Virtual - Better For Tall Or Wide In Stellaris?

[@grimsprice]

“Wide empires are dead! Long live wide empires!” - Devs probably.

[@sagittariusa7662]

Long live wider empires. LMFAO!

[@war1980]

@@sagittariusa7662 Long live thicc empires.

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

@@war1980 long live the digital empire of arnom zola hail hydra

[@CzarnyBonek]

One crucial thing: the effect takes place once you ascend. Meaning there is nothing stopping you from having those planets developed beforehand and filled instantly when you finish ascending, skipping the "death valley" on the chart. I for one cannot wait to test it out, the pop lag is gonna be glorious.

[@TheDrexxus]

Actually, depending on how its implemented, it might eliminate pop lag entirely since they aren't real pops and don't need to make job swap checks.

[@damonedrington3453]

@@TheDrexxusthey still need to check jobs associated to each pop and what they generate

[@xxgaelixsxx8151]

Rarity plays stellaris? epic.

[@koolguy751]

Can't wait for this tree to be banned because it's too good for MP and also because of the potential pop lag, we have a potential xeno compact 2.0 on our hands lmao

[@___.51]

@@TheDrexxus I hope it eliminates pop lag but I highly highly doubt it

[@Fish_Priest]

Oh my... Trade rings are back in menu boys. Generally ring/ECU will be developed instantly, it's insane!

[@fuchsmichael93]

And finally make it worth to build your own Ring.

[@xuanbachlai5371]

Hm, what job doesn't care about job efficiency? Oh, trade jobs, xd

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

yup relic worlds converted to ecu will also be nutty or the relic world w the en credit buff or any features for special resources will be worth taking just to fill out and churn out materials so relic ecu and ring/shattered ring are all insanely useful now also something to think about will virtual allow us to finally fill jobs in fallen empire buildings we normally cant?!?

[@fuchsmichael93]

@@Nomadic_Gaming One Thing i noticed the last Time i played on the we, is you cant rebuild a Relicworld inta an EC as a Hive or Machine anymore.

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

@@fuchsmichael93 yeah that got changed to allow it then bugged to go back a while back idk whats up w it but im pretty sure virtual isnt an option for hives and gestalt machcines so itll be an option for normal machine/empires

[@Bsn12778]

adding the rough upkeep (especially pop upkeep) to the equation should turn that straight line into a second curve. making a graph to estimate the optimal number of planets is a good idea, but the further you go without taking upkeep into account the less accurate this will be.

[@GreywulfFoo]

Also building upkeep.

[@Graknorke]

Why? Upkeep and production are both per capita.

[@CdrRogdan]

Yeah I was just thinking that. At 20 planets you need roughly 1 technician per every 4 pops, at 40 planets it becomes 1 every 2 pops, and a dead zone at 80 planets. That's a multiplicative loss of 25%, 50% and 100% respectively. Biological races have roughly a 16% loss via upkeep from food and consumer goods. The breaking point is probably somewhere in the area of 45 planets. Also you need the districts to support all of them, and pretty much the entirely of your planets are going to be consumed by energy districts.

[@julthefool150]

@@CdrRogdanat that point you should have dyson spheres matter decompressors etc to solve these issues 😂

[@AjarTadpole7202]

You could fix this with the zombie trait, the problem with that is its very finnicky and chance-based to get, and theres no way to get it for all your pops since they wont be coming from purging or organic assembly

[@CrimsonReaper189]

I think the main thing that will have a major impact on these calculations is the fact that specialist pop output increases are few and far between so u will find it very hard to counter the alloy and tech output decreases from virtual. in addition empire sprawl is something I don't think people are taking in to account u have 15 worlds with 100 pop on each world that's 1500 pops. This will give u a lot of empire sprawl meaning Ur tech and unity output is effectively even worse due to the tech cost increase

[@benoithudson7235]

Get virtual, become the crisis, no specialist pops required anymore?

[@koolguy751]

I mean if you're already dominating the galaxy does unity matter? But in all seriousness, this seems like the ultimate tree for quantity over quality, as if you out produce your enemy say 5 to 1, at what point does having no tech truly hurt our odds to win?

[@aseyo2969]

You could also maybe use a build that makes pop sprawl as small as possible to min max

[@randomguyrandomname4450]

Machine empires can get insane reduction on empire size from pop. -30% from leader, -25% from traditions and -20% from civics. You can get an additional 2 levels on your leader via civics and a tradition for a total of 81% empire size reduction. So the 1.5k pop would cost them about 300 empire size so 60% tech cost increase. Negligible.

[@sensen9900]

​@@randomguyrandomname4450 Except you get 50% increas of Kolonie Size. Also 2 Pops are basicly 1 Sprawl. I loaded up a Game with Machine Empire with 57 Planets and 2670 Pops. The Empire Size is at roughtly 2300 meaning an increase of Sience and Unity by: 441%. I already got 50% Pop Size Reduction. So around 30% could be added, bringing down my Pop Size to roughtly 1000. (thats all rough math, because the actuall calculations would afford that i look up exactly how which multipliere and so on is placed in the Equation) Thats something of 350-380% Increase..... My Pops produce 9k Science... Thats with a 100% efficency(meaning it still takes 60-80 Montsh to research Stuff like Megastructure). Reducing that by lets say 50% (because you also got techs increasing that and so on) means only 4500..... So in the end what i try to say it.... I dont think its as Negligible as some People seem to think. Will the Ammount of Pops still outdo a lot of Other Empires, they surely would.... but i dont think the Difference, in a Normal Game (you can allways get the "Lucky" i got 10 Size20+ Worlds in my Empire start) is as hughe as some might think. At least in Tech and Unity. So the only Real Question is how does this Compare to Tech and Unity Rush Builds of the Highest Level... and How Hard to Execute is the Virtual Strategy compared to other ones.

