9:07 are you sure that's upkeep? The tool tip seems to imply it's output rather than upkeep, and 20% additional alloys seems like it wouldn't be bad... In fact let me check.... Yeah that is 100% output not upkeep, I'm looking at it on a machine pop right now.
for your build robots did you know that the bonus of mechanical assembly speed are one the pops that are being ASSEMBLED so you can set on all of your planets to build the high pop assembly pops, and set them to assimilation, so one they are build they will be assimilated so you basically have 6 points worth of pop assembly completely free
That actually changes half of the tierlist, I would reupload the video with a section taking it into consideration. It really makes all positive and negative assembly traits into S tier, free and powerful picks. That's no casual trick, and makes modularity leagues stronger than anything else in the game, with cheap and ridiculously high pop assembly.
@@me01010 Yes and no. It takes a month before that pop can be used due to the assimilation tick only happening on month tickover so it'd need to save more than 1 month of pop assembly doing this trick. (Which it will.) so its not AS strong as you might think, but its still strong. Granted while the pop is assimilating, it'll cost its upkeep + assimilation upkeep which is I think 1 EC. Also only gestalts and non egalitarian/xenophile/pacifist empires can do this, so that means no Meritocracy or Parlementary system for normal empires without a massive happiness hit. Population controls are like a -20% happiness malice + their base happiness malice with a lot of factions.
I'm surprised planetary bot mod strategies were mostly ignored in this tier list as in SP I would specialise bots from assembly optimised ones. Having some warforms can help avoid embarrassment when surprising Fallen Empires whose unreliability and complacency makes capturing their core worlds a duty. Playing on the largest galaxy size avoiding the "War in Heaven" becomes a priority to avoid a 100 hours of insane micro so taking out the probable flashpoint is a priority.
Something that frustrates me with traits, both machine and biological, is that specific ones lean very much towards authoritarian empires which specialise pops into roles according to species and modify them accordingly. The idea is there, and has been ever since way back when you put individual pops on individual planet tiles to work jobs. But since the game moved away from that system it's now impossible to assign specific pops to specific jobs without doing an insane amount of relocating and micromanaging, and that makes any resource specific trait a lot weaker. Traits like the roboticist/virtual designer upkeep reduction in exchange for a food and exotic gas cost would actually be a lot less useless if you could give that trait to a pop and say "Now you only work these jobs".
@@aecides3203 With bio-empires assembling bots I specialise them according to the initial colony type. In general avoiding farmer jobs avoids specialized energy/mining bots being wrongly assigned to food production because the calculation incorrectly subtracts upkeep, rather than raw output. The adaptive traits solve the problem but cost more.
@@RobBCactive The problem I'm referring to is not being able to assign specific pops to specific jobs. I agree that what you're doing is the best way to do it in the current system, but it still doesn't allow for that at all and neither does auto-modding - specialist mining pops on a mining planet, even with auto-modding, won't allow you to use traits like the decreased roboticist/artificial personality designer upkeep on the roboticists/artifical personality designers and JUST them. You're talking about specialising pops to planets/jobs, I mean the ability to assign them to jobs according to their traits. Either manually as you could in initial release or ideally automatically, which has never been possible but would be very nice.
@aecides3203 The dogmatic approach doesn't work with a pop system, even in the pre-Megacorps versions of the game with putting pops on tiles, you could never start with enough species to have one for mining, one for ruling, one for farming and so on ...
For the empire size, the wiki has a good explanation. Essentially, the bonus empire size from pops is multiplicative, not additive, to most other empire wide adjustments to empire size. So it's not calculated like 50%+10%=60%, but rather 0.5X0.9=0.45 (or a total 45 percent of base value, meaning a 55% reduction). It's a matter of diminishing returns because your multiplying fractions by fraction. It's like if you reduce 100 by 10%, then reduce the resulting number by 10%, that second reduction won't be as large as the first even though the percentage was the same, because the number the second 10% is being applied to is smaller. Also, you sure about the 80% with shielding? Mechanical pops utilize minimum habitability now, not a flat habitability bonus, and that +30% doesn't say "minimum", making it even more "meh". Essentially for machines, habitability bonuses only matter if the total habitability modifiers would exceed 50%, and tomb worlds start at 0%; +30 to 0% is 30%, which would be overwritten by your minimum habitability anyway.
Empire size modifiers of the same type do stack additively though. So -10% empire size from pops and -15% empire size from pops do add up to -25% empire size from pops.
@@starleine Not quite, at least not according to the wiki. Whether they're additive or multiplicative depends on where the size modifier occurs. Two different empire wide modifiers would add together, but a species trait modifier isn't additive with those empire wide modifiers. For example, if you're pacifist (-15% size from pops) with the Beacon of Liberty civic (-15% size from pops), that would combine to -30%. If you have the Streamlined Protocols species trait (-10% size from pops), however, (if we're sticking to individualistic machines), you would not see a grand total of -40% from that combination.
@@justinsinke2088 Yeah, I mean modifiers of the same scope. It's more about "when" the modifier is applied. For empire size from pops, it goes pop -> planet -> empire. Modifiers applied at the same stage are additive.
@ I will I’m on console and have been watching your videos for a couple years I appreciate the work and time you put in I really do, I’ll give you my thoughts when I’m home from work
Biological Life - exists for over 3 billion years and evolves from a self replicating molecule into a self-emerging inteligence. Machines - been around for couple hundred years created by someone else. We are literally Gods to the toasters.
Custom made is actually pretty good for your main species, as you can set your species rights to "assimilation" for the race that you are actually building without that negative,, and then have them assimilate into the main species with the negative, at no actual cost to your overall assembly speed. Unless you're making more than 1 pop per month per planet, it works like that.
