Stellaris NEW Machine Ascension Paths Explained

[@MontuPlays]

GRAB 70% off Stellaris & up to 50% off Stellaris DLC in the Humble Bundle Stellaris SALE: www.humblebundle.com/store/stellaris?partner=montuplays This link will take you to the Stellaris humble bundle store home page where you can then find other DLC recommended below in 'Related Content' or search for 'Stellaris' (or whatever else you want).

[@angeltensey]

To me, virtual ascension makes most sense from get go in terms of general logic: machines has digital mind anyway. So, why should they stick to conventional body shells when they can shape things to fit the purpose the best and then just flash them with hive mind network?

[@QuestionableObject]

Carrier nanite swarmer is pretty hilarious, like a swarm of bees that deploys smaller angrier bees

[@Darkstreets56]

All of them release and start saying "you like jazz" over and over again

[@Patrickf5087]

And gives your computer a stroke

[@heartpaid6767]

​@@Patrickf5087 real stellaris players fight the true endgame crisis - lag.

[@furiouskaiser9914]

Me: Grey Tempest: Me: "No....I AM THE GOO!" [Duel of the Fates plays]

[@Bloodlyshiva]

And then Cetana shows up.

[@furiouskaiser9914]

Nanite Palpatine: "GOO it"

[@phoenixwulf6010]

@@Bloodlyshiva lmao triple nanites XD

[@khafaniking1230]

Planning on doing this ascension path next with modded L gate spawn. Be the gray tempest for real.

[@mirceazaharia2094]

@@khafaniking1230 Gray Tempest: *scary grey goo noises* Player: "You are like little baby. Watch this." Also player: *much scarier grey goo noises*

[@minifeebas8911]

If your full fleet is nanite swarmers, it also means naval cap does nothing to you So you can have game-crashing numbers and it doesn't matter if some die

[@anthonymazzeo6123]

60000 over force limit- doesn’t mean nothing to me man!

[@jakobknudsen6864]

Truly the greatest crisis of them all: the threat to the framerate.

[@markfreenick]

New way to destroy youre PC by lags

[@unclekanethetiberiummain1994]

​@@jakobknudsen6864 The strongest framerate killer of all time (xenocompatibility) vs the strongest framerate killer of today (nanite swarmer fleets)

[@maxpont8989]

You still have to build them, but I can foresee an alloy monkey-powered mega shipyard outputting hundreds of these a year...

[@grafeugenius]

i was wondering about this. thank you fun fact, grabbing the underground origin with robot means you get automatic 100% habitatily everywhere

[@PhthaloGreenskin]

Sick

[@juanorellana242]

Like Litoids

[@maxpont8989]

​@@juanorellana242but with significantly higher pop assembly/growth

[@mirceazaharia2094]

Mother of God. *takes off sunglasses* You must be some kinda genius or something. I'mma go try it. Right now.

[@angeltensey]

I remember sweet times when machines was a no brainer cheese pick because of 100% habitability, bare minimum of things you should manage manually, assimilators and exterminators was like unstoppable run and gun gameplay. That was fun.

[@ElysiumCreator]

5:07 How many times does that planet have to die until you’re satisfied?

[@MontuPlays]

MOOAAARRRRR!!!!!

[@xeanderman6688]

@@MontuPlays No, bad Montu, bad *takes away your colossus*

[@Rhydan-rg6rj]

​@@xeanderman6688😂

[@Knights_Oath]

I know I am not the only one excited about individual machines being a thing.

[@anthonymazzeo6123]

Currently playing an individualist machine megacorp that’s spiritualist, egalitarian, and xenophile! It’s awesome

[@tomisabum]

Robot Mafia Criminal Background Megacorp is go.

[@furiouskaiser9914]

@@tomisabum That just made me think of the Don Bot and his robot mafia from Futurama 🤣

[@Paradoxikality]

@@tomisabum I actually did that EXACT playthrough a few years ago with the help of a mod that just allowed machines to pick megacorp.

[@Cyboogie.the.Cyborg]

I'm playing a robot-megacorp devoted to mass weapon production

[@boiiodyep]

I play with mods a lot, and I'm just realizing how powerful gigastructures frame world origin would be with the virtuality ascension. You only have one world, there can be hundreds of jobs that will be instantly filled, and the frame will only grow and gain more district slots which means more jobs that will be instantly filled. Tldr: you become a galactic powerhouse that only grows and grows

[@shadowtheimpure]

Yeah, the Giga folks are gonna have to re-balance the Frame World around that...either that or just let that shit ride and the wheels instantly fall off. Just imagine the Birch World too. You build a Physma, all jobs instantly filled letting you build more Physma, an unending snowball of unlimited growth until the game craps itself and dies. Happens at about 600 pops on a world, that opening the UI for that planet grinds the game to 2 seconds per frame.

[@cringelord7776]

@@shadowtheimpurewell I already have two seconds per frame when I play gigastructures so that’ll be fun

[@sharojak9401]

@@shadowtheimpure Me when I build a virtual empire Void Birch

[@MrVentches]

@@shadowtheimpure ive literally had around 3k pops on that darn birch world, the game was fine(ish).

[@shadowtheimpure]

@@MrVentches Not sure what kind of Cray you're playing on, at 600-700 my framerate tanks when I open the planet UI.