[@aecides3203]

I had literally JUST given up on how much I love trade rings thematically and accepted that building them is more of a meme flex than a viable thing to do with your resources. And now you're making me dream of 4 system vassals with 2 ringworlds and 2 ecu's filling both the galaxy and my trade federation with gloriously overdone commerce.

[@Darlf_Sevil]

So you literaly make not exsisting pops to make trade and break galactic ecconomy when your empire be just shadow itself made from few sentient and bots xd it worst that hive mind AI xd

[@commandershortsight]

Stellaris devs trying to balance tall Vs wide challenge

[@CutieMcBotty]

(impossible)

[@Byssbod]

They don't really try because it's not possible

[@thermicterror2951]

​@Byssbod It's possible, way way back tall empires were good. The game just moved away from that

[@shroomer3867]

In Stellaris, there's two playstyles. Wide, and less wide...

[@duncanharrell5009]

They really should stop. Wide will never be defeated. More resources and pops is always a good thing. All they're doing is sabotaging and nerfing everything into the floor and it's getting ridiculous. They wanna balance wide vs tall? Make Stellaris 2 and drop pops entirely.

[@pieterfaes6263]

20:20 All hail the Cryptocurrency Empire! I cannot wait trying to combine this with a Gigastructural Birch World. Elowiny, any wish of yours to _literally_ break the game will be granted.

[@paprus5972]

TTFT is in shambles...

[@kabobawsome]

That or the Framework origin is going to go INSANE

[@iluvpandas2755]

On the giga-structures discord they said they will be nerfing it.

[@DJDocsVideos]

@@iluvpandas2755 of course, can't let people have fun. Maybe come up with an other lolcat race crisis...

[@your_princess_azula]

It's also insane with vassals... like really insane... release virtual empires for so much scaling.

[@KaizerKlash111]

Oh wait, this is the real use, one planet vassal spam.

[@KleptomaniacJames]

@@KaizerKlash111 my god

[@shinkicker404]

Yeah thats what I came up with too. I really like the theme idea of it. Hub and spoke network across the stars, lol.

[@sporegnosis]

@@KaizerKlash111 And then factor in that sweet trade boost...

[@markthompson6139]

And after you ascend, reform the government into a mega corp. your releaed vassals now have almost all their worlds maxed, so each branch office gets 4 buildings on each planet. Cpnsidering mega corps science buildings produce as before the tech nerf, they are reaaaaly good. Influence will be your limit.

[@DrQuestern]

I mean, you are still limited by the empire size, just like the regular empire. So, if 3-5 planets have the same output as 10-15 planets, but you have 100 empire size instead of 200 it's a major difference.

[@pnb328]

Add ascensionist and harmony

[@MasterChief-ie2xu]

Not too hard to handle really. Ascensionist then a max ascended planet, is -50% sprawl from pops, -15% from harmony, -10% from psionic theory, -10% domination,-15% from another civic (can't remember") which gets you to -100% sprawl from pops. Imperial prerogitive -50% sprawl from colonies, expansion -25% from planets-districts-systems, and lastly governors for additional reductions that scales with levels. I did a run where I got 27 planets with relatively low sprawl within 130 years keeping it under 500, 9 of those planets was maxed ringworlds, had a bunch of ecumunopoilis & other goodies with over 100k tech. In short it's quite busted when you get it going I pretty much rushed virtuality (30 years) held off from grabbing the last tradtion grabbed every single planet I could of got (16) then just spammed districts & building on all of them, them finished the tradition by year 78 instantly became the strongest empire in the galaxy from there spammed some ringworlds & then got some ecumunopolis to prepare for the x25 all crisis, needless to say I won that war easily. By the time the game ended I was produced over 8k a month on nearly all of my basic resources apart from food so yea pretty strong if you get a somewhat lucky spawn (No purifiers etc nearby) & manage your unity production then swap to alloys (Origin was arc welders)

[@percyvile]

Pops contribute to empire size pretty significantly

[@furiouskaiser9914]

Montu: "And you can smash EVERYONE!" Montu, have you been playing with the Xeno-Compatability setting on again?? 😅

[@lukyril]

it still is the best tall ascension when you are forced into it (early blocked system and you got no more than 3 planets), then you`ll compete better with this ascension than without

[@Charles-wu3lh]

I, for one, appreciate the use of the word 'salient' at @17:10. What a great word.

[@Last_Feanoring]

2 relic worlds of size 25 + and 3-4 ring segments) :

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

2 relics shattered ring 2 rebuilt segments and one converted relic to ecu maybe 2 the overall output of all materials will be disgusting

[@Elite_Tauren_Chieftain]

Determined Exterminator will be bonkers with this - conquer planet, and boom - instantly filled, up and running

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

tomb world bombardment go brrrr

[@AdmiralKarelia]

Oh. Oh my.