I'd say there's one use for Biomimetic Assembly: Make a subspecies with it, and Mass-Produced + Monoform + Recycled + Scavenger Bot, and any negative trait you want - doesn't matter, then set all your robot assembly to that species, and then set that Species' rights to Assimilate. Make your main species with all the negative assembly traits to maximize trait points, because you'll not be assembling them. Then give them every positive traits you want.
The +15% basic resource traits have been very good for diverse bio-empires that build worker bots in SP to avoid happiness penalties (had 100% hab too) freeing up the pampered organics to be specialists in super stable colonies. Such bots are problem free slaves that may be moved into new colonies to grow them unlike citizens and passively increase specialist resource output as a bonus. It fits with a tall strategy aimed at opportunities in late-early & middle game.
Nice list, I do have some comments: *Uncanny and has a niche use for oppressive autocracy empires as amenities can be produced with luxury housing. *Decadent also has a niche use for oppressive autocracy empires as all workers will have -200% happiness and it secretly boosts authoritarian ethic attraction. *Delicate Chassis are basically a freebie on worker cooperative empires that get all resources through specialists. Also, your profane machines are no match for the power of Psionics!
So, with arc furnaces and dyson swarms, a strange idea for a challenge run comes to my mind: a one pop challenge. The rules are that you can only ever end a month with one pop that isn’t being purged, and you can't use a purge type that produces resources - only displacement, extermination, or neutering. You have to get most of your resources from arc furnaces, dyson swarms, and possibly trade. The only resources you get from any pop is your one pop. For an extra bit of fun challenge, you have to try to become galactic Emperor as soon as possible. Obviously, youd need to use console commands to get down to 1 pop to start with, unless you make a special exception to the rules to only start the 1 pop part once the Galactic slave market appears and after you use slaver guilds or indentured servitude to sell off your pops. Assuming you can even get all but one if your pops enslaved and sold that way. You'd also need to either play as machine or synthetic fertility, and then demolish any assembly plants. Or use commands again to give your one pop vat-grown.
Not +50 years. +50%. This means, yes, if you leaders last 100 years, they'll last 150, but also means it uses whatever their starting point is as a base.
That should be an ascension path for machine species Abiogenesis or psionic awakening or something like that Like an inverse version of the synthetic ascension for biological species
I think there is an argument for physics core even for machine empires. Drives, disruptors, shields are all physics techs early game and late game dark matter techs and repeatables. The reasons those matter are you can stack physics significantly higher than engineering (hyperspace specialist, dimensional worship (astral thread effect), even astrometeorology, vultram precursor, pulse crystal curator relic, etc. Making physics a viable choice for rush builds and long game repeatable tech stacking. With strike craft now in sociology physics is the best choice for having counter options in one tree (if playing a long game and going into repeatables).
I don't play machine but I've heard Custom Made is free points as you can make a robot species A with it and make robots with all the assembly buffs robots B but set their species rights to assimilate robots B into robots A. So you're never assembling robots with it and once the robot is made it has no downside.
10:52 This used to be true, but with Specimens from Grand Archive, it’s actually quite feasible to get lots of Amenities. It’s a bit RNG-dependent in the early game but it evens out by the mid game.
29:31 Quarrelsome makes some sense for Rogue Servitors, since they get a lot of their Unity from the Bio-Trophies. Not all. There are still Capital Jobs and those Simulation Sites. But a lot.
Important to remember if I understand correctly, you need a Robot shop (Building Slot) to use Auto-modding. Don't forget that if you remove these later (i.e., Virtual).
Adaptive Frames can be good to combine with Emotion Emulators; some jobs, like Evaluators, produce both unity and amenities. Adaptive Frames will only adapt to one or the other, either unity or amenities. If you have Emotion Emulators and Adaptive Frames on a pop working an Evaluator job, Adaptive Frames will adapt into Propaganda Machines, allowing you to maximize both unity and amenities output of the job.
Dark matter engines always turns around to bite me eventually because as more and more pops start to grow I need more and more dark matter... I think the best way to use this trait is to apply it to all pops on a particular planet and then use the stop growth planet decision to prevent any further pops being created.
You need to either find regular sources of dark matter or build energy habitats to afford it from the market. You could turn one of your neighbours into a prospectorium, they get dark matter deposits at level 3.
Great natural sources of Dark Matter: 1) Find and own the Great Wound system (multiple black holes with deposits, 16k fleet power hostiles need to be cleared) 2) Find and kill neutral roamer VLUUR (32k fleet power) in a system you (will) own with at least 4 planets which will spawn deposits 3) Find and own black hole systems (ideally with deposits) and build Black Hole Observatory starbases and/or orbital rings there
@@berlindude75 Don't forget the dark consortium civic which gives dark matter per researcher, which with dark matter engines and most buffs by late game, will prob pay for your entire species in and of itself.
Any trait that reduces "Max" leader negative traits actually just reduces the likeliness of negative traits to appear in general, not really the "maximum". I'd argue because of this Enhanced Memory is actually B or even A tier, especially for individualist machine empires that can't get rid of the negative traits on their council members
Up until we hit the point where desynch kicks our ass some of the most fun I've had in this game is actually exploring weird builds co-op with a friend. He has a particular playstyle and tends to jusr default to that ao prying him out of his comfort zone into some weird faction build and roleplaying our factions choices has been a lot of fun. My favourite thus far was a run we did with overtuned and then we went cybernetics and got borh the automod traits. Our leaders would keel over from a stiff breeze but we embraced the attrition and wound up with a wild path through the game.
Durable is a much bigger deal with non-gestalt machines, running utopian abundance to rush unity. Particularly if you follow that up with virtual ascension (which is why you’d be rushing unity in the first place).