[@nikitashilov9758]

Also nano swarm will cost only 500 nanite no matter what you put in. Soo you can build it with acrheotech weapon.

[@williamsalisbury7492]

What about upkeep?

[@gaplauche]

@@williamsalisbury7492 The swarmers have no upkeep cost. Unfortunately, they also lack the weapon slots for the best archaeotech weapons. I would love pump out waves of these with nano missile swarm launchers, but alas.

[@nikitashilov9758]

@@williamsalisbury7492 zero. I got about 2500/500 fleet and it cost nothing.

[@williamsalisbury7492]

@@nikitashilov9758 @gaplauche damn that's op

[@nikitashilov9758]

@@williamsalisbury7492 not soo much actually. Swarm got only 100 hp and 50 armor. Zero shield.

[@johnnyb175]

From the moment I learned about it, I knew the virtual ascension was going to be my new favorite way to play. A hyper-efficient tall playstyle is right up my alley. They eliminated the need to waste trait points, building slots, and jobs on pop growth/assembly. Combine that with auto-modding and the instantaneous creation/deletion of pops, and pop micro mangement basically isn't a thing anymore. I also love the ability to just be like, "Oh, there's a better planet over there? Okay, I'll just colonize it, then delete this mediocre old colony with the push of a single button." Optimization go brrr. 10/10, best DLC to date

[@GaireDuine]

I kinda wish the nanite ships and buildings were expanded on later down the road, it feels like a half finished ascension path as it currently is. More nanite weapons, more nanite aux modules, more nanite buildings to convert nanites into resources, and a greater variety in nanite ships, small medium and large ships. I feel like it's a really slow burning late game build for determined exterminator empires, but doesn't have enough as it is.

[@krieshake]

I find the lack of nanite specific population traits disturbing... Overall, it seems a bit of a boring option, especially compared to the playthrough-altering power of virtual.

[@LoDaFTA]

Probably down the line they will make a crisis mode for you to become the grey tempest. That would be kinda cool.

[@GaireDuine]

@@LoDaFTA yeah, I really hope they address it later, it almost does feel like a ascension or crisis path that could be REALLY cool, but is just half finished at this point

[@EvGamerBETA]

Yes. But the biggest miss of them all is a missing colossus weapon for nanite ascention

[@GaireDuine]

@EvGamerBETA yeah, I was thinking about that as well, also, nanite armies

[@2MeterLP]

I am disappointed synthetically ascending does not give you this choice.

[@MontuPlays]

I think the intention is that synthetic ascension gives you a bunch of bonuses, which makes synthetic 'the choice'. However, it doesn't make you much better than an individualist machine so it does feel a little weird now...

[@mohamedjear8917]

Synthtics get other bonuses like the ability to convert everything to your main species. But yeah I agree kinda that regular synthetics now feels flavourless.

[@Dr.arroway]

I understand feeling this way but it doesn’t really make sense story wise for the synthetics to access these. The ascension perk is about transcending the design your creators have you so it wouldn’t make sense for a species that chose to became robots to have the same epiphany. Also it would be super overpowered:/

[@MontuPlays]

@@mohamedjear8917 robots can convert all robots to their main species. (Just not organics)

[@POKENAR]

I almost feel like Synth ascension is more of a legacy/RP feature, and you're intended to start as an individualistic machine if that's what you want to end on. At least from a gameplay standpoint.

[@shadowsapphire100183]

Nanite ascension, arc furnace orgin, and cybrex precursor. The economic power will be glorious!

[@ancientgammoner6961]

You can add even more +% mining output by also being machine intelligence (+10%), astro-mining drones civic (+50%), which also gives you access to a starbase module and building that provides +15% each x7 (total of +105%), then take prosperity tradition (+20%). With a fully upgraded arc furnace (+100%), the techs that boost mining output (5x +10%), archaeo-engineers perk (additional +50% for cybrex hub), I'm pretty sure you can get in the neighborhood of like +435% mining output

[@davidberry742]

i legit had this on my last run! it was indeed glorious cetana stood no chance!

[@Doppel_A]

I was almost there and then took virtual like a fool ;-;

[@shadowsapphire100183]

@Doppel_A virtual has a place too. Rogue Servitor, 2 or 3 really nice worlds, and turn the biggest into a city world. The other two as fuel for your industry.

[@Zaint]

Hopefully, Montu covers all the options for Digital Refactoring. Playing multiplayer yesterday as synthetic fertility and trying to explain I was virtual without the virtual tradition was impossible.

[@loiu657]

Nanite Exterminators might be pretty funny.

[@dejannincic9671]

Wait do u mean Nanite Exterminator or Nanite Exterminator?

[@loiu657]

@@dejannincic9671 definitely Nanite Exterminator.

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

Imagine taking that with the old galactic nemesis too. We all know that’s the only true way to end a genocidal empire playthrough.

[@loiu657]

@@therealspeedwagon1451 oh jeeze. The nemesis ships with nanite weapons. That would be funny.

[@tuskular]

Virtual is just busted.... got mega engineering by year 91 on 1x(which is nuts with the recent tech changes), had 7k tech and finished all traditions LMFAO, absolutely insane.