[@Meridian_Prime]

I think a key problem unanswered is whether regular biological pops can grow on virtual empire's planets and slowly replace your garbage virtual pops. If the answer is yes... It's going to be wild

[@Sonic_5342]

i think overall it will be better for tall, the empire size will be deadly but my first thought was: "omg, it will be perfect for purifiers or crysis megacorp"

[@gabrote42]

Gonna be real fun to play this in gigastructures like birch planets

[@jameshildebrand907]

Your empire: virtual ascension. Next empire finding yours: Bunker bot event starts.

[@shinkicker404]

"that's a big bunker, Jesus that's a big bunker." - adapted meme.

[@Nat-ri3ip]

Hi. I saw the reddit post. You nailed it, I think a big factor in limiting that will be the empire size. I will be enough to make it better on tall empires than wide, but not enough to not make it better by a wide margin than any other ascention path. If the virtual pops give any empire size, a wide empire's will skyrocket. There are way around that, but they generally speaking they push you toward a tall empire. So we can expect barely any research done, no additional tradition and having to carefully choose the edicts. Arguably it's not as much of a big deal once you're in late game and have unlocked the best tradition you'll have and your key technology, but still it's something that will be a big penalty if rushed. On the other hand, tall empires can stack bonus to building speed faster, in the case of ecu and ringworlds get more pops per districts, and get more bonus per pops, all while having quite a lot more pops than normal empires. So I think it's the way to go if you want to rush it. But anyway, you know what benefit a lot of stacking an absurd number of pops in a single world, having a lot of logistic growth and two free growing queue, get tons of unity from a special job and just got access to a massive gaia or ocean world for starter ? I think Rogue Servitors will be the new meta.

[@vi6ddarkking]

Well the math is rather simple. Sure All my jobs produces 25% of the normal. However if I can have 10X+ the number of jobs. Then who cares. And I am speaking from experience: I pay with Ancient Cache of Technologies and Acquisition of Technologies mods in addition to Gigastructural Engineering. And once I do the Dark Matter Core special projects AoT and research that version of the fallen empire buildings. I spam the Terraforming Megastructures and Artificial Worlds to get as many build slots as I can to snowball my economy as fast as possible.

[@Deshiba]

Go 5 to 6 planets and build habitats while ascending, only colonizing them during/after ascension. Getting systems would be easier then planets

[@danieldancza6171]

I do believe you are underestimating empire size. That's the main reason why I think tall will be better. Sovereign guardianship, beacon of liberty, etc... to completely negate empire size from pops. And I already have pretty great success as tall so this will probably be amazing for me

[@Sethmacd0]

This would get really crazy once you get Ring worlds and Arcology worlds.

[@rattled6732]

Rogue servitors bout to go crazy

[@aecides3203]

"The organics made themselves into code...how do we pamper code? Quick! Someone start programming gift baskets!"

[@Kasaaz]

The order of operations on the math for penalties and bonuses is going to matter a ton...

[@AWorthingt]

Bonuses and Penalties in Stellaris are (almost) always additive and subtractive to each other. So adding 100% and 4 things subtracting 25% result in no net gain or loss. There are a few exceptions to this. Such as +25% research from jobs and +25% research is multiplicative. But all (most?) other cases its just additive and subtractive to each other.

[@fuchsmichael93]

That sounds totally busted on an Ecumonolopis or a Ringworld. Trade build (is not a Ressourse) goes Brrrrrrrr

[@MontuPlays]

Oh yeah trade for EC and consumer goods/unity is almost certainly the way to go lol

[@fuchsmichael93]

@@MontuPlays That would actually make it worth to build your own Ringworld. Usually by the Time you get it finished and colonized its already GG and you would have to resettle 6 Planets worth of Pops to get it running.

[@stannisotk3530]

I always tell myself "I'm going to play tall this time" and then bam, my borders are 1/4 the galaxy...

[@2MeterLP]

Its not my fault the next black hole for dark matter is 15 jumps from my homeworld... EDIT: and the archaeology and rift mechanics also incentivise gobbling up systems.

[@shroomer3867]

Me trying to be a pacifist xenophile tall empire but neighbors taking digsites from me. 🗿 *Switches empire to be xenophobic militarist*

[@kingnekogon]

I figured out how to help this problem for myself. Terravore Lithoids. Usually Void Dweller origin, load core sector with habitats. Can't suffer from having planets if planets are your lunch. All the systems, none of the hassle! Doesn't solve Virtuality's penalty, but works for general Tall lol

[@DJDocsVideos]

@@2MeterLP I always tell myself I will demolish that starbase when I'm done with the dig... I never do.

[@tribsta1018]

I can see them just going the last push, 1 more planet -100%. Tbh I am super excited by this. I love playing tall and I want undying leaders.

[@swapertxking]

Gaia into Ecumenopolis is probably gonna be overkill tall

[@nick-hu1nx]

i was trying to decide if relic world, ocean paradise, void dweller, or ring world was best. probably ring world is best if you start off robotic, with void a close second. Relic for an easy eucamonopolis is nice, but having a size 30 planet and turning that into a machine world or eucamonopolis is also crazy good. i am very excited for this DLC, this doesnt even touch on what cool stuff cyborg or nanites bring.

[@fuchsmichael93]

Ocean Paradise, he did a Video where he got i think 41 Districts on one Planet.