The integrated weaponry is useful for tall play as gestalt consciousness on ring world. And for synthetic evolution, if you bit down the dreadnought, the best army you can make is combind this to dreadnought trait, with a total 600% modifier, their dps is greater than xenomorph army, dps is the most important thing for the army.
I really never got why luxurious was worth 2 points. Its possibly the least impactful negative trait, it would still be op if it was worth one, why on earth is worth two. Especially considering how stingy there are with things like custom made being only worth one.
33:45 you correctly said it cost 1 point, but for some reason the graphic is showing 2. barring that very minor mistake, excellent video as always Oh and living metal augmentations for some reason says leader lifespan +50% instead of +50 years
26:00 Dreadnought trait Warforms don't benefit from species trait buffs. This pushes this trait very firmly down into the C tier or maybe even the F tier because of its cost. Love you
In regards to High Bandwidth and other empire size traits, they effect the pops directly instead of empire wide. So 1 pop becomes 1.1 empire size instead of 1 (or 0.9 instead of 1). So if you manage to get 90% reduced empire sprawl from pops from using traditions/civics, you would still have 11% (or 9%) to go to hit 0. The way I see it is High Bandwidth gets BETTER as the game goes on, and Streamlined Protocols gets worse. If you run something like Gaurdian Matrix, you can very easily hit 100% reduction in pop size total, and the multiplier from high bandwidth literally does nothing but give you 2 free trait points!
Modularity is so good, even when I go for something else I always end up with Modularity anyway XD Part of the problem is that I rarely play tall, or at least not 'small amount of worlds' tall, meaning that Virtuality is...not a good option for me. I should probably do a shattered ring machine intelligence run and try it out.
I think you overestimate the amenities trades. You can get a flat bonus for every planet through the archive now. Getting plus 20 on every planet is more than enough to never bother about them at all.
Just out of curiosity, do you ever play a roleplay-focused playthrough in Stellaris? Some traits are clearly less optimal, but I often choose them for the sake of roleplaying.
So, I played a biological Hivemind, and went Genetic ascension, I learned that the Slave Market is incredibly Valueable if you stack up your slave Pops with Perfect Genes.
I tend to use the Dreadnaught trait for my machines, but thats also because I play modded stellaris where armies are used a lot more often and a flat 500% army damage is insane. Good luck taking over Aiondia without it. but yeah... The new genetic ascension needs to have an equiv of Dark Matter Engines or it will still suck. Also I don't know if you pointed it out, but its easier to get MACHINE trait points and max picks over organic, and machines have better traits overall on top of that.
Do you have a video for playing Determined Exterminators? I'd love to see a good guide on it, i'm new to stellaris and well.. *killer robots make brain go brrr*
Great video. Could we get one for Hives? I'm jumping back into Stellaris after a 4 year break, and I'm a bit lost on my traits. RPing as a species locked in a vault on a relic world who recently got released. Original, no, but fun for me.
For GESTALT (at least) Robots, Energy = Pop Upkeep AND Research upkeep* Multiplicative vs. Additive; or "Stacks manipulatively". Is useful to know if for whatever reason it stacks differently than other modifiers, for sure. Effectively, "diminishing returns" on this if you can get other additive ones later. ( 15:35 , Streamlined Protocols is your example - must be manipulative? ) For Mote Powered Tools (issue in wiki versus in-game), I don't think you have the high-tier-creator tool to issue a silent edit...but I would appreciate a updated image to save on my PC. I find at least one or two negative traits useful even after modding if I really want to stack point-cost Hydrocentric blocks further alterations (at least for bios it did) to habitability! I do not recommend it when you can habitability-specialize and it mostly benefits workers and reduces certain upkeeps less relevant to machines (housing) even if they do use bios (trophies, slaves, immigrants, what have you) @Montu - which Leviathan would I use for Tech Genesis that might not give a world or other bonus? @Montu - "Secret" callout AMENITIES ARE (now) IRRELEVANT
Since watching your videos, I've become a much better player. I thoroughly enjoy your charismatic reptilian voice telling me how to blast the organics to smithereens 😂
I find that in general, the overall machine age dlc is broken, almost everything in it is better than bio, same for cosmogenesis, having so strong fleets so early feels disgusting
If u have a Builderbot (a Bot only designed to be built) and convert it from time to time, wouldn't it be good to go for itself to also reduce the alloyupkeep of the roboticist, while all other versions of your species have something like high upkeep and low build speed as negatives? Combining this with forcing every planet only to build those Builderbots you should be able, to stay with all positives and never ever even see any negatives, shouldn't you?
Quarrelsome may be a free point for Rogue Servitors since they get most if not all of their Unity from Bio-Trophies rather than their own species. EDIT: Turns out Quarrelsome can't be taken by Gestalt Consciousness so this is moot.
@@lucjanl1262 You can't build simulation centers as Rogue Servitors. Bio-Trophies are your only source of Unity from a building (there are a few exceptions ofc, like the building that gives +1 unity / Ascension perk).
The "minimum habitability" and "habitability" stats do not interact with each other. A pop with +50% minimum habitability and +60% habitability on a tomb world will only have 60% habitability. A pop with +50% minimum habitability and +30% habitability will have 50% habitability.
Wer benutzt den Bombardierung? Ich setze einfach 30 Armeen ab fliege schon mal in die nächsten Systeme und übernehme so einen Planeten nach dem anderen mit den pops drauf.
There is actually a case where you might consider propaganda machines, and that's for a virtually rush. You actually don't want to take pop assembly speed for traits if you're doing virtually, and getting more unity early can help you reach virtually before all the unity bonuses can overshadow it.
Could you explain how does -empire size work, I kinda lost it, is it just 10% reducion after 60% from traditions and not summ of both then would be 70%? Also, isn't physics better than engineering in the end game due to repeatables for energy weapons?
