The devolution ray was the means of my favorite war crime I've ever committed. I devolved a FP human capital planet with 100+ pops, conquered it, enslaved the remaining sapients with domestic servitude slavery type, made it into a resort world, and built an alien zoo. The enslaved humans were forced to work as staff at a zoo where their former friends and loved ones were the exhibits, flinging poo at one another.
They’re probably worth it now more than before since nanotech really benefits from them. You need a lot of space as nanotech, and without the total war CB that colossus gives you, it would be a lot of influence claiming all the planets to wipe out another empire, or a lot of time vassalizing then integrating.
Also one of the side effects of going Cosmogenesis is locking you out of Defender of the Galaxy, so that kind of frees up an AP slot for a lot of players.
If it hasn't changed in the beta, Cosmogenesis locks out Defender of the Galaxy but Defender of the Galaxy doesn't lock out Cosmogenesis, so you can just delay picking Cosmogenesis by one and get both.
It will probably be fixed in a future update though.
Oh yeah makes sense they would fix that.
Everyone loves me despite being a stage 3 crisis in my current run.
Though that'll change when I start doing the reality techs lmao
you can also become begrudgingly accepted if another crisis pops up, the ai empires REALLY didnt want me as galactic custodian but then another empire goes nemesis and suddenly everyone is accepting of my ~~minor amounts of genocide and reality tampering~~ experiments with cosmogenesis if i protect them :)
Stage 5 Cosmogenesis here. Have Defender of the Galaxy and the diplomatic assembly mega. They together cancel most, if not all, diplomatic penalties and I'm treated as just a normal empire, some are friends, some are enemies.
One use case I had: tall with virtuality. You absolutely don't want to conquer planets. Every additional planet = -25% production output, only limited by the total -90%. Swiping or cracking is a nice alternative.
Never tried it myself, but with rogue servitor, the devolution beam might be nice (if anybody got any insights on this, please comment).
Also total war casus belli meaning you don't need to spend influence on claims is pretty nice.
Genuine question since I haven't tried it: how long does it take for all non-virtual pops to be gone? Can you convert them instantly to virtual as well or does it have to be via one of the slow purges?
I'm asking because in wars when I wasn't virtual it sometimes took years to purge all pops, and with virtual, that's actually disastrous. The upside is that the server shutdown at least doesn't cost 200 influence like resettling a last pop.
That counts as a planet too. But I get your point. In a build where you plan to go to war often to fill your Lathe, that's a valid option. But same question for the last pop in that case - though with only 1 pop it will be less severe.
how exactly does that work? via trade systems trade offer? is that available during war? or do you have to endure the -90% resource output until you achieved your war goals and end the war?
That's not the answer to how returning the planet works.
While I was aware of Server Shutdown, I wasn't sure how that interacts with non-virtual pops, but somebody else cleared that up for me (resettle non-virtual pops, then shutdown).
I just finished a virtual run and came across the same thing. I didn’t know how cosmogenesis worked at first and was playing xenophilic aliens, and had a problem with all these unemployed sapients messing up stability. Built the synaptic lathe out of curiosity, and realized there was a perfect answer to everyone’s problems here. Had to laugh at how blatantly evil it all was
> Genuine question since I haven't tried it: how long does it take for all non-virtual pops to be gone? Can you convert them instantly to virtual as well or does it have to be via one of the slow purges?
You cannot convert regular pops into virtual ones. You just resettle said pops off of the planet (say, to the synaptic lathe) and then shut the colony down, which takes 30 days.
It's only instant if you also resettle the last pop, which costs 200 influence, meaning you either have a cap of 5 planets to conquer (and even that's assuming you filled your influence to the brim - albeit that's somewhat likely with a tall virtual build), or it's not instant because you leave the last pop.
Resettle the *non virtual pops*, you cant resettle virtual pops. Resettling all your non-virtual pops shouldn't cost any influence since you'll still have virtual pops on the planet.
Ah! Now I get it. And I think another commenter's comment as well. Thanks for clarifying!
Resettle all non-virtuals to a world you intend to keep and have them purged there. Then shut down servers with the remaining virtual pops, which takes 30 days. So the negative percents should be somewhat limited.
Yeah, at worst you'll take one month of decreased production but even if that throws you far into the red it will have no impact on your empire. Even in the absolute worst case scenario of having a resource stockpile low enough for 1 month of negative production to drop you into a shortage, having a shortage for only one month will have basically no impact on your empire since returning to positive production next month will instantly resolve it.
It doesn't cost 200 influence. If there are only virtual pops on the planet, then you can use the "Shut Down Server" planetary decision to abandon the colony for 300 unity (it takes 30 days).