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

​@@fuchsmichael93and that's not taking into account the additional districts you get from being virtual

[@swapertxking]

And you won’t have to worry about running into planetary limitations due to gaia world preference… though, the initial idea revolves around having machine worlds and Ecumenopoli in the same empire.

[@markthompson6139]

As others have mentioned, seems optimal use is to identify a core sector, or what will be your core sector, then once you ascend, release your sectors into specialized vassals, optimizing each sectors buildings for the desired effect. Then just tax the appropriate resources. So i imagine your core world is one or two size 25 ecu and a ring world, then you have two scholariums, and a prospectorium. Resource glitches make everything go brrr…

[@Aegis-_-]

I’m pretty sure that increased pop energy upkeep will eventually hardcap you (not sure when) because your pop energy upkeep will exceed pop energy output

[@MontuPlays]

Absolutely agree, though I think 20 or 30 colonies (which is pretty wide) is very affordable, at 2-3 EC base per pop. Adding in some discounts from ethics, civics, traditions, etc and you're probably looking and 1.5-2EC per pop. Again, very affordable and still wide!

[@Byssbod]

For virtuality to actually be a tall tradition, the scaling penalty needs to be uncapped

[@-Alter-]

Yeah, either they uncap it and let players fall to 0% resources (which i don't much agree with as it makes the game borderline unplayable), or better yet; Make the modifier scale with diminishing returns. have it be something like 150/125/100/75/50/40/30/20/10/5 Make the planets "Practically" useless, without having them be ACTUALLY useless

[@daedalusdreamjournal5925]

Or make it multiplicative with other modifiers. .... Or allow the penalites to be 'uncapped but with a minimum of 25% resources' as in you'll be limited fairly quickly in your resources with only a few planets, no matter the bonuses modifiers you may have.

[@EdricLysharae]

That instant population max on a colony will create quite a runaway effect.

[@SangoProductions213]

Depends on if it's a "decrease" (additive) modifier or a "less" (multiplicative) modifier. Most modifiers in Stellaris are additive. But it would seem like they do intend it to be multiplicative.

[@ryankilhenny3236]

I suspect that shattered ring megacorp could be quite synergetic with this virtual ascension.

[@maysjedi1097]

I just want to see how crazy Relic world into Ecumenopolis would be on Virtuals.

[@marcelgrabowski5939]

I don't see how empire size is a problem if you can just steal technology from AI by reverse-engineering wreckage of their ships crashed under your lidicurously massive armada. Virtual seems to be great for genocidal empires, since when conquering *despicable xenos* planets most of their jobs are just empty for a long time until your own pops catch up, here it will fill them all instantly. So you can develop even faster because infrastructure is already in place. Honestly, depending on how much basic resources structures from Arc Welders origin produce, it may be feasible to completly forgone basic resource production and focus entirely on specialist/complex instead. And with this how complex resources are less limited by planet features than basic, and how Virtual let you circumvent time usually needed to get the pops, we may be looking at horrifying alloy and science generator.

[@PyroMancer2k]

If you get free pops for jobs this is completely OP. I typically have like 40+ planets late game due to Habitat Spam. The more habitats the faster your pop grows even though most of them are empty breeding grounds. The Habitat change didn't stop the spam it just spread it out over more system. However it does allow Habitats to grow rather large and being able to actual fill them all would be insane.

[@momirpetrovic6111]

Imagine if it turns out that the nano machine ascension is really good for tall empires.

[@arirahikkala]

Looking forward to the new pop upkeep reduction meta. - Durable trait: 10% - Synchrony/harmony opener: 10% - Fanatic xenophile with a full set of culture workers on every planet: 15% - Council stacked with advisors: Say at least 15%? I'm not sure how much is practical here Adds up to 50%, and I probably forgot some modifier sources. Conveniently, a trade build wants the last two features regardless. Sacrificing other council positions in order to get more advisors for those 5% pop upkeep reductions might be worthwhile.

[@heat.death_999]

Finally time to re-learn the game after being a synth ascension only player for 4 years

[@antares7382]

Ok, but what if... you keep releasing sectors as vassals from your own territory? So that those also have virtual pops, while having a limited, controlled number of colonies?

[@PirateofAE2]

Frankly just popping pops in the existence is the issue here, maybe have a Machine assembly still be required, but being its mass drones with brains plugged into after, make em cheaper/faster. and have your worlds that may be at full continuing to produce frames for other worlds/reserve. (maybe as a new resource, that could get tied to a upkeep as frames break down.) just getting two pops (or more) just spawning for 6-12 mths of building, is gonna be far better than 1-2 years of pop growth/assemble. Let alone the logistic curve. Further more much less balancing will be needed or mico of moving pops around, as you can, assuming you have the minerals, literally, colonise it, que it up and forget your world.

[@combrade-t]

I'd be interested to see how this plays out in practice. The energy production from energy jobs seems like it outscales the upkeep until you have quite a lot of planets and I guess with the plentiful other ways you can get energy that could be easier with the rush this empire build seems like it would be capable of. Empire size seems to me like it could be quite crippling from the sheer amount of pops but I can see but the build seems like it would be able to get a huge boost against all other empires for a long period of the game.

[@spencerruston406]

Im definitly doing a Birch world Virtual Pops run when Gigastructures is updated for the DLC

[@jagermantis]

Diagonal players been real quiet since this dropped.

[@archenepnf]

You can also just release sectors as vassals, then integrate them later to avoid that gulf between tall and wide where it just sucks to exist as virtual.