The trait reduction applies on the planet, first, before your empire wide reductions. For example. If you have a one planet with 100 empire size of pops (usually 100 pops), that would normally mean you get 100 empire size from pops. If you take this trait that planet instead gives 100 x 0.9 = 90 empire size from pops. If you get the tradition or civic bonuses, let's say for -40% empire size from pops. It now is 100 x 0.9 = 90 x 0.6 = 54. Without the trait it would be 100 x 1.0 = 100 x 0.6 = 60. So the trait only reduced your empire size from pops by 6 (which is 6% in this case) not 10. Does that make sense? It's applied first, and separately before other modifiers. It does stack with governor skill reducing empire size from pops on a planet AND planetary ascension levels reducing empire size from pops on a planet
The manly urge to shout "hey!" and rush to defend bio-ascension from the haters. ;-( ...okay look it unironically wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to individually design and modify every single pop type and also every individual sub-type of psychic or cybernetic pop.
I really disagree with your placement of streamlined. Imo its the single best lategame trait you can get. I always stack all empire size reduction modifiers, and havng 4k or more pops is common for me.
Streamlined doesn't stack with other modifiers like those from traditions, civics or technologies. So the more you stack those modifiers the less useful it becomes. For example if you have -60% from other sources the -10% from streamlined will only reduce your empire size from pops by -4%, which is a lot less useful
I was getting adds every single minute of this video Like literally, not being hyperbolic Is it the TH-cam falt or is it possible to change settings somehow? Unfortunately it makes the video unwatchable despite having nice content itself
In C, durable is also cap. They also reduce your consumer good upkeep, which can be big when you’re running high living standards, which is especially prevalent for parliamentary systems Unity rushes.
You know what Gestal machine empire running virtual kinda makes no sense. Your mind is already on software and you Reupload your mind on the same software. Boom magic happens you re op asf tall empire that tramples on most wide builds
Modular and Nanite ascension ought to have included their own 0-cost species traits, Synthetic and Nanite. Synthetic leader trait is nice I guess but the species trait disappeared, and for all the text about our pops becoming swarms of nanites, we get nothing for it on our species traits list.
hello montu, the purple trait in C tier sohuld not be there if efficient processors is in B tier, the purple one is better in every way and cost the same
The modularity traits (second column) are not equivalent to the regular traits (first column), as mentioned in the video! I've ranked them separately as they are just better traits! The C and F tier modular traits are easily B/A tier compared to normal traits
9:07 are you sure that's upkeep? The tool tip seems to imply it's output rather than upkeep, and 20% additional alloys seems like it wouldn't be bad... In fact let me check.... Yeah that is 100% output not upkeep, I'm looking at it on a machine pop right now.
It says -20% upkeep on the stellaris wiki, that's probably where he got it from
@@Alnarra ooh, that's a good point. It should be A tier then!
@@MontuPlays Well, time to remake the whole video. But hey, at least you got to release this tier list?
@@MontuPlays I was about to declare war on your comments Montu
The tooltip used to incorrectly say upkeep, but the effect was always output.
for your build robots did you know that the bonus of mechanical assembly speed are one the pops that are being ASSEMBLED so you can set on all of your planets to build the high pop assembly pops, and set them to assimilation, so one they are build they will be assimilated so you basically have 6 points worth of pop assembly completely free
Oh! I didn't mention the species rights trick, using assimilation rights for your high speed robot building template.
That's a good point!
"Look at what they need to mimic a fraction of our power..."
That actually changes half of the tierlist, I would reupload the video with a section taking it into consideration. It really makes all positive and negative assembly traits into S tier, free and powerful picks.
That's no casual trick, and makes modularity leagues stronger than anything else in the game, with cheap and ridiculously high pop assembly.
@@me01010 Yes and no. It takes a month before that pop can be used due to the assimilation tick only happening on month tickover so it'd need to save more than 1 month of pop assembly doing this trick. (Which it will.) so its not AS strong as you might think, but its still strong. Granted while the pop is assimilating, it'll cost its upkeep + assimilation upkeep which is I think 1 EC. Also only gestalts and non egalitarian/xenophile/pacifist empires can do this, so that means no Meritocracy or Parlementary system for normal empires without a massive happiness hit. Population controls are like a -20% happiness malice + their base happiness malice with a lot of factions.
Also, the Scavenger trait provide additional assembly speed.
Yeah, the only time I took internal weapons and war machines is I was doing an RP of "We were built as warbots to fight the coming storm."
Literally both are RP traits which I support
I'm surprised planetary bot mod strategies were mostly ignored in this tier list as in SP I would specialise bots from assembly optimised ones. Having some warforms can help avoid embarrassment when surprising Fallen Empires whose unreliability and complacency makes capturing their core worlds a duty. Playing on the largest galaxy size avoiding the "War in Heaven" becomes a priority to avoid a 100 hours of insane micro so taking out the probable flashpoint is a priority.
Something that frustrates me with traits, both machine and biological, is that specific ones lean very much towards authoritarian empires which specialise pops into roles according to species and modify them accordingly.
The idea is there, and has been ever since way back when you put individual pops on individual planet tiles to work jobs.
But since the game moved away from that system it's now impossible to assign specific pops to specific jobs without doing an insane amount of relocating and micromanaging, and that makes any resource specific trait a lot weaker.
Traits like the roboticist/virtual designer upkeep reduction in exchange for a food and exotic gas cost would actually be a lot less useless if you could give that trait to a pop and say "Now you only work these jobs".
@@aecides3203 With bio-empires assembling bots I specialise them according to the initial colony type.
In general avoiding farmer jobs avoids specialized energy/mining bots being wrongly assigned to food production because the calculation incorrectly subtracts upkeep, rather than raw output.
