that's creepy ngl

Actually just did some research and synth personality tech may be the problem

Synths cant be rulers?

Same. My synth start cannot be rulers.

For some reason, pops can't work the Ruler stratum. Might be a mod conflict i'm not aware of, but just asking to be sure, is this a current bug?

I edited the descriptor to make sure it looks right. Please try again.

Huh... I included one, but I guess I might have screwed up its contents or something. Have you tried unsubscribing and resubscribing? I had to do it for old mods, for some reason.

ok slight problem, it says it's missing the descriptor file and to contact you

finally, after all this time, I have been looking for a mod like this for ages

Added a prescripted synth void-dweller startup with a unique starting star system. Kind of unbalanced yet. Mostly as a proof of concept.

And I finally got around to (heavily) updating it for 2.7.2, including handling origins like ring worlds, habitats, and machine worlds, so it generates the correct districts for those, balanced for the fact that your pops recharge with energy from the socket instead of food.

Added a bunch of hybrid starting empires, which are different from the ones you get from origins.

Added an own Amon-Ra ringworld system initializer for my custom ringworld starting empires. (Which you really shouldn't use for anything else.) Planet names are Egyptian deities, asteroids and moons are notable ancient Egyptian people like pharaohs and such.

Technically it can even handle starting on a real ecumenopolis, but I'm not including that start because it's REALLY hard. You can edit it in your custom empire files, though.

DO NOT make a gestalt consciousness robot empire with the synth trait.

Would this mod work with 2.5.1? If not, it should really be updated.

any plans on updating this mod for 2.3.3?

Don't think so, unfortunately.

So after getting Gene Modding, I should be able to robomod them? Hopefully I still use the trait increases from the robomod techs and perks?

Well, something between 1.8 and 2.2 seems to have broken that. You need to unlock gene modding a biological species to mod your synths. No idea why, since they're clearly marked as mechanical, but those are the wonders of Paradox code.

I did my best to rewrite the mod for 2.2, but fixing that seems a bit beyond what I can do. Sorry.

It seems to me that I cannot Robomod Synths. Is this meant to be intentional? They have machine traits, so why cannot I alter those? After I unlocked robomodding I attempted to alter them only for it to say I did not have the gene tailoring technology.

Mate, I'm having 4 factions in my game at the moment, two of which don't like me much. Just like for humans or everyone else, these days they take longer to start spawning. Just have some patience.

The Robotic Immortality, yeah, it's just a trigger for the scripts and goes away. It gets replaced by the mechanical trait.

Upkeep, I'm pretty sure the normal ones in the game don't either, or at least the pops I converted in a normal game didn't seem to.

Gene modding points, well, you can still research them. That's just standard Paradox code, even. Not sure what made you think I'd give you some extra free points there. It's not supposed to be a God Mode kinda mod, you know? :p

And yes, robots break down ever since Paradox added them. Standard Paradox code.

TL;DR:Biological-looking synths have no farms, mechanical-looking synths have no upkeep, synths don't create/join factions, synth empires lack late-game trait points and/or buffs, and weird things going on for the "Robotic Immortality" trait in the species list.

Also, for mechanical-looking synths, having a few agricultural districts wouldn't hurt, either: they can be leftovers of their previous civilization, and now the bio-matter produced can be used for bio-generators.

third, for some reason synths do not seem to form or join factions, while they also lack the influence buff of the machine gestalt consciousness; fourth, biological-looking synths lacks the buffs that was gained through normal ascension perks (+6 gene-modding points and genetic resequence for biological empires, +2 machine modification points for machine gestalt, or +1 machine modification point & -10% upkeep & +10 output & +33% assembly speed for ex-biologicals); and finally, the "Robotic Immortality" trait always disappears after the game started - the biological-looking synths have the species with Robotic Immortality as their mother species but that it, while the species with "Robotic Immortality" disappears entirely from the species list, and synthetic leaders do still break down due to random errors, is this how it is supposed to work?

In a few test-runs of this mod, I've found a few bugs/problems: First, biological-looking synths DO still require food (which is quite understandable, given Gen 3 synths are pretty much humans with a computer for a brain), yet there are no startup farming districts; second, mechanical-looking synths do not have ANY upkeep whatsoever, which makes little sense (where does their energy come from?), I assume giving them an upkeep of standard synth citizens would help;

Stuff like that, yea. Or "One Vision" or "Voidborne" and stuff. In fact, the whole megastructures path seems to be quite powerful and doesn't require any changes to the species.

I see your point about machine worlds, though. Not sure I want to change a vanilla file for it, though... that would just conflict with anything that touched the traditions with a ten foot polesaber.

By "lower tier ascension perks", you mean the ones like "Mastery of Nature" or "Transcendent Learning", right? The only thing I'm sort of thinking about is that whether the synths should have machine worlds or not, given that it's perfectly possible for them to run one.