[@MontuPlays]

We are not sure if virtual empires can make vassals .... yet. Will update everyone when we know more!

[@Petter1900]

Birch World start from Gigastructure + Virtual ascension might be fun

[@SeeAndDreamify]

Great analysis! I do like the idea of mixing regular and virtual pops. Also virtual clerks eh. Clerks finally good.

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

Just go for somewhere between 1 and 5 worlds If you go wide the upkeep is gonna spiral out of control and you will just have to put everything into trade value and energy just to keep up with it Start with ocean paradise, remnants or life-seeded, expand as normal, increase your main worlds' sizes with the usual fancy tricks like rings and planetary sea expansion and then once you ascended you abandon all unnecessary colonies (or turn them into vassals) and hope none of the crisises spawn on top of you

[@ShummaAwilum]

Need an update to this video to explore the idea with actual numbers.

[@manalord4228]

I think it would be a good idea to create vassals after you have ascended, since the subjects have the same parameters as you. This mean that you could release subjects with 3-5 Planets and benefit from theire big resources produktion.

[@scottbrowder8304]

i hope these ascension paths are available for any machine empire so i can use it on shattered ring

[@niscent_]

the issue is a basic math mistake you find in every video game: adding together multiplicative bonuses. of course this is done purposefully in many game. base idea is: if you have a +50% bonus to a stat, it multiply that stat by 1.5 simple and straightforward. however, if you had a -75% on that stat, you were not starting at 100%, you are at 25%, and now the +50% bonus is actually multiplying your stat by 3. there's no right or wrong way to do your bonus/malus maths in a video games, it always causes some issues somewhere else. you simply have to be mindful of how they work and interact and make those decision consciously when designing a game. if you multiply them between one another, you end up with things like singular high numbers maluses having much more value than bonuses. for example, to compensate for a -50% reduction in something, you need a +100% increase to that thing. adding percent modifiers together before applying them also has it's perks. for example it gives diminishing returns on bonuses, and is often used to prevent game breaking multiplier stacking. on the other hand, it gives increasing returns to maluses... the "proper" solution is generally using a logarythmic scale, this is often used for the defense/armor stats in video games. for example in league of legends (and many over games), the damage reduction formula is 100/(100+armor). so if you have 100 armor, your damage multiplier is 0.5, a 50% damage reduction. what's really good about this type of formula is that adding 1 point of armor reduce your damage taken by exactly 1% of what you were taking before. the only problem is, that it's not as obvious to understand. if you were to use such formulas to deal with bonuses and maluses to output in stelaris, it would make most players confused. but that would be totally doable. have a "production bonus" (let's shorten it "PB") stat that represent how much your prod is increased, but you need a bit more complex formula. when PB is positive PB/100 + 1 is your multiplier, when PB is negative you use 100/(100-PB). as a result, when you have 50PB is +50%, 100PB is +100% and so on, they simply work as percent increase when positive, with proper diminishing returns since you add them together. but the true magic is when you go into negative multipliers, for -50pb you are at -33% production, -100PB is -50%, -200PB is -67%, and so on, proper diminishing returns on maluses too so that they can't reach the -100% threshold (which would then requires you to place a hard cap to maluses). and now, each point of negative PB has the exact same value as a point of positive PB, each malus has the exact same effective value as a bonus of identical magnitude. once you implement those maths into a game you can also break them appart. you can have a global empire wide PB, but then add to it some over specific bonuses and maluses before applying it. for example, you have a global PB of 50 thanks to traditions and such, and then you have a policy that reduce mineral output by 100PB and increase energy output by 100BP, you can just do the maths at the end point, mineral output takes a -50bp modifier, and energy output takes a 150BP modifier. it makes numbers much easier to balance, since you can never really break them. you could use a similar formula for all the "reduce empire size from X by n%" too/

[@diggdugg]

so a few idea, you should have robot, unless virtual stop you from making robots. I want to know how abandoning a colony will work, I could see myself more interested in keeping colony amount low but upgraded the world I am using as I get ring world and find bigger planets. I could see a full ring world plus 2-3 emu world being all I need. another question is, is there building that provide the virtual pops and do we need to use it. could we have a colony will just physical people and not have that world count to the virtual reduction. some of this might already be know but I have gone and looked for the info yet.

[@matthewedwards6025]

The general calculation is no different than for regular empires, since they have increasing penalties for extra planets and pops (admin cap stuff), except that regular empires don't have local maxima in their curves. In both cases, the limiting factor will probably be availability of planets (6 is easily achievable...15 much less so).

[@Xymor]

Almost everything they add to promote tall playstyle can be taken and used to make wide even more efficient, like Sovereign Gauridianship. Virtual being used for wide will just be par for Stellaris.

[@Thareldis]

I just tested this in a few games. You don't need to have more than those planets to have a functioning economy thats bigger than everyone elses. Especially, if you bomb them into the stone age as an exterminator, who's also using cosmogenisis and uses the pops of conquered empires as research chips. You still tech faster than anyone else.

[@renatebrodmann8575]

I think the virtual IS poorly implemented, If you live in a digital world you still have to do normal Work with phsical bodies such as making alloys where living in the matric doesnt Help you.