[@anthonymazzeo6123]

Just imagine a birch world or the single habitat (the one that is on a black hole) origins from mega engineering

[@damonedrington3453]

Yea I’m definitely seeing a nerf coming to these soon. Some of the stuff machines get access to, like virtual ascension, or the dark matter reactor on modularity, are just busted

[@NalyKalZul]

​​@@anthonymazzeo6123i am curious how the frameworld handels the virtual trait. Since outpost spam arent normal colonies. That being said, when a servitor frameworld has 40k assembly by year 80 with just giga and evolved. Your birch world is of cute size trying look big, but it would do better under a frameworld outpost But doing that build with the modular parh. i think migth be.. to much assembly. Your construction speed cant catch up to assembly.

[@theonesithtorulethemall]

@@anthonymazzeo6123 do not do this!!!! It’s supposed to be infinit so each birch district will give enoth jobs to get another district, so you basically have as many resurces as you pc can handle pops, but if there autobuild…. It might start an escalating loop crashing you

[@tuskular]

@@damonedrington3453 frfr, they could nerf the bonuses by over 90% and as long as you still get auto pops per job it will still be good. The other thing they could do which I think would be more interesting, is keep the bonuses but make the cons much much more impactful make it even more tall with significantly more penalties when expanding. I think the idea of having a main server on your capital would just make sense tbh.

[@cyrania243]

nanotech plus the arc furnace origin seems like it will be incredibly overpowered

[@nikitashilov9758]

Yesterday I got about 1000 per month.

[@shadowsapphire100183]

I'm currently doing a single player of that and I got Cybrex. I think their Starbase building suddenly got a lot more powerful.

[@jayhayhay5124]

Damn you, i'm doing the same except i got shafted with grunor.​@shadowsapphire100183

[@mikailfournea9545]

Sol home system is broken enough with a dyson swarm and arc furnace on mercury (was getting over 100-150 each for energy, minerals and alloy). But add in the crybrex building? All of a sudden, an ecumenopolis doesn't look as mandatory for late game play. Still nice to have, but not a must anymore

[@13g0man]

Add in Astro-Mining Bays and it gets insane. Each one gives you +15% mining station production, add in the Astro-Mining Hub and you hit +100% mining station production.

[@nealwoods3482]

Critically, Nanite swarmers should not be thought of as a single ship. You should think of a nanite swarm fleet as a single ship that has hundreds of weapon slots. In just one small corner of tbe galaxy i started producing 500 ships every 5 years i cant imagine if i had known what i was doing

[@anthonymazzeo6123]

That’s actually a very clever way of looking at it

[@furiouskaiser9914]

Ya, def gonna have to shut off the ships display on the right panel for this one 😆

[@deaansugee]

Yeah sure if you're RP-ing. But in Stellaris terms, Overkill is a thing. If you have a cannon that hits for 81273981276398 bajizillion damage, that weapon is going to be much stronger against something with 8000 hit points than against 50 hull points. You can't think of them as a single ship since in Stellaris a single hit can only damage a single unit.

[@nealwoods3482]

@@deaansugee which in my opinion is why they are better than a single ship. Their value is in how expendable they are

[@freakyzoid3565]

Which is why I can’t understand why they still count towards War Exhaustion like normal ships. It was very interesting to see it go to 100 after a single victorious engagement.

[@pablocardona9804]

Thank for the guide Montu. I can't for the weekend so I can finally play the DLC.

[@asmkalrizion7078]

Unlimited potential, Tall-Wide Virtual build: Just be virtual, create lil sectors, and release those sectors as specialized vassals, if you reach the max vassals/subjects, just release them and form a federation, this can then scale basically infinitely and you'd have a sprawling multi-empire nation of semi-independent systems under your control (especially with a hegemony). Cuz virtual is awesome tall, but only if you are restricted to a small handful of planets, but if you have any room to grow you are just limiting your maximum potential growth, however, if you evade this restriction but just building subject virtual micro empires, then can each specialize and afford you the access to more virtual worlds, without impacting your virtual productivity bonus. Additionally, you could theoretically also use this to avoid the megastructure cap, but just building a megastructure, then releasing that sector as a vassal, and that *should* allow you to build more megastructures right? *LIMITLESS TALL GROWTH*

[@Severed-Heart]

Sounds like a combination of tall and wide... Huge.

[@derfloh4245]

the megastructure limit is based on how many megastructures you have build not on how many you own

[@He4vener]

16:05 worth mentioning: If you kill scavenger - you can now get a choise between tacking Nanite components for your ships OR technology to unlock special trait for your robots. This trait basically increases Mechanical Pop Assembly speed by whole 50% at a cost of 3 points. So with combo shown here on video - you can go up to 85% boost from traits alone. You can always boost it up even further with other bonuses, like Rapid Replicator civic for additional +20%.

[@alessandraelx7815]

I picked Nanotech in my first playthrough with this DLC and the coolest thing about the Nanotech tradition is that you spawn new ships out of thin air over time. And it also seems they become more and more. In the year 2430 when I won the game with Cosmogenisis and had 3000 fleet capacity filled up with just these ships spawning.

[@baseupp12]

Welp time to wait for some mods that will give Synth ascended empires these options like their Machine counterparts

[@noragrey7016]

Synth Empires are basically similar to Modularity

[@JafarFromAfar_]

Couldn’t have released this at a better time. I just hit the button to virtually ascend. With the new habitability changes to machines, this makes having very few worlds while beefing up the space between worlds SO nice. The ability to destroy a colony if you find a new, better world later on is so nice. (Build it up first, and then destroy). Less micromanaging, more expansion!