The adaptive traits solve the problem but cost more.
@@RobBCactive The problem I'm referring to is not being able to assign specific pops to specific jobs. I agree that what you're doing is the best way to do it in the current system, but it still doesn't allow for that at all and neither does auto-modding - specialist mining pops on a mining planet, even with auto-modding, won't allow you to use traits like the decreased roboticist/artificial personality designer upkeep on the roboticists/artifical personality designers and JUST them. You're talking about specialising pops to planets/jobs, I mean the ability to assign them to jobs according to their traits. Either manually as you could in initial release or ideally automatically, which has never been possible but would be very nice.
@aecides3203 The dogmatic approach doesn't work with a pop system, even in the pre-Megacorps versions of the game with putting pops on tiles, you could never start with enough species to have one for mining, one for ruling, one for farming and so on ...
@@RobBCactive Who said anything about starting with enough species? I feel like we're having two different conversations...
For the empire size, the wiki has a good explanation. Essentially, the bonus empire size from pops is multiplicative, not additive, to most other empire wide adjustments to empire size. So it's not calculated like 50%+10%=60%, but rather 0.5X0.9=0.45 (or a total 45 percent of base value, meaning a 55% reduction). It's a matter of diminishing returns because your multiplying fractions by fraction. It's like if you reduce 100 by 10%, then reduce the resulting number by 10%, that second reduction won't be as large as the first even though the percentage was the same, because the number the second 10% is being applied to is smaller.
Also, you sure about the 80% with shielding? Mechanical pops utilize minimum habitability now, not a flat habitability bonus, and that +30% doesn't say "minimum", making it even more "meh". Essentially for machines, habitability bonuses only matter if the total habitability modifiers would exceed 50%, and tomb worlds start at 0%; +30 to 0% is 30%, which would be overwritten by your minimum habitability anyway.
Empire size modifiers of the same type do stack additively though. So -10% empire size from pops and -15% empire size from pops do add up to -25% empire size from pops.
@@starleine Not quite, at least not according to the wiki. Whether they're additive or multiplicative depends on where the size modifier occurs. Two different empire wide modifiers would add together, but a species trait modifier isn't additive with those empire wide modifiers.
For example, if you're pacifist (-15% size from pops) with the Beacon of Liberty civic (-15% size from pops), that would combine to -30%. If you have the Streamlined Protocols species trait (-10% size from pops), however, (if we're sticking to individualistic machines), you would not see a grand total of -40% from that combination.
@@justinsinke2088 Yeah, I mean modifiers of the same scope. It's more about "when" the modifier is applied.
For empire size from pops, it goes pop -> planet -> empire. Modifiers applied at the same stage are additive.
Please tell me this is the beginning of a new set of tier lists
This is the beginning. I'm aiming to get through most of the updated tier lists by the end of the year!
@@MontuPlays the infinite race to have an up to date tierlist for a Paradox game...
@@MontuPlays Don't worry, i am sure a complete re-work of pops won't have any impact on tier lists, so there is no reason to hurry.
Beautiful video as always montu
Thanks! Let me know what you thought of the rankings
@ I will I’m on console and have been watching your videos for a couple years I appreciate the work and time you put in I really do, I’ll give you my thoughts when I’m home from work
@@MontuPlaysI can't wait for both machine intelligence tier civic list and hive mind civic tier list, and megaCorp civic tier list
@@MontuPlays rankings were pretty solid also I always wanted to ask how many hours to you have in Stellaris ?
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me.
I craved the strength and certainty of steel
I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine.
Your kind cling to your flesh, as if it will not decay and fail you.
Biological Life - exists for over 3 billion years and evolves from a self replicating molecule into a self-emerging inteligence.
Machines - been around for couple hundred years created by someone else.
We are literally Gods to the toasters.
Custom made is actually pretty good for your main species, as you can set your species rights to "assimilation" for the race that you are actually building without that negative,, and then have them assimilate into the main species with the negative, at no actual cost to your overall assembly speed. Unless you're making more than 1 pop per month per planet, it works like that.
42:37 Syncretic Evolution with the sub species being Lithoid and producing exotic gases can make this a fun trait you can mod on very very early.
I'd say there's one use for Biomimetic Assembly: Make a subspecies with it, and Mass-Produced + Monoform + Recycled + Scavenger Bot, and any negative trait you want - doesn't matter, then set all your robot assembly to that species, and then set that Species' rights to Assimilate.
Make your main species with all the negative assembly traits to maximize trait points, because you'll not be assembling them. Then give them every positive traits you want.
If you pick the cosmic ascension perk and mass produce robots with fallen empire tech, your idea sounds useful.
Tried nanotech yesterday, and uhh they’re broken lmao. Machines are so strong that it crashed my game twice. Also paragons tier list pls!
The +15% basic resource traits have been very good for diverse bio-empires that build worker bots in SP to avoid happiness penalties (had 100% hab too) freeing up the pampered organics to be specialists in super stable colonies. Such bots are problem free slaves that may be moved into new colonies to grow them unlike citizens and passively increase specialist resource output as a bonus.
It fits with a tall strategy aimed at opportunities in late-early & middle game.
6:05 reawakened trait can't be removed, it's a permeant debuff to the spawned pops
Nice list, I do have some comments:
*Uncanny and has a niche use for oppressive autocracy empires as amenities can be produced with luxury housing.
*Decadent also has a niche use for oppressive autocracy empires as all workers will have -200% happiness and it secretly boosts authoritarian ethic attraction.
*Delicate Chassis are basically a freebie on worker cooperative empires that get all resources through specialists.
Also, your profane machines are no match for the power of Psionics!