[@123FireSnake]

No matter how the maths shakes out in the end, this is gonna be busted either way :D I'm thinking start with the ring and just chill don't explore and when you finally get revealed give the other players a god damn heart attack with 3 fully built up and filled ring segments

[@lordcraven1397]

In the late game I always have like 50 worlds I just completely ignore. virtuality means that they will all have way more value to that sort of empire

[@tomduke1297]

i dont see it working wide. with the cost per pop and empire size you would practically slow down to a crawl towards the endgame.

[@MontuPlays]

If you have 75 pops per world on 20 worlds that would check out! But 3k energy is easy to make with 1500 pops at your disposal

[@damonedrington3453]

The main weakness is that the negative punishment has a cap, but this same path also MASSIVELY increases how many pops you can have in a space. Once you hit that maximum penalty, you suffer no more if you get an additional 100 planets. So it just ends up being more logical to go well past that and loop back into it being massively useful. It’s the overall problem with wide being objectively better than wide. The penalties for wide just never out scale the benefit because the negatives either cap or don’t increase in scale like everything positive does

[@Meister_Mogul]

Montu Math back at it again!

[@Wesleyt33]

Im looking forward to virtual the most

[@darkestkhan]

You looked at the total output, but you forgot maintenance cost increasing with each planet.

[@MontuPlays]

Sure, that will cause another limit! Though 20-30 worlds would be 2-3 credits based per pop, with reductions from councilors and other factors we could knock a good chunk off, and make them cheaper per pop than a cyborg. 20-30 worlds is still quite a wide empire!

[@justinsinke2088]

Funny, I was doing much the same thought experiment after the reveal too. And I actually did factor in the other bonuses. I opened a late game save, took a few jobs and added all their bonuses together, then see how that output compared after adding a -75% modifier. Turns out my scientists and metallurgists would only produce about 30% less after the penalty, which doesn't seem too bad if we're also talking more jobs per planet and being able to develop new planets much faster. Here's a sticking point though; if your core population goes virtual, will you actually have the means to set your non-virtual pops from immigration to researcher jobs, or will the nature of your virtual pops override your other pops, automatically filling those jobs and leaving your non-virtual pops unemployed? Assuming you can just have your non-virtual pops working research seems like a major assumption. And I agree, empire size will become a problem when it comes to keeping up with research.

[@MontuPlays]

That... is a very good question

[@justinsinke2088]

@@MontuPlays After a bit of thought, I think it'd make sense that non-virtual pops get first dibs at jobs and new virtual pops fill in other vacancies automatically, unless that ascension path is designed to invalidate non-virtual pops entirely, which seems unlikely. Still, ensuring your flesh and blood pops work only researcher jobs and not other jobs seems like it'd be tricky to do with how I remember job fillings work.

[@vi6ddarkking]

Well the math is rather simple. Sure All my jobs produces 25% of the normal. However if I can have 10X+ the number of jobs. Then who cares. And I am speaking from experience. I pay with Ancient Cache of Technologies and Acquisition of Technologies mods in addition to Gigastructural Engineering. And once I do the Dark Matter Core special projects AoT and research that version of the fallen empire buildings. I spam the Terraforming Megastructures and Artificial Worlds to get as many build slots as I can to snowball my economy as fast as possible.

[@letsplaysvonaja1714]

I feel like you would be putting way too much effort into being wide as opposed to just being tall, avoiding all the hassle and still being decently strong anyways Having five giant worlds with (almost) no penalties is gonna be WAY less effort

[@luna_fm]

Simple Answer. Its not about Tall or wide. Take everything by all means necessary.

[@ianpowell1809]

I wonder how bad this will be with the gigastructures mod...Birch World anyone? Wow.

[@RiwenX]

Fat or tall. Wide or high. Choose one.

[@AutorPL]

So in advance I'm gonna say I never played Stellaris and only watched some videos here and there so I apologise if I ask a stupid question, but what about a virtual megacorp(I don't know if they're mutually exclusive or something)? Would that be possible? Would that be viable?

[@nineflames2863]

Tbh, this sounds like an oversight if it really works. Maybe the negative modifier will end up being mulitplicative instead of additive? You know, like how the exp malus you get for going over the leader cap works.

[@TheDrexxus]

I have a critical question about Virtual ascendancy. It may have been answered somewhere else but I haven't seen it. How does this virtual pop generating thing choose which pops it creates for which jobs? Does it automatically choose the templates you have created with the best traits for that specific job? Or is it random? Or what? I feel like this virtual ascendancy would be the best ascendancy path for me no matter what simply because I hate managing pops and waiting on pops to grow and then worrying about having too many pops, etc etc.

[@ClayinSWVA]

This is going to be a meta trait for mid-game rushes. You are going to have to watch your opponents and be ready to gang up on them if this fires off.

[@XD3blaze]

So what I'm hearing is, stock market robots are about to take over the game

[@aksmex2576]

One EMP detonation and they are gone.

[@leohal456]

Dude, ring world virtual is now basically the ultimate build. 3 worlds, all ring world, +100% resources from all jobs... wow Edit: Virtual habitat isn't a bad idea either like Montu says. It would give you the ability to colonize all the habitats fully, but ring worlds would still be potentially amazing. Edit 2: IT DOESN'T AFFECT TRADE?! OH MY LORD NO.