[@gambitsheild9814]

While modularity is probably the best, there is something to be said for the nanite swarmer carriers. They are glass cannons that have corvette level evasion and speed while trying to stay at a distance, they also basically are corvette sized but carry a hanger. Aka, they can basically avoid any curser or bigger sized vessel and shred them from a distance. Note that a 240 fleet size of them has 240 hangers, for a max of just shy of 2k strike craft active at once. It SHREDS fleets they can properly kite.

[@Midnight-wh2bs]

There is one thing you didn't consider with Nanite Swarmers, 2 G slots and 1 A slot, these things would make better stealth torpedo fleets than frigates. Double the torpedoes, doesn't care about the fragility from cloaking since no defensive components anyways, and they have no upkeep so you can build even more massive swarms than with frigates. Just casually drop thousands of those things on your enemy and win through an alpha strike so massive nothing can survive. Edit: Never mind, since played the DLC and gone nanite ascension and nanite swarmers cant equip cloaking.

[@furiouskaiser9914]

Ryan George Producer voice: "oooh some VERY stealthy goo!"

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

Never thought of using stealth with those things. Given how tiny they all are they probably have as much cloaking strength as frigates do. So these things could be very scary if cloaked and hidden in plain sight.

[@Midnight-wh2bs]

@@therealspeedwagon1451 Unfortunately doesn't work, I've since got and played the DLC and nanite swarmers are unable to equip cloaking devices. PDX probably realized just how insanely broken infinite swarms of 0 upkeep cloaked ships would be and disallowed cloaking for them.

[@tomisabum]

Forgot to show off the unique nanite weapons unless I blacked out; but if you actually did, good excuse to just do a video featuring them and the swarm ship mechanics in a lets play. Driven Assimilators or Exterminators would be fun; I always did like the vibes of the unique machine empire colossus, and now it fits even more.

[@morthra2]

The nanite weapons aren't new to this DLC, or unique to Nanotech. Used to be that you unlocked them by defeating the Scavenger Bot (and you still do, actually), but now you can also get them from Cosmogenesis on the last tier. The nanotech A slot component is a strict upgrade to regenerative hull tissue (15%/20% daily hull/armor regen vs. 5%/10% for hull tissue) and a downgrade to Cetana's nanite repair system (25%/20% hull/armor regen). Largely only useful to keep your fleets topped off out of combat because regen is reduced by 90% during combat. Nanite Autocannons cost 150 power (for size L) compared to 115 for tier 3, and do about 30% more damage. The nanite flak battery has 10% more tracking and does 50% more damage than the tier 3 option. Also worth noting that the nanite flak cannon doesn't actually *cost* nanites.

[@peterknutsen3070]

4:46 Double? +200% sounds to me as if it'll triple it!

[@MontuPlays]

it adds double, which would be triple. I fell over my words there. Sorry about that!

[@spookyaction3236]

Excited to try a machine next playthrough. Doing Synthetic Fertility right now and that is by far my favorite origin to date

[@NightWhisper8462]

I think one very important piece of information about the nanite harvester (which it doesn't tell you about) is that it is always increasing in upkeep cost, in my multiplayer game it got to the point of giving me 100 nanites in a single system but was eating up 200 energy credits a month, so if you want to get the most out of the harvesters you need to understand that the more harvesters you have the quicker the energy consumption will increase and if you are not careful it can quickly spiral out of control, also if you destroy the harvester the nanites disappear and you would have to restart in that system from scratch. It really does fit the "must always expand for more resources to consume" mentality :D

[@Formalfiend]

Arc forge origin + cybrex precursors is a decent combo. The cybrex mining hub you get adds to the boost from your arc forges.

[@colorblindwizard7200]

This is perfectly timed! I was just looking into the traditons!

[@MontuPlays]

Hope you enjoy!

[@SRMC23]

Modular in essence is the closest we will ever get to playing as the Transformers in an Stellaris campaign. they dont turn into cars or animals but they are close to organics in terms of adaptability via mechanical pop modification.

[@panmopsel]

Montu, i love you, when i first heard of new DLC completely overhauling machines i almost had a stroke, now i understand this perfectly, thank you

[@georgeousthegorgeous]

Thanks to everyone who explained how nanite ascension is supposed to work to me. I simply couldn’t understand how to produce all these ships but I didn’t even have the star base modules installed.

[@BoisegangGaming]

I really wish individualist robots could convert biologicals into virtuals. There's a while bunch of them on my planets that are unemployed so I just created a resort world for them and shoved them all there. Either that or let individualistic machines unlock chemical bliss or a rogue servitor-like living standard for bios.

[@davislink1]

the lathe calls to them

[@attilatorok5767]

You can do utopian abundance to get research from them.

[@ClockworkOuroborous]

@@attilatorok5767 I lathed and utopian abundanced the biologicals in my empire. At the peak, I was at about 26K research a month a few years before the mid-game crisis. I was rounding up my virtual pops for the black hole trip when the Khan showed up on the other side of the galaxy from me. He was nowhere near me by the time I peace out to the blackhole at the center of the galaxy.