48:42 that isn't +50 years, that's plus 50 PER CENT. I think nothing else in the game adds a percentage leader lifespan buff
make each life research cycle +7.5 year life span.
hell yea I was looking forward to updated/new tier lists thanks Montu!
So, with arc furnaces and dyson swarms, a strange idea for a challenge run comes to my mind: a one pop challenge. The rules are that you can only ever end a month with one pop that isn’t being purged, and you can't use a purge type that produces resources - only displacement, extermination, or neutering. You have to get most of your resources from arc furnaces, dyson swarms, and possibly trade. The only resources you get from any pop is your one pop. For an extra bit of fun challenge, you have to try to become galactic Emperor as soon as possible.
Obviously, youd need to use console commands to get down to 1 pop to start with, unless you make a special exception to the rules to only start the 1 pop part once the Galactic slave market appears and after you use slaver guilds or indentured servitude to sell off your pops. Assuming you can even get all but one if your pops enslaved and sold that way. You'd also need to either play as machine or synthetic fertility, and then demolish any assembly plants. Or use commands again to give your one pop vat-grown.
@JoshuaKevinPerry because one pop as galactic Emperor sounds hilarious.
Phenomenal timing!
Been waiting for The Machine Age to go on sale to no avail for the past 2 weeks, so now I feel even more blue balled 😂
48:59 thats not 50 years, that's +50%
Not +50 years.
+50%. This means, yes, if you leaders last 100 years, they'll last 150, but also means it uses whatever their starting point is as a base.
Granted, we're talking Machines, so assuming it's 100 years by default is a pretty good start to be honest.
All these bots try so hard with these modifiers but will be eternally coping about not having a soul.
Cope? A soul is bloat! Don't touch me with that!
That should be an ascension path for machine species
Abiogenesis or psionic awakening or something like that
Like an inverse version of the synthetic ascension for biological species
@@wvfrm-lffrm Definetly
10:25 I use it with fast virtuality ascension, so I don’t really need pop assembly after start of the game
I think there is an argument for physics core even for machine empires. Drives, disruptors, shields are all physics techs early game and late game dark matter techs and repeatables. The reasons those matter are you can stack physics significantly higher than engineering (hyperspace specialist, dimensional worship (astral thread effect), even astrometeorology, vultram precursor, pulse crystal curator relic, etc. Making physics a viable choice for rush builds and long game repeatable tech stacking. With strike craft now in sociology physics is the best choice for having counter options in one tree (if playing a long game and going into repeatables).
I don't play machine but I've heard Custom Made is free points as you can make a robot species A with it and make robots with all the assembly buffs robots B but set their species rights to assimilate robots B into robots A. So you're never assembling robots with it and once the robot is made it has no downside.
Hail to the unstoppable Machina. Relinquish your flesh. The synthetic age is here at long last!
Great video as always Montu. Really liked the exaples at the end 👌
5:08 Not only are they free. They don’t occupy a slot. So you’d basically be stupid to not take one of them.
10:52 This used to be true, but with Specimens from Grand Archive, it’s actually quite feasible to get lots of Amenities. It’s a bit RNG-dependent in the early game but it evens out by the mid game.
29:31 Quarrelsome makes some sense for Rogue Servitors, since they get a lot of their Unity from the Bio-Trophies. Not all. There are still Capital Jobs and those Simulation Sites. But a lot.
Important to remember if I understand correctly, you need a Robot shop (Building Slot) to use Auto-modding. Don't forget that if you remove these later (i.e., Virtual).
Adaptive Frames can be good to combine with Emotion Emulators; some jobs, like Evaluators, produce both unity and amenities. Adaptive Frames will only adapt to one or the other, either unity or amenities.
If you have Emotion Emulators and Adaptive Frames on a pop working an Evaluator job, Adaptive Frames will adapt into Propaganda Machines, allowing you to maximize both unity and amenities output of the job.
Mote powered tools increases output, not reduce upkeep. I mean, it says right there in the description.
Dark matter engines always turns around to bite me eventually because as more and more pops start to grow I need more and more dark matter... I think the best way to use this trait is to apply it to all pops on a particular planet and then use the stop growth planet decision to prevent any further pops being created.
You need to either find regular sources of dark matter or build energy habitats to afford it from the market. You could turn one of your neighbours into a prospectorium, they get dark matter deposits at level 3.
@@MasterElementsthat sounds powerful
Great natural sources of Dark Matter:
1) Find and own the Great Wound system (multiple black holes with deposits, 16k fleet power hostiles need to be cleared)
2) Find and kill neutral roamer VLUUR (32k fleet power) in a system you (will) own with at least 4 planets which will spawn deposits
3) Find and own black hole systems (ideally with deposits) and build Black Hole Observatory starbases and/or orbital rings there
@@berlindude75 Don't forget the dark consortium civic which gives dark matter per researcher, which with dark matter engines and most buffs by late game, will prob pay for your entire species in and of itself.
Any trait that reduces "Max" leader negative traits actually just reduces the likeliness of negative traits to appear in general, not really the "maximum".
I'd argue because of this Enhanced Memory is actually B or even A tier, especially for individualist machine empires that can't get rid of the negative traits on their council members
what a timing. I was just wondering if there is a tier list for the newest DLC and i did not find a new upload from you a few hours before
You forgot that durable also reduce the amenities upkeep. May be for this the Trait actually become better in the mid and late game.
Up until we hit the point where desynch kicks our ass some of the most fun I've had in this game is actually exploring weird builds co-op with a friend. He has a particular playstyle and tends to jusr default to that ao prying him out of his comfort zone into some weird faction build and roleplaying our factions choices has been a lot of fun. My favourite thus far was a run we did with overtuned and then we went cybernetics and got borh the automod traits. Our leaders would keel over from a stiff breeze but we embraced the attrition and wound up with a wild path through the game.