[@witoldgrabowskiwatcher]

I wanna see Montu disassemble triple x25 crisis with a massively wide overlord build, this could be interesting

[@AWorthingt]

I do have a few questions. First is "This number is reduced by 25% for each colony, to a minimum value of -75%." Reads ambiguously to me. It that -75% from the 150% (+75% total) or to -75% (or -225% from 150%) making your pops 1/4 as good. Second question is that the pop upkeep is going to get massive. If each pop costs 2 energy and you have 1500 pops, that's 3k energy per month, before jobs. That's 3/4's of a Dyson Sphere. At what point are pops unable to sustain themselves? Third, I'm interested to see how the pops scale with research, as it gets comparatively very little in the way of buffs as of 3.11. I think overall Virtual will be good for tall, and it may very well be good for wide as well, however it being good for wide is making many assumptions. I'm also very excited for Virtual pops, as they just seem so cool XD. Thanks for the vid :).

[@mordekaiser2026]

What about having a virtuality trade build, where vieruality penalty won't be applied to trade value, and also having bio species for regular jobs? Or virtual knigts of toixg god with 1-2 planets and habitat full of slaves?

[@bigbenhgy]

1 big question is how will pop modding work? When you fill a planet can it be from only one subspecies? Also like you said that modifier can be avoided by focusing on trade (and making subjects).

[@seandowney2338]

Something I was thinking about was if you could make your species aquacentric as well, then use the deluge colossus weapon to make all of your planets huge (or whatever it is that you can use to expand the planetary sea)

[@christopherbrown6322]

This ascension path is going to be utterly bonkers with the indefinite size worlds from Gigastructural Engineering, like the Frame World and Birch World.

[@williamgilmore8801]

I am looking at a syncretic evolution build with this. Have the slaves work all the worker jobs in the early game, then virtually ascend and turn all those slave pops into livestock. All those worker jobs will be instantly filled and the food produced will be pretty ridiculous. Then go catalytic processing and boom, your economies minerals open up like crazy with only a cost to consumer goods.

[@hebbu10]

I really doubt that slave/extermination jobs work with Virtual jobs

[@Byssbod]

What's the actual benefit of syncretic here? Just the fact that you can have slightly better workers than usual and that they become livestock? I think prosperous unification would simply be a much better economic start to get you to the virtuality tradition as fast as possible.

[@fuchsmichael93]

People are really sleeping on Livestock, if you fill every Buildingslot with Guards you can fill that Planet up with 400 Lifestock Pops and ca 60 of your own for Amenities you can get over 10k Food from one Planet.

[@williamgilmore8801]

@@Byssbod you could do it without syncratic, I just like starting the game with relatively high pop growth, which is now possible given that robots will be assembly and the workers bio.

[@williamgilmore8801]

@@hebbu10 slaves will work until you get your virtuality running, then you turn all those slaves into livestock for free food and later catalytic processing. It’s a relatively strong starting economy with slaves that will eventually get phased out.

[@LilyNaikiir]

some more considerations: how many of the districts per planet are housing districts for normal empires? Since you don't need housing, you could get away with less of those (potentially) also if the districts provide extra jobs, the base output of the planet would be higher for virtual than normal empires. so in your calculations, a virtual world would be outputting like 150 vs 100 on a normal world. Amenities and happiness is also something to keep in mind for the virtual pops, though if you're running a trade empire, this should probably be manageable.

[@infostorm618]

Off your graphs, looks like your goal will be to sit at 5-7 planets for as long as possible (research), and then simultaneously colonizing as many as possible when you are ready for that leap to take the economy to the next level.

[@MontuPlays]

You can get the planets ready before going virtual as well, perhaps?

[@MontuPlays]

Then the planets should all fill up after you ascend

[@SpiritdragonR]

I think a good start would be to make the modifier global - something that scales on top of every other modifier you have multiplicatively, rather than letting other positive modifiers cancel it out additively.

[@Junker-sq6pu]

Love all your stuff Monty. Thank you

[@Nomadic_Gaming]

virtual plus ecumenopolis is a no brainer or ring world/shattered ring they offer the best overall tall setup to output ratio for a planet asides a crucible world but thats cyborg shattered ring leave it unupgraded for basic materials then specialize each of the other 2 rings or getting relic worlds to make into ecumenopolis worlds or just converting home and 2 solid large planets into ecu’s once u have say mega structures for basic stuff or trade boom thats your solid best tall setup for virtual pops given what those planets output imho from there u can play w 4/5 see if it helps or hampers overall output this update is going to make remnants and shattered ring such crazy good starts for what you can do with them later once you go virtual so the general rule of 3-5 planets early to mid game is still good once you be convert and a safe bet to use as a baseline small edit the cybrex and first league will be absolutely bat shit precursors w virtual especially the cybrex as you can get w second ring world w them from the cybrex coming back if the contingency is on and possibly even the fallen empire w ring systems to take filling multiple ring systems will absolutely snowball the shit out of your economic power and output on all fronts

[@itsjustameme]

I think that late game bulding ringworlds as an alternative to habitats could be viable. Ring worlds are great, especially for trade, but I always struggle filling them up - but virtual pops would solve that it seems. My last playthrough I played as ringworld megacorp trader thing, and I got cybrex and also made a third ringworld of my own. I was absolutely swimming in credits, unity, and cunsumer goods - so much so that I was selling 100k every half year or so to keep them from overflowing. But it took 200 years or more of steady growth and moving pops around to get to that. Some sort of tech rush to get megastructures and start churning out 2 ringworlds at a time for the rest of the game with megastructure engineer (or possibly 3 at a time you also go with arc welders instead of broken ring - if I read that origin correctly you get to build an extra megastructure at a time) sounds just crazy.

