire's pop traits. Mostly better trait then we had in 1.4.


I think biological ascension is mostly "Human, Human, Human, Human, Human" tedious micro-hell. I don't see that changing anytime soon. So as a consequence I like the restriction on Hive Mind the least. Heck even refusing to go biological ascension as Hive Mind give you way more variety than doing so. Which is counter-productive and may ending up need a change to introduce more variety.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

I could see Biological Ascension being the most powerful path, especially now that food is an empire wide resource. Biologically ascended races can be specialized to easily surpass the bonuses of being a Synthetic. And being able to do so on a planet by planet basis should cut down on the micro-management a lot.

Assuming you're still going to have the ability to modify your species piecemeal.

 

[Tavior]

I could see Biological Ascension being the most powerful path, especially now that food is an empire wide resource. Biologically ascended races can be specialized to easily surpass the bonuses of being a Synthetic. And being able to do so on a planet by planet basis should cut down on the micro-management a lot.

Assuming you're still going to have the ability to modify your species piecemeal.

Yes you do just look on the check box next to each planet.

I am still afraid it might become micro-hell to track of 30-40 planet worth of specialized population.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Yeah, that will be aggravating levels of micromanagement, 30-40 planets worth of specialization.

It's possible that the sector AI will get a revamp that allows you to force certain races into certain jobs exclusively. On the other hand, it's not like you need 30 to 40 optimized worlds. 5 to 7 optimized worlds at your core, and 15 or so sector worlds pouring in resources less effectively is enough to conquer the galaxy.

 

[Tavior]

We will see. If I recall right gene modifying still require you to lock up your social research so eh.

Even with discount from going down biological ascension peak it may end up take more of investment than the other two paths.

 

[Sinister2202]

Erm...

You do KNOW what autonomous means here right? Autonomous doesn't meant they are not the same species as the Ruler of Hive Mind... It just means that they have enough independence to make their own decisions. If anything it means those drone are more likely have the same capacity as their ruler.

Google say this on definition of autonomous (at least the one that corresponding to used in this context)



https://www.google.com/search?q=autonmous&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=autonomous&*

It doesn't means that the "autonomous drones" are NOT immortal by virtue from the same species as ruler of Hive Mind.

You just made my point. They are autonomous, therefore they would have their own "leader abilities". And these won't carry over, because if that's the case there must be more than one hive mind with all those abilities. (Unless you are suggesting the Hive Mind has multiple personality disorder or something) But I am assuming that the immortal ruler will live on forever or (if not) inherit previous ruler's abilities.

In conclusion, the leaders and rulers are different entities. Rulerr is the immortal hive mind (or its direct puppet) and drones are its puppets. Leaders are autonomous drones. Autonomous pretty much means self-awareness or independence. Still, leaders would die and they don't have direct control over the masses like the hive mind does. In the game, leaders are not represented by ethos, unless they are in a democracy, so autonomy doesn't matter at all in hive mind.

And yes, I already know what autonomous means

 

[Tavior]

You just made my point. They are autonomous, therefore they would have their own "leader abilities". And these won't carry over, because if that's the case there must be more than one hive mind with all those abilities. (Unless you are suggesting the Hive Mind has multiple personality disorder or something) But I am assuming that the immortal ruler will live on forever or (if not) inherit previous ruler's abilities.

In conclusion, the leaders and rulers are different entities. Rulerr is the immortal hive mind (or its direct puppet) and drones are its puppets. Leaders are autonomous drones. Autonomous pretty much means self-awareness or independence. Still, leaders would die and they don't have direct control over the masses like the hive mind does. In the game, leaders are not represented by ethos, unless they are in a democracy, so autonomy doesn't matter at all in hive mind.

And yes, I already know what autonomous means

I am not disagreeing on if ruler/leaders are different entities.

I am of the opinion that you can make leaders immortal work to benefit of getting people to want to play Hive Mind by making them unique in that they get immortal leaders from the beginning. It doesn't hurt that it flow well with lore for immortal ruler.

No they are NOT suffering from multiple personality disorder. There is same personality running on many immotile in different clusters, best working in-real-life example is distributed computing aka cloud computing, and many personality within a mind disorder. They are not even remotely related to each other.

To expand a bit on distribute computing; A very huge complex problem that will take "forever" to solve is break into smaller chunk and given out to different computers to solve and combine the result together to form a solution.

The key word is to delegate some smaller tasks to drones who can take care of it themselves. In the same way Queen for ant or bee doesn't go outside and gather food for the entire colony by itself.



I can see you are still having trouble conceptualizing what I am saying. So I will try a more simpler example. Suppose if you are capable of copying an entire memory/conscience everything down to the last quantum state and carry transfer/update over to a clone many time over.

So instead of trying to have a single clone hover parent over a trillions of same clone. Even if you tried to you would never get anything done!