[@justinsinke2088]

Honestly, with modularity, giving my pops +75% resources from jobs for only a minor dark matter and exotic gasses upkeep felt really nice. Throw in a little rare crystal upkeep and that bonus becomes a total of +95% for allow production (which, continuing to watch, seems you did the same thing to no surprise). My relentless industrialist molebots are absolutely churning out the alloys on all the worlds they're on. And yeah, between the Liquid Metal Joints and the lubrication civic, my pop assembly speeds was pretty silly. For the first time in a long time, I needed to build a ring world because I had filled up all my planets, because all of my planets had an assembly speed of 15-20. I'm so use to the situation being by the time I can make a ring world, I'm already having difficulty filling out my later settled planets. And yes, Living Metal is no issue for Modularity; even with the replicator/roboticist upkeep, pop upkeep from a trait, and keeping the megastructure build speed edict on, I'm still selling Living Metal off on the market because I'm making more than I know what to do with. I wonder how scary having multiple fleets of only nanite swarms would be if your council was packed with Genius Armorers? Edit: I almost got hyped for archeotech nanoswarms, until I checked the wiki and realized that you cannot equip Ancient Nano-Missile Cloud Launchers on them because they're S slot, and none of the nanoswarm configurations allow for S slot weapons. Imagine if you could have an entire fleet of those things with 4 nano-missles apiece (since they can have 2M, I think that translate to 4S normally).

[@RoseWither]

imagine virtual with a birch world

[@musizlover2008]

Great video, very informative. Now I hope in your next video you will show us how the new origins work. I tried the synthetic fertility a few of times and I know the flow of how it works. Basically, you need to put all your engineering research into robots, droids and then synths before the situation timer runs out. Engineering is really important in the beginning so building more labs, researching anomalies and claiming systems with engineering resource are a priority.

[@therealspeedwagon1451]

I really wish the nanite ships came with a ship with a small slot. Imagine using the ancient nano missile cloud launcher with this thing. It would be absolutely wild.

[@kennyholmes5196]

4:44 Triple, not double. Maintaining is +0%, Doubling is +100%, Tripling is +200%, Quadrupling is +300%, Quintupling is +400%, etc.

[@MontuPlays]

Yes, it adds double

[@wyvernscale9634]

Tbh I'm kinda disappointed that the virtual path is restricted only to machine empires :( Especially since realostically, organics could do the exact same thing and it's just such a cool concept

[@MontuPlays]

synth empires can go semi-virtual. They can get the trait on their leaders and get some bonuses. But not the main bonuses form the virtual ascension (the resource bonus and instant pops)

[@surriad1140]

Nanotech+Cosmogenesis is a very strong combo. Max out fleet with the fallen empire ships and then spam out nanite ships. One juggernaut can print nanite swarmers where ever you want. Get the quality and the unstoppable horde in one

[@Chrono_Cain]

But embarking all that colony you used to extract nanoid is painful as hell

[@surriad1140]

@ true.

[@jforozco12]

Virtuality changes if you're an organic empire transitioning into synthetic; the game then gives you the option to go virtual or physical. I havent finished understanding the full effects but it seems that the idea is that the whole population uploads itself into servers but mantain their physical robotic bodies as drones that they can download their software or personality into it. Its pretty interesting and a fun ascension.

[@jakebhenry2228]

@MontuPlays MONTU, is it possible to get that terriforming legendary paragon with Rougueservitor? If it is I dare you to get a size 55 broken contengency world, terraform that sucker, and then fill it to the brim with Bio-Trophies+virtuality and see just how far you can push pop efficiency Each skydome building according to cosmogenises wiki also says each provides 50 housing and bio-pop jobs and you can have all building slots as it. I’d say this is very tedious but a good video idea for someone in the community!

[@felixtpholm9377]

Really cool video but at 4:44 it actually tribles the output of the deposit since its + 200 and not 200 total :)

[@Zweistein001]

I am really excited for virtual ascention but I fear that we have just unlocked a new end-game lag crisis and one that has a potential of being as bas as Xenocompatibility.

[@jackmcclelland1162]

bro montu is on overdrive right now.

[@mohamedjear8917]

I wish they give the advanced machine traits to regular synthetic ascension.

[@KevanM6777]

Yeah exactly. it could be easily balanced by letting them spend the extra ascension slot so they can get in on the fun.

[@111mhmhmh]

The nano cauldrons are strange - at a glance, it seems like the devs wanted them to be placed on nanotech worlds, since that colony designation increases building production. After all, building production output is a fairly rare stat, but it's used by 2 nanotech buildings - the cauldrons and transmuters. The problem is that this designation also increases building upkeep costs considerably, especially when you start ascending colonies. I wonder if you could get more value by placing cauldrons on ascended urban worlds instead to benefit from building upkeep cost reductions? 15 Alloys for 30EC and 3 nanites feels bad, but what about 15 alloys for 15 EC and 1.5 nanites? Or even 15 alloys for 3 EC and .3 nanites if you manage to hit the upkeep cap with an urbanist leader? Alternatively, once your nanite production scales out of control, it might make sense to switch back to the nanotech designation and fully ascend for a juicy potential of ~26 alloys/building. If nanites are no object, then you're basically paying 46 EC for 26 alloys without pops or galactic market concerns, which looks pretty good on paper. Of course this is all assuming you have the unity to splurge on ascending a world that's using most of its building slots on cauldrons instead of... you know... things with jobs. Definitely seems like something fun for the more intense optimizers among us to play around with though. Anyway, that's just my optimizer brain rambling. Thanks for the great video! I look forward to having the time to test these new ascensions out.