[@Sepaedius]

Or you can do both? Just having your main species and any other virtual pops you want on your main 5 worlds, and non-virtual pops on your others. You're not going to be ascending a crapload of extra worlds anyway, so building tall on the core worlds with the virtual pops and everyone else on the other worlds

[@Deniziozioz]

with the way the negative per colony thing is worded shouldn't the red exponetial decline keep falling until 12 planets since it has the bonus 50% to take from? if thats the case it should fall below the normal blue line with 5-6 planets right? It would depend on if the -75% modifier is capped to the trait but I think its the actual floor for output value in stellaris.

[@Sealreth]

I have a distopian empire that I always have as spawning in my playthrough (It never expands, because Ai does not know how to use the jumpdrives it starts with :P) that will be perfect RP for this acention :)

[@daedalusdreamjournal5925]

Actually, I feel like the real main point in virtual is instant filling of jobs. And there might be several ways of playing this: - Tall and with vassal spam. - Super wide. Possibly using ring worlds and trade to support the growing upkeep. - And finally, starting with Tall, stockpile a lot of resources and then switch to Wide using military and the new planets to increase naval cap + trade to support your economy and alloy production. The real point is the instant filling of jobs which would allow you to be super agile in the way you play. Also, something to take account in the calculations, is that not every planet is created equal and that can change the calculation quite a bit. We also don't know how many additional bonus districts and jobs per districts we get, which can significantly shift the calculation. Though I very much doubt that habitat can cut it as they probably won't have enough jobs to compensate the cumulative upkeep increase as well as the growing empire sprawl. We should also take into account that, if tall, you can increase production on a few planets using unity. And finally, there;s the practicallity of what will be actually possible during real play since it looks like wide play will require a large amount of planets and jobs to compensate for the lost production due to the virtual penalties/upkeep penalty/empire sprawl which might limit how practical wide virtual might be. But I suspect a tall or very moderate wide build will be the most useful when going virtual + vassals (either created or from other civs) + trade + unity production boost.

[@daedalusdreamjournal5925]

I will also add that it is a bit early to do these caculation even though it's a stimulating thought experiment. I suspect there will be quick updates to balance things out, especially virtual, once the DLC hits the store. It's possible that the virtual modifier penalties might change. It's probably not multiplicative but if the virtual penalty is added LAST and eat up your 50% bonuses till you hit 25% production ... that limits the wide play significantly. And this is a change that can be added relatively easily by the devs .... that or something else.

[@shinkicker404]

What about when you add all the other penalties like Empire size? I don't think the devs would release it completely broken or not have considered this playstyle (and if they did it will be nerfed into uselessness - it'd be nice to play it not nerfed into the ground thanks). How will Migration even work with this empire? If all jobs are "virtual" and instantly filled, I don't think you will be able to use Migration like how Hive Minds are now. While you could go wide, just seems like it'd be easier to go tall with vassals. I'd planned to play this by spamming vassal virtual empires, Hub and Spoke my way around the Galaxy.

[@cp1cupcake]

This makes me wonder about if sectors you release keep you ascention picks. I wonder if it would work if you just released sectors as vassals.

[@ikitamiyori]

The sustainment of population is nerfed exponentialy by the energy upkeep. If you consider having 100 pop to sustain per planet, you would get huge issue fast with a wide playstyle. If one planet cost 100 energy (1 pop, 1 energy) of upkeep, 10 planets could ask 2000 energy (1 pop, 2 energy), 20 planets would ask 6000 energy (1 pop, 3 energy), 30 planets 12,000, 40 planets 20,000, etc. The limitation on energy, with an empire producing 1/4 of ressources for same job number, would make it unsustainable in my opinion. I remember mananing to get around 2000 energy output with a regular machine planet, fully buffed, so with 1/4 of this... It would require a huge reduction of upkeep, or to sustain this empire with dyson spheres (which is a trope of such empires in Sci-fi). And this simple calculation is "optimistic", the number of potential population would be higher I think, requiring an astronomical energy output. I don't see this perk competing in any way with the regular empire wide playstyle which is better on pure production and long run as you underline it. I suppose it's important in multiplayer but not playing it myself, I wouldn't make huge assumption. In PvE, where relies the balance of the game, you have no real use of so huge output (most being wasted by storage cap) and I think this is more balanced for quick tall growth, which allow a quick, sufficient domination of AI and crisis. And the regular curve of production could be provided by vassals. To conclude, I think an actual gameplay with in game experiments would be more relevant to know it's good or not with wide too. This quick simple thinking is interesting thought, you still show here that it's potentially the best for tall playstyle (the curve of virtuality are still higher on lower number of planets when the regular linear curve, so it fulfill its task). But, the questionable sustainibility of such setup for a wide playstyle make it potentially useless for this purpose, and would require a test in game with the numerous factors it involves.

[@musizlover2008]

The Virtual trait does have great benefits, but the penalty makes it very risky to have. I can only guess that you should have a large positive economy on all resources before thinking about claiming a new colony, that way your resource production doesn't spiral into a black hole.

[@joehelland1635]

Just imagine transitioning away from planets into ringworlds....

[@Michael_Brock]

Nice redline takes over at 14, minus a bit planets.