You would have one original or oldest clone or whatsoever at the top making high level decisions. Then you delegate lower level to another group of clones (empire to planet to state to city to councilor etc...). Repeat until you reach the bottom of the chain lowest task that can't be delegate any further more.

Now take that example and throw in PSI or cyber implant or pheromone (doesn't really matter how you ties all those conscience into one that much) then you have a Hive Mind that has autonomous drones and ruler that are immortal.

 

[The Founder]

It's possible that the sector AI will get a revamp that allows you to force certain races into certain jobs exclusively.

That Ethics no longer give pop modifiers drastically simplifies the math. As does a largely specieswide common Happiness (unless factions get involved) due to Species rights.
Right now a Fanatic Individualist has the same Bonus to Energy as a Thrifty species. Unless it is in a Authoritarian Slaver empire and the Thrifty guy is Authoritarian:
Then the Thrifty guy will be better, because the FI guy will be unhappy and is better used as a mineral slave. Even if the Thrifty guy is also Industrialist.

Basically right now a mixed Ethos, mixed trait population is a management hell. I will be able to better manage my population. So I bet the Sector AI will too.

 

[Sinister2202]

I am not disagreeing on if ruler/leaders are different entities.

I am of the opinion that you can make leaders immortal work to benefit of getting people to want to play Hive Mind by making them unique in that they get immortal leaders from the beginning. It doesn't hurt that it flow well with lore for immortal ruler.

No they are NOT suffering from multiple personality disorder. There is same personality running on many immotile in different clusters, best working in-real-life example is distributed computing aka cloud computing, and many personality within a mind disorder. They are not even remotely related to each other.

To expand a bit on distribute computing; A very huge complex problem that will take "forever" to solve is break into smaller chunk and given out to different computers to solve and combine the result together to form a solution.

The key word is to delegate some smaller tasks to drones who can take care of it themselves. In the same way Queen for ant or bee doesn't go outside and gather food for the entire colony by itself.



I can see you are still having trouble conceptualizing what I am saying. So I will try a more simpler example. Suppose if you are capable of copying an entire memory/conscience everything down to the last quantum state and carry transfer/update over to a clone many time over.

So instead of trying to have a single clone hover parent over a trillions of same clone. Even if you tried to you would never get anything done!

You would have one original or oldest clone or whatsoever at the top making high level decisions. Then you delegate lower level to another group of clones (empire to planet to state to city to councilor etc...). Repeat until you reach the bottom of the chain lowest task that can't be delegate any further more.

Now take that example and throw in PSI or cyber implant or pheromone (doesn't really matter how you ties all those conscience into one that much) then you have a Hive Mind that has autonomous drones and ruler that are immortal.

Hive Mind is a single entity.

Theoretically speaking, a ruler might not even be immortal in the flesh, unless the ruler himself is the hive mind entity itself. If not, a ruler is merely one of the drones picked by the hive mind to "represent" the empire. But it is highly unlikely the drone species (including the ruler and the leader) are immortals, only hive mind is. Because hive mind can be removed and if they become normal species like the non-hive mind species, they would age and die off. In any case, it's most likely the drones are not immortal. And this includes the ruler. So there's one reason why leaders shouldn't be immortal.

If you put the so called "distributed computing" in terms of government, that's very decentralized, which is the total opposite of hive mind. It's very simple to understand hive mind. Just think of one entity within bodies of multiple, and they move as one. But hive mind is "omnipotent" enough to make sure not everyone gets mobilized when they aren't supposed to, I would guess. However, compartmentalized governing is not hive mind. That's a major flaw, if that's "hive mind". But I am sure the hive mind forms some kind of "departments" with its drones, to complete many different tasks, just as we human beings have hands, feet, and fingers. Still, even so, Hive Mind is still a one entity. Therefore, one ruler, one ideology (or what ever it's capable of in terms of leader bonuses).

I am not going to talk about "clones" because cloning and hive mind are two different things, and the game doesn't have cloning leaders at all.

Hive mind is a single entity, it resides within everybody under its influence, including the general POP, leaders, and rulers. So they are all technically one. Delegation doesn't exist, because they are ONE ENTITY, CONSCIOUSLY.

"Empire to planet to state to city to councilor" is typical structure of conventional government. That's pretty much how most decentralized/federated governments function... Hive Mind is a single entity, there is no need to delegate to "lower levels" because there IS NO LOWER LEVEL.