[@EpicMiniMeatwad]

Throughput is what I think it's supposed to be doing with upkeep + output, but they threw in quirky things like percentage subtraction modifiers (1 / 0.8 = 1.25). So yes, if you have unlimited pops/jobs/buildings, your -50% upkeep (2x production per good consumed) is going to be drastically better than -20% upkeep +30% output (1.625x production per good consumed). But even a -100% upkeep building/job still has a cost: the pops/jobs/building slots. +30% output for +30% upkeep is still more utilization, it's worth it if you're producing more than you use and can't possibly generate enough pops/jobs/slots to actually justify the better upkeep. Which makes sense, you can't really produce unlimited pops or worlds to justify super low upkeep necessarily. I'd say late game Stellaris is just maximizing world production rate since a world can contain another unique building and a pop generator.

[@aqvamarek5316]

I really love, how paradox adds Nerds dream with a VR start. Who doesn't love VR Manga like the gamer, or VR Sci-Fi novels, were war is banned in reality, and only happen in a VR enviroment. Now you can recreate peace in the universe, through true VR Gaming.

[@sylvie_v2]

So wait, what happens to synthetically ascending as a regular bio species? Is that no longer worthwhile or not around? Do individualistic machines have access to paragons and normal, non-maliced diplomacy?

[@DynaSaur31415]

I was thinking about putting the archeotech nano-cloud missiles on nanite ships as they will not cost minor artifacts and pair with that archeo-whatever ascension perk to give +33% damage to archeo-weapons. What do you think? A viable option or nah?

[@grottoguru6473]

Would be cool to do a Doctor Who roleplay with the Relic World start combined with Virtually to play as the nanobots from The Library episode. Edit: *micro-organisms* not nanobots. Wish Stellaris had a micro-organism option for hives!

[@BeefMeisterSupreme]

Not nanomachines, just hungry microorganisms

[@Zer0siks]

Vashta Nerada, biological swarm of small carnivores. But it is a fun idea!

[@grottoguru6473]

@@Zer0siks I completely forgot they were biological. Thanks!

[@Zer0siks]

@@grottoguru6473 no problem!

[@jakobknudsen6864]

Fingers crossed the next big DLC will parallel this one, but focused on biological ascension and biological hiveminds instead of mechanical ascension and mechanical hiveminds!

[@Dulahan-em]

Thanks for this video! Very helpful! I do have a question, which do you think would be the best ascension for a Rogue Servitors build?

[@andromacdonald5216]

Damn nanite assencion seems busted with a crisis build

[@alecchristiaen4856]

Honestly LOVE this DLC, but was a bit flabberghasted with what these ascension paths are supposed to do. Honestly, all three of them sound awesome in their own way. Modularity seems a smidge micro-management-heavy, but other than that, I'm stoked to properly explore the possibilities of these new traditions.

[@thatcrazyguy834]

With virtual your basically setup to do the new crisis ascension as now your gonna have all these pops and need to downscale and youll have that new machine that grinds them up for science

[@MontuPlays]

you can't grind up the virtual pops sadly... but you can grind everyone elses pops... I did this in the video linked at the end lol

[@thatcrazyguy834]

@@MontuPlays I'm talking about on the excess planets from early expansion if you want to minimize the -25% per colony unless that's what your talking about

[@mathhews95]

You can resettle virtual pops, so no lathe for them. You conquer other empire planets, resettle their pops to the grinder and then shut down the server

[@jakebhenry2228]

You can also use the terraforming paragon with rogueservator on a size 55 contingency world and use the skydome to get 50 bio-trophies on a single world with the new cosmogenisus Skydome building. The amount of EFFICIENCY must be amazing(pity I am console so I can’t do this yet)

[@thatcrazyguy834]

@@mathhews95 you could take virtual after the crisis ascension and send them into it when your ready to go virtual

[@insanecrazyman7637]

curious actually are we able to discuss with the Grey Tempest now that we are able to become nanites ourselves? can we colonize the nanite worlds in the L-cluster?

[@MulderStarling]

I didn't try to colonise them in my nano run, but they did show as 0% habitable. Didn't look good

[@TheDrexxus]

If virtuality is getting 1% increases per clerk/maintenance drone, wouldn't you heavily offset or even entirely offset the -75% penalty? I want to see how good a super wide virtual empire can be.

[@mohamedjear8917]

super wide isnt meta anyway. Vassalization is

[@thatcrazyguy834]

​@@mohamedjear8917why settle for scraps when you can have it all

[@applesauce1921]

How do you vassilize war, I can only ever claim systems

[@TheDrexxus]

@@mohamedjear8917 My guy, I don't play games to play the "meta". I do what I find fun, not to do the same cookie cutter run everyone else is doing just because they need every advantage to win.