Durable is a much bigger deal with non-gestalt machines, running utopian abundance to rush unity. Particularly if you follow that up with virtual ascension (which is why you’d be rushing unity in the first place).
The integrated weaponry is useful for tall play as gestalt consciousness on ring world.
And for synthetic evolution, if you bit down the dreadnought, the best army you can make is combind this to dreadnought trait, with a total 600% modifier, their dps is greater than xenomorph army, dps is the most important thing for the army.
I really never got why luxurious was worth 2 points. Its possibly the least impactful negative trait, it would still be op if it was worth one, why on earth is worth two. Especially considering how stingy there are with things like custom made being only worth one.
The very reason i currently love bio overengineered cyborgs^^
Triple Automod :D
33:45 you correctly said it cost 1 point, but for some reason the graphic is showing 2. barring that very minor mistake, excellent video as always
Oh and living metal augmentations for some reason says leader lifespan +50% instead of +50 years
living metal augmentations does in fact increase leader life spans by 50% rather than a set number of years.
@@robguy8501 Really? wiki says 50 years, and as far as I know there are no other percentage increases to leader lifespan. Cant check ingame right now.
Negative pop assembly speed is a great trait for virtually ascended species.
Thank you Mr Lizard, I mostly play driven assimilator so this will help out a great deal
Custom Made should be pretty good when someone picks Virtuality or not? No need for pop growth when they instant spawn.
26:00
Dreadnought trait
Warforms don't benefit from species trait buffs. This pushes this trait very firmly down into the C tier or maybe even the F tier because of its cost.
Love you
A~S tier for synthetic evolution ascendant because no good army without special event like titan monster or cyberx.
In regards to High Bandwidth and other empire size traits, they effect the pops directly instead of empire wide. So 1 pop becomes 1.1 empire size instead of 1 (or 0.9 instead of 1). So if you manage to get 90% reduced empire sprawl from pops from using traditions/civics, you would still have 11% (or 9%) to go to hit 0. The way I see it is High Bandwidth gets BETTER as the game goes on, and Streamlined Protocols gets worse.
If you run something like Gaurdian Matrix, you can very easily hit 100% reduction in pop size total, and the multiplier from high bandwidth literally does nothing but give you 2 free trait points!
Modularity is so good, even when I go for something else I always end up with Modularity anyway XD
Part of the problem is that I rarely play tall, or at least not 'small amount of worlds' tall, meaning that Virtuality is...not a good option for me. I should probably do a shattered ring machine intelligence run and try it out.
I think you overestimate the amenities trades. You can get a flat bonus for every planet through the archive now. Getting plus 20 on every planet is more than enough to never bother about them at all.
Interesting, didn't know adaptive frames didn't stack with those other traits, I didn't tend to put it with them but now I definately won't
... The disaproving headshake made me rewind
Montu, please make machine/hive civics tier list, a lot changed since your last one
A new guide regarding weapon and modules would be great!
@@cristianponcea1660 nothing has really changed since patch 3.6 with weapons and modules though?
Isn't mote powered tools output, not upkeep?
Just out of curiosity, do you ever play a roleplay-focused playthrough in Stellaris? Some traits are clearly less optimal, but I often choose them for the sake of roleplaying.
So, I played a biological Hivemind, and went Genetic ascension, I learned that the Slave Market is incredibly Valueable if you stack up your slave Pops with Perfect Genes.
Oh boi another tier list video! *popcorn*
I tend to use the Dreadnaught trait for my machines, but thats also because I play modded stellaris where armies are used a lot more often and a flat 500% army damage is insane. Good luck taking over Aiondia without it. but yeah... The new genetic ascension needs to have an equiv of Dark Matter Engines or it will still suck.
Also I don't know if you pointed it out, but its easier to get MACHINE trait points and max picks over organic, and machines have better traits overall on top of that.
What mod make army use more offen?
@@kyosukearashi3523 Gigas, ACOT need armies more often.
Do you have a video for playing Determined Exterminators? I'd love to see a good guide on it, i'm new to stellaris and well.. *killer robots make brain go brrr*
Make a video about megacorp civics pleasssseeee 🙏🙏🙏
Great video. Could we get one for Hives? I'm jumping back into Stellaris after a 4 year break, and I'm a bit lost on my traits. RPing as a species locked in a vault on a relic world who recently got released. Original, no, but fun for me.
For GESTALT (at least) Robots, Energy = Pop Upkeep AND Research upkeep*
Multiplicative vs. Additive; or "Stacks manipulatively". Is useful to know if for whatever reason it stacks differently than other modifiers, for sure. Effectively, "diminishing returns" on this if you can get other additive ones later. ( 15:35 , Streamlined Protocols is your example - must be manipulative? )
For Mote Powered Tools (issue in wiki versus in-game), I don't think you have the high-tier-creator tool to issue a silent edit...but I would appreciate a updated image to save on my PC.
I find at least one or two negative traits useful even after modding if I really want to stack point-cost
Hydrocentric blocks further alterations (at least for bios it did) to habitability! I do not recommend it when you can habitability-specialize and it mostly benefits workers and reduces certain upkeeps less relevant to machines (housing) even if they do use bios (trophies, slaves, immigrants, what have you)
@Montu - which Leviathan would I use for Tech Genesis that might not give a world or other bonus?
@Montu - "Secret" callout AMENITIES ARE (now) IRRELEVANT
Since watching your videos, I've become a much better player.
I thoroughly enjoy your charismatic reptilian voice telling me how to blast the organics to smithereens 😂
I find that in general, the overall machine age dlc is broken, almost everything in it is better than bio, same for cosmogenesis, having so strong fleets so early feels disgusting
If u have a Builderbot (a Bot only designed to be built) and convert it from time to time, wouldn't it be good to go for itself to also reduce the alloyupkeep of the roboticist, while all other versions of your species have something like high upkeep and low build speed as negatives? Combining this with forcing every planet only to build those Builderbots you should be able, to stay with all positives and never ever even see any negatives, shouldn't you?