The devs definition of "autonomy" is quite vague. But in any case, it's clear enough that all drones are one entity within the hive mind, and leaders would have autonomy to certain extent to have their abilities to lead fleets, oversee sectors, and do research. Autonomy is given by the hive mind, but where these leaders get the ability from is not so much a mystery, because like I said before, hive mind can be removed. So these "drones" are clearly capable of self-consciousness, but are bound to the hive mind entity in some way. Therefore, I would assume, while hive mind may grant autonomy, it might also be unlocking the "potential" of the drones. In any case, the drones don't receive consciousness of who they are and what they can do, by the hive mind - because that part of their consciousness already resides within them, so to speak. It is merely (not granted) unlocked by the hive mind. That's only done to RULERS, of whom the hive mind have direct control over. And to have these leader abilities, one must have characteristics. And drones (the hive mind itself) does not have characteristics so long as they are under the influence of the hive mind. Autonomy could mean that they are able to have these characteristics, in order for them to have these abilities.. (An example of a characteristic would be "unyielding", which some admirals get)

Transferring consciousness of an individual is not hive mind's job. Hive mind's job is transferring ITS own consciousness upon everybody else. So no. No immortal leaders. It wouldn't make much sense anyways, because drones are not immortals, and leaders are drawn from the pool of the drone species. Just because you apply the hive mind trait to some species doesn't make them immortal. Neither will their consciousness be immortalized. Only the hive mind consciousness is immortal.

 

[Tavior]

I will go back to my favorite example again.

MorningLightMountain conscience still treat itself as a SINGLE entity despite having thousands of cluster (colonies in asteroid belt, on jovian's moon, and etc...) all running in parallel and anyone of them could have gone off the rail and declared itself the true one Hive Mind entity and gone to war with their parent.

What I meant by "delegation, distributed, autonomous" in context of Hive Mind is that a single "biological brain" is incapable of holding the location of lets say 25 planet worth of drones or whatsoever you want to call them. So the Hive Mind absolute HAVE to delegation the info across "multiple biological brain". Otherwise we start to run into "fringe logic" like a single biological brain is capable of holding all that info on top of daily task and all other non-essential info and jammed it into a single biological brain that is already choked full of important data.

You can't have it both way. Either they are delegate the info or some mumbo-jumbo about storage density. Not both.

The same concept can be applied to how much info a single biological brain can process.

Which is precisely exactly what I am trying to show you. Heck even modern CPU can't process more than one set of instruction at once per CPU. It is quite a huge bottleneck and is also why you are starting to see more and more multi-core CPU to share the load. Sorta of technically still true even although they can hold a partial of more than a few instruction which is part of how they speed up the CPU. Most modern CPU can start one instruction by doing the first part. Then pass that part to the next stage of CPU and start the first instruction part of next instruction while doing second part of the first instruction. On and on.

Biological brain can process much more data differently true but there is still an upper bound before you start to burn the brain cells.

RAM are actually another form of delegation on it's own as well. I don't know if you know this or not. The actual CPU itself is like SUPER TINY chip that can't really hold a lot of instruction in the actual chip itself. So to deal with that problem. They create a pipeline, not my term, where they fetch the data that may likely be call into use soon unto the CPU cache and most modern CPU has two level of cache or more. The higher level cache has more room but is slower than the next lower level of cache. The data is passed between various cache and get flush (aka delete) if it will not be call anytime soon.

By the way instruction mentioned in this case is pretty much how your CPU runs your programs and everything else.

If you haven't noticed by now. I am a computer programmer by trade and I work with all kind of programming. For instance, embedded programming (lowest program language that actually goes straight to CPU without any kind of handling in between) up to Java/Android/software for PC/Website Client and Server.



That said I won't use realistic physic as a determining factor for what Hive Mind should be like. Only things that will make or break Hive mind at least for me is how they play in-game.

 

[AvalancheZ250]

I am wondering if the three ascension paths are "required" from a power gaming perspective.

If I understand ascension perks correctly, as you complete tradition trees, you unlock ascension slots. Some of them apply to things like Voidborn (megastructures), but they also apply to the ascension paths. After the recent DD, it is clear that ascending your species has massive benefits. There also seem to be disadvantages. The Shroud seems to be a crap shoot, and having all your POPs run off energy instead of food has its own issues.

But I'm wondering if it will be a viable approach to just say, "Meh, ascension is some Vorlon-Elder Races bull****. We don't need no ascension." And just invest your slots in all the other categories. Or should we plan all empires around one of the ascension paths, with the other slots as secondary goals?

Since the 3 ascension path perks often require more than a single ascension perk slot to even pick them (even though they still only take up 1 slot) I'm sure this would allow you to build things like megastuctres before empires who choose an ascension path do. And getting a Dyson Sphere 30 years early can be a game changer.

 

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

The 3 ascension path perks are available at slot 2 and slot 4.

The second Synthetic Ascension perk becomes a more powerful pick the longer you wait to take it.

Psionic Ascension seems like it allows you to maximize it's benefit by grabbing it early.

Organic Ascension I'm not actually that sure about, the 75% reduction in the cost and time for gene modding is huge, having 5 trait points to play with when you start those projects is huge. But any gene modding project you start still takes away from the development of society technologies and gene modding is no replacement for tile removal technologies, border expansion technologies, and is at best only a partial replacement for food and lab upgrades.