[@mohamedjear8917]

@@applesauce1921 you must eclipse them in ranking in one way or another, which is very easy to do by tech rushing

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

so most important question does this dlc allow the fallen empire building that makes resources to make dark matter living metal and nanites like FE get but for us or no

[@mrshark797]

i know that making the situation eats at you unity so i usualy will trigger finding the voice right after starting the situation to counterbalance the drain while still going faster

[@failimaily1576]

The Unity into Tech Rush you can to with Virtuality on a Shattered Ring is craaaaazy, like 10k research by 2300

[@7he_last_5urvivor]

Now I want them to do an update like this for biological and psionic accession, perhaps biological would allow you to turn into or out of a hive mind, you could embrace your biology by turning everything into organic machinery, organic ships, buildings things like that, or be extremely adaptable, as in they change to there environment easily and can change there traits to suit there task. And for psionics you could become like the Zroni and use the shroud to build or create resources, potentially birth shroud gods to help you fight wars and help improve your economy, or many different ideas, you could also have psionic hive minds or something like that, I think it would be fun?!?

[@kuuro_7712]

Oh man I was hoping to virtual ascend with the synthetic fertility origin. I think 2 ascension perks is a fine cost

[@kufesska]

Montu, nanite tileblocker's description looks kinda like it produces nanites if NOT cleared, so you sacrifice planet features for nanites production, correct me if i'm wrong

[@K3voTM]

something went wrong for me when i choose virtual in my current playthrough. i went from +300 energy to -1800 . guess i digged my own grave with that ascension

[@aeronothis5420]

Ruthless Capitalist machines going virtual has never looked better.

[@MaximusLight]

I'm actually surprised lore-wise these aren't available to bio pops that became synthetic as these machine ascensions are staples of how that would occur... and for how they are split up as in theory nanomachines, virtual uploading and modularity should work together rather than be distinct. *shrug* (like the entire Endless Space franchise is based around the fallout of what happens when a species uses nano machines and virtual uploading to ascend beyond their physical limits... )

[@sylvie_v2]

Also, do you know the weights on affects on which crisis spawns - i.e., do these increase the Contigency as normal machine/researching synths and AI combat computers, or does it add to Mommissiah? Does it matter which ascension machine empires pick in weighting which crisis spawns first (or at all, if the ALL crisis is not selected)? Is Mommissah a midgame or endgame "crisis"? Is her outcome always the same or are their ones that...*ahem, spoilers from the video* aren't pretty bad with her winning the game?

[@EricLidiak]

Montu can you do a Cosmogenesis guide?

[@MontuPlays]

haha, guess what is coming tomorrow!

[@Sarnith]

Will auto modding from the racial trait pick at start (adaptive frames?) make use of all these additional picks and traits while modifying your species for jobs?

[@evansarver2989]

Now we just need an overhaul and update to genetic route. Psychics got some love, robots got some love, now we just need some genetic ascension love.

[@LG-jn5fx]

I am currently doing a shattered ring trade focused run and just finished the virtualization tree. It is the most bonkers power spike I have seen in this game so far and it will scale exponentially from here once I have the ecumonoplis up and running and restore the shattered ring to a full ring world. 3 ring segments and 1 Relic world to win the game. Getting 150 minerals from a single system with those arc forges really helps as well , do not need a mining planet and can get the food I need to feed my catalytic converters easy enough. I finished the Virt tree around 2070 and I am sure it can be done way way earlier. Using full tradition costs with normal scaling and mid game starts 2075

[@zodrickzheioh7318]

if you go down the Nanite tree, can you inhabit the Nanite worlds in the L-cluster?

[@AeciusthePhilosopher]

If you want to combine your machine Age perks with ecomonopoleis, consider ascending your capital first. Turning it into an ecomenopolis will risk you losing your transformation features otherwise.

[@stevanhaire5300]

The new machine world ascension perk is very strong. Doubling the workers and houses per district. My economy basically tripled once I terraformed all of my planets into machine worlds. It’s basically a ring world without the science, but with unity.

[@lisamaitland157]

It makes sense, machines would be more efficient but have a flaw somewhere. This all ends if you pick Nanotech or modularity. Nanite being the strongest, especially for defense due to you building many star bases for scaling nanite collections.

[@tenaciousgamer6892]

no leader/pop trait for nanotech ? I feel like thats a oversight. I dont expect a powerful one, maybe just increase habability + leader life span and some minor bonuses like science leaders having stronger assist research, commander with a bonus armor regen, official with bonus to nanite output?

[@jainaproudgurl7489]

I just wanted to elaborate on something, because I didn't see you mention it, and you seemed to be a bit against the nanotech labs. So, there is two big pluses to the Nanite Labs; 1. They have more jobs early on, and the same jobs as a max tier research complex when upgraded, and you get the research to upgrade them immediately, which is good if you're rushing ascension anyways for as much time to scale as possible. 2. They require Nanites instead of Exotic Gases for upkeep, even when upgraded. This means that you can basically make a infinite number of these without investing a ton in exotic gas infrastructure. Based on the above, I think the reasoning is that this is a scaling ascension path focused on expansion. This means that the expectation is you're going to be spamming these all over the place, and the lack of needing exotic gases is honestly a huge plus.

[@dudupintarolas5214]

Has someone who used to play gigas i can say virtual acessension will be completely busted with north worlds The reason is birth worlds have certain jobs that give you more distric slots for specific districs that then give you more jobs and some of the ones that gave you more districs so you can see where this goes youl ha e effectively infite resources limited only by lag and time to build districs.