Hmm, well, you probably shouldn't do any actual ascension, since you're pre-ascended already, so to speak. But at least the lower tier ascension perks you should be able to mix and match if you want, since they don't imply any actual change to your species.

Finally! Although is it possible to restrict the three biological ascension perks and have the synths use the machine ascension perks? Thanks!

@jadtiger oh wow, appreciate it dude

And finally got around to converting it to 2.2...

Could you please update this for 2.2? Thanks!

Really hope this will be updated

Anybody know if this mod was broken by the Apocalypse/2.0 update, and any plans on updating it?

Hey, you say here that I'd have to pick a portrait from "Synthetic Beings" for a custom species for this mod to work.
Could I also pick one from any other Machine category (the vanilla one or any custom one)?

Do A.I use this?

@jadtiger Just deleted previous post, realised in testing that i didnt follow mod instructions. I made syncractic species not get converted in the initalizer thus adding compatability for biological syncratic species, dunno how to have the inverse work yet, but its a start. Its a simple change so when you get the chance contact me and ill send you the changes initalizer and point out the change, very simple.

@jadtiger do you have any ability to, or plans to add support for syncretic species? i looked through the initialization events file to try to pick out, but the method you used to replace the pop is a little beyond my understanding, given that you cut the assimilation off after running it, could you add in a check for syncretic species and then at that point only replace say 0.5 of pop? (leaving half synth and half unmodified?) just a suggestion, thanks :) great mod though

Thanks :)

Sure, go for it. I'm all for other people making mods. Means more mods for me to play with :)

@jagdtiger Hi, I am making a "merge/patch" mod (and some of my own features added) that uses your mod and silfae's Animated Synthetics Portraits - Expanded mod. And I was wondering if it would be okay with you if I could post it publically. I will give credit to both you and him. Also the mod requires both yours and silfae's to function, it is not a standalone.

Yeah Custom empire that is not under my control set to spawn

Hmm, I haven't tried syncretic species, now that you mention it. Thanks for reporting that. The help is really appreciated.

Not sure what you mean by NPC. You mean custom empire?

Really neat that this mod exists, however I have run into two possible issues:
1.Syncretic Species doesnt seem to work with this mod, all my empire are synths
2.when I set an NPC one of these to always spawn they dont seem to spawn.

Important change: now assimilation is only handled through the species window, by setting their citizenship to Assimilation. Basically, it now fits with the rest of the game.

Also removed the "genocide" modifier; now it works just like Paradox assimilation.

Added an invisible assimilation speed modifier that scales with the number of pops to be borged. It won't make much of a difference if you just conquered 3-4 native pops, but it willl make one HELL of a difference if you just conquered a hive with 100 pops. Now you'll be done in like 10 years instead of Paradox's 25 to 100 years.

AND the best part is, it doesn't overwrite any system files for that, unlike the other mod that handlles assimilation speed.

Quoth Prof Farnsworth, "Good news, everyone!"

I managed to gat the game to allow you to just build your own species, if you play a robot, rather than place a Synthetic and have it convert to one of yours.

If you start a new game, you'll have this ability from the start. If you're loading an old game, well, give them a couple of months and they'll figure out the logical conclusion of "We can build synths" and "We ARE synths."

Aaand fixed. Mind you, I was already pulling my hair trying to fix it for a couple of hours when I wrote the previous message, so don't think fixing it was instant.

Also new in this version:
- you can again pick a biological portrait if you want, but then you'll get biological traits
- access to all the machine traits if you picked a portrait from the "Synthetic Beings" category
- reduced the over-abundance of energy in the Fallout initializer slightly
- other synths, machines, hives or purifiers not care if you assimilate organics, or rather won't think of it as a genocide

Untested, but it should work just fine:
- give the trait to a machine empire, and have them turn into synths, but otherwise keep being a gestalt consciousness. You know, if you want to play the real Borg.

FINALLY: the 1.8.2 update broke a LOT of other mods. So you may see wonkiness from other mods, such as the Romulan species mod, like being unable to set the traits for any humanoids. That's not from MY mod.

AAAND 1.8.2 borked it again...

Gods dammit, Paradox, you don't break compatibility in a MINOR patch number...

Nah, my fault for not making it clearer, in retrospect. It just seemed so obvious to me, but then since I coded it, of course it was obvious to me that it would work like I coded it :p

Oh! Derp. didn't notice that.

Well, they're instantly converted to your own synths.

Apparently you can't build your own synths until you research "Machine Template System," which comes after Robotic Exoskeleton. All you can build until then is the normal synthetics.

Is this working as intended or did you miss this?

You're welcome. Truth is, I was starting to miss playing my synths myself.