Why is it that shielded components works on tomb worlds but the motes trait doesn’t?
Which machine ascension is best Montu?
I use Custom-made and Luxurious flaws because of flavour.
Nannybots determined exterminators. I can't. :)))
I skipped to S Tier just to skip back to F Tier for being scolded 😞
Quarrelsome may be a free point for Rogue Servitors since they get most if not all of their Unity from Bio-Trophies rather than their own species. EDIT: Turns out Quarrelsome can't be taken by Gestalt Consciousness so this is moot.
I think you still want a tone of simulators as rushing ascentions is just so good
@@lucjanl1262 You can't build simulation centers as Rogue Servitors. Bio-Trophies are your only source of Unity from a building (there are a few exceptions ofc, like the building that gives +1 unity / Ascension perk).
3 points for efficient processors or 4 points for robust? I mean it's a good deal
The "minimum habitability" and "habitability" stats do not interact with each other. A pop with +50% minimum habitability and +60% habitability on a tomb world will only have 60% habitability. A pop with +50% minimum habitability and +30% habitability will have 50% habitability.
Dont skip, just grab a snack 😊
Wer benutzt den Bombardierung? Ich setze einfach 30 Armeen ab fliege schon mal in die nächsten Systeme und übernehme so einen Planeten nach dem anderen mit den pops drauf.
There is actually a case where you might consider propaganda machines, and that's for a virtually rush. You actually don't want to take pop assembly speed for traits if you're doing virtually, and getting more unity early can help you reach virtually before all the unity bonuses can overshadow it.
You did a machine trait tier list but not a megacorp civic tierlist. The audacity
Could you explain how does -empire size work, I kinda lost it, is it just 10% reducion after 60% from traditions and not summ of both then would be 70%?
Also, isn't physics better than engineering in the end game due to repeatables for energy weapons?
The trait reduction applies on the planet, first, before your empire wide reductions.
For example. If you have a one planet with 100 empire size of pops (usually 100 pops), that would normally mean you get 100 empire size from pops.
If you take this trait that planet instead gives 100 x 0.9 = 90 empire size from pops. If you get the tradition or civic bonuses, let's say for -40% empire size from pops.
It now is 100 x 0.9 = 90 x 0.6 = 54. Without the trait it would be 100 x 1.0 = 100 x 0.6 = 60. So the trait only reduced your empire size from pops by 6 (which is 6% in this case) not 10.
Does that make sense? It's applied first, and separately before other modifiers.
It does stack with governor skill reducing empire size from pops on a planet AND planetary ascension levels reducing empire size from pops on a planet
@MontuPlays alright, got it, big thanks Montu
34:53 is nanite so bad? ;(
Naughty naughty LOL...good one
What does the 3.14 mean? Do people not play on the latest patch? (100 hours)
Does automodding still gives +amenities to clerks?
No, it gives the trade value buff now
Or at least, it should do...
@@MontuPlays that always seemed a waste (and oversight) when it did that.
The manly urge to shout "hey!" and rush to defend bio-ascension from the haters. ;-(
...okay look it unironically wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to individually design and modify every single pop type and also every individual sub-type of psychic or cybernetic pop.
Bio empires wish they were us
I really disagree with your placement of streamlined. Imo its the single best lategame trait you can get.
I always stack all empire size reduction modifiers, and havng 4k or more pops is common for me.
Streamlined doesn't stack with other modifiers like those from traditions, civics or technologies. So the more you stack those modifiers the less useful it becomes. For example if you have -60% from other sources the -10% from streamlined will only reduce your empire size from pops by -4%, which is a lot less useful
@ yes but every bit helps, and when you have over 1k pops it really matters imo.
Praise the omnisiah
Hail the Omnissiah
Hail the Mommysiah
Mommyssiah, save our souls.
@@MontuPlaysbased ⚡⚡🗿
I was getting adds every single minute of this video
Like literally, not being hyperbolic
Is it the TH-cam falt or is it possible to change settings somehow? Unfortunately it makes the video unwatchable despite having nice content itself
This is cap. Art generators should be good for Unity rush, and leader exp gain shouldn’t be bad imso
In C, durable is also cap. They also reduce your consumer good upkeep, which can be big when you’re running high living standards, which is especially prevalent for parliamentary systems Unity rushes.
Doesn’t every robot unity rush use automodding?
You know what Gestal machine empire running virtual kinda makes no sense. Your mind is already on software and you Reupload your mind on the same software. Boom magic happens you re op asf tall empire that tramples on most wide builds
I watched f and s only, I’m sorry.😢
Why is the biological lizard man saying biological life is inferior to machines? XD
Good to know this,now wait 20 years til it comes to console to rewatch it
Algorithm interaction to hopefully make up for skipping through the video quickly.
Modular and Nanite ascension ought to have included their own 0-cost species traits, Synthetic and Nanite. Synthetic leader trait is nice I guess but the species trait disappeared, and for all the text about our pops becoming swarms of nanites, we get nothing for it on our species traits list.
hello montu, the purple trait in C tier sohuld not be there if efficient processors is in B tier, the purple one is better in every way and cost the same
The modularity traits (second column) are not equivalent to the regular traits (first column), as mentioned in the video!
I've ranked them separately as they are just better traits! The C and F tier modular traits are easily B/A tier compared to normal traits
i go Nanite because.... reasons
3.14?
The patch is Pi!
emotions emulators got wrong number tho. great tierlist otherwise
HELL YES MONTU FIRST
Emotion Emulators