[@favillionbellarion9655]

I'm curious if you can ally with the grey tempest if your a nanotech?

[@cheesuschrist4473]

4:46 actually since its a 200% increase, your production triples.

[@Antonin1738]

I kinda wish you can start as biological and eventually move into synythetic ascension perk instead of starting machine. The promo for the DLC makes it seem like you can be cybernectic/synth first

[@Amamiyacasual]

So Nano ships don't get effected by Naval capacity? What's the MP counter to these things? Rushing in with Flak or something?

[@Darkn3ssF4ll]

Big farma is back baby!

[@Trazynprints]

Gonna make a necron nanite playthrough when i get off work lol

[@VainToxicity]

Is there a way to use all three of these traditions together as a Gestalt Consciousness and go both tall and wide? I saw something about making vassals somewhere in the comments but then wouldn’t that give them the chance to betray you or something?

[@bennolong8906]

+200% does not mean doubling but tripling the output

[@CrimsonReaper189]

I love virtual so far u ran it as a rouge servitor arc welder and omg i was hitting 3k tech by year 100 onces all the buffs rolled in and thanks to how broken arc can be with the new civic i was making 300 alloys a month with no alloy jobs

[@Makai_i]

Which civic?

[@CrimsonReaper189]

@@Makai_i I can't remember it's name but it's the one that gives 50% output on orbital miners 50% star bases a new building that gives 10% output in a system but -50% menial drones output. I just swapped to manufacturing focus for 20% more research and used bios as battery's till I got up all my Dyson swarms since getting 2 arcs at max level super early means u can just go fullin on war

[@jakebhenry2228]

DUDE You can also use the terraforming paragon with rogueservator on a size 55 contingency world and use the skydome to get 50 bio-trophies on a single world with the new cosmogenisus Skydome building. The amount of EFFICIENCY must be amazing(pity I am console so I can’t do this yet)

[@titititi-gb1ds]

All this ascensions are absolutely amazing, this DLC is great I cannot wait until i have time to play it, I hope in 2025 they release DLC which rework biological and psionic ascension and also I long time hope they release ground combat + espionage rework DLC.

[@EternitynChaos]

I would love if they made all the Asencians like this, it would also be very nice if Nanotech got the big boy ships spawning once you get the nanotech mines built up enough or just let us sac like 10 or 100 probes for one of the good ships, also probes should not cost us fleet points lol

[@tuntownshironi2697]

I am curious whether the planet features we got from Transformation situation would disapper if terraforming home world into machine world?

[@MontuPlays]

I don't think so. But I actually haven't tested that!

[@tuntownshironi2697]

@@MontuPlays Waiting 10 years in mid-game is too long, both for me and my computer, so I tried instant terra with console commands. Turned out all planet features were lost. I did have some mods but none of them was affecting planet. So the capital of my machine empire will be the only none machine world.

[@killerp2612]

when ascension paths tierlist?

[@theonesithtorulethemall]

Note: the virtual planetary ascension works on ring worlds, so you get size 13 ringworlds

[@MrRAM2191]

which would be the best Ascension path for Driven assimilators? Virtual seems like it would be detrimental to that style?

[@christopherg2347]

I think the are limited to empires that start as machines, because biologicals already have 3 Ascension paths to begin with. Each type (organic/machine) has thus 3 choices.

[@TOONYBOY]

I'm just saying, man, using Catalytic Drones with Modularity to turn food (organic pops) into Living Metal sounds like the ultimate Reaper roleplay. Now all we need is a new Player Crisis that unlocks a more powerful version of Battleships, Titans and Juggernauts built out of Living Metal. DO IT YOU COWARDS!

[@Hollow-Eyes]

I love the nanites. Combining them with determined exterminators is a thing of beauty. Steps: 1. Get a few planets.(If you don't have enough, take some. I'm sure your neighbors won't mind.) 2. Subsume your worlds. 3. Laugh your butt off at your 1000 swarmers who die instantly. 4. Send in the other 10000. 5.Laugh for an entirely different reason.

[@lisamaitland157]

You might find Star bases faster at getting nanites over planets... Just make sure your building a energy credit base empire, in the background lol. As for your swarmers : Mix them up with 30% straight attackers and 70% carrier type.. What kills them faster is if the NPC has defensive turrets with tech granting them hit bonus.

[@Chrono_Cain]

Nano fleet is just crazy, 2 titan ship 100k fleet losing to 60k nano swarm was spectacular.

[@chrispowell2480]

Coming back after playing with the nanites (the fantasy that grabbed me the most) and I think people are sleeping on it, and I want to make some clarifications for the group, specifically about subsuming worlds. First, once a world is fully subsumed and becomes a nanotech world, the planet becomes a sort of machine world lite, with nexus, forge, mining, and generator districts fully uncapped, and 100% machine habitability. Second, the blockers generated in this process don't actually decrease the max districts. Their only effect (aside from producing nanites obviously) is they massively decrease the possible menial districts (farming, mining, energy). However, since you have a nanotech world, and all of the districts are uncapped, the downside to the blockers don't apply to you. They're literally only upside, unless you're a conquering empire, at which point you'll find the planet near uninhabitable. This means you can have an almost limitless number of nanotech worlds for mining, forging, research, etc. with no downside, all while you're getting free fleets. It's amazing.