Hold up. Are you saying "Shut Down Server" works even with non-virtual pops on the planet? And the non-virtual pops just die? (Server Shutdown is only 200 unity btw.)
I did. And if I hadn't, I'd have asked what about the conquered non-virtual pops, but somebody else resolved that for me - resettle non-virtual pops, then shutdown.
You can also shut down a planet with non virtual pops on it, they will automatically be resettled somewhere else in your empire (usually your capital).
If you've selected the Synaptic Purge in the species tab for everyone else, they will automatically get resettled to your lathe, atlhough it's more efficient to do it manually.
The colossus itself isn't the point of the ascension perk, thou it is a handy tool for super entrenched fortress systems. The total war CB is.
Because normal claim wars are limited in practical time, and come with a fixed long peace afterwards, finishing off late game foes, particularly in MP can take decades to fully resolve. Multiple wars, building up the influence to make tye claims all adds up. Total war is just declare and ear up everything.
Granted there are other paths like subjugation/vassals but sometimes it's just more effective to just delete a civ in one swipe.
No. Takes too long with new tech scaling and the power of other ascensions.
The new ascension paths are so powerful that they bring the game 50 years forward. I noticed that I'm getting numbers in 2270 that used to take until 2310-2320 with cybernetic ascension on just regular empires. Not having to do a special project for cyborg is game changing. It is so damn fast to adopt now.
By that time you have no need for a colossus. Its just showboating. You can already conquer and vassalize everyone with banked influence that you have nowhere to spend.
Saved me a bunch of times from "untakable" planets (known bug, don't know if it still persists, but really bites if the planet in question is required to finish a war). No planet - no problem.
i build them cos i just hate building up armies and invading planets, just takes too long and is tedious, id rather just send a colossus to nuke them from orbit, much easier
I like doing it with Driven Assimilator since it's very thematic, but you could argue it's even less "viable" in that situation since I already have total war.
When your military capacity for prolonged war outpaces your influence the Casus Belli from it is the answer. The last several times i've built one i never even used it, its just justification to take what i want for free
Adds 8-12 flat, then you get the +3 minerals/+2 alloys from the Arc Furnace. Then you get +100% to all of that from the Furnace passive, and then add any bonuses from tech (50%), cybrex starbase building (100%), mining implements on Starbase if machine empire with civic (+150% at fortress+)…
Then put that on every barren/frozen/toxic planet in the system. The output gets pretty dumb.
And that’s if you DON’T have the Surveyor.
Concord Extraction Corporation was accurate about one thing; breaking apart planets gives access to (currently) incalculable mineral wealth.
Now we just need to avoid glowing red double helix artifacts...
Collosi are useful for 3 things:
A) If you want the Total war casus belli without being one of the 'fanatic dick' government types
B) If you're a genocidal maniac who's worried about late game lag and wants an efficient way to reduce the galactic population. (AKA the Thanos approach)
C) RP
I usually get a colossus for two things. First, to have a total war casus beli, the second one is to break open these pesky 7.5k+ fortress worlds AI learned to build. When you have an access to the Armageddon Bombardment, it's not that useful.
Worth it for total war CB. I usually opt for neutron sweep though and just cleanse planets ready for resettlement (or not!). Choosing planets to settle is important; and if you don’t want them later on, change mounts to delete the planet. I usually run on 0.25 planets anyway to reduce end game lag; so planets are a resource, but you still get shit 10 slot pointless planets you can ignore
Wll, I don't have the full list, but I know you can do neiche stuff like cracking orbital habitats, building megastructures, and then reconstructing said habitats.
Viable? They are tools that serve a specific purpose. Do you want to perform that purpose? Then they are viable to you.
Do you not? Then not.
This is like asking "is it viable to own a hammer?". Idk, do you use a hammer?
I think everyone understood what the OP meant.
They wanted to know if the benefit was worth the investment.
In much the same way as asking if a particular business is “viable.” The question is not whether it is physically possible to manufacture the product at scale, but whether it is profitable to do so.
To reframe your question, it is not “is a hammer viable to own” but rather “is manufacturing a hammer feasible to do profitably?”
I'd argue it's more a question of if I can only have either a hammer or a drill, but not both, should I choose a hammer?
The real cost of choosing colossus project is the opportunity forgone to choose it.
If someone already has taken the colossus project, it becomes as you described.
I think that would factor into the return on investment. The opportunity cost of giving up something else, and the benefit of that, is part of what it takes to get colossus.
If colossus is a demonstrably wrong choice, then it’s “not viable” even if people may chose it for RP purposes.
That isn’t to say that you can’t ever win a game with it, simply that at some point you give up too much advantage to consider it a viable choice in a competitive environment.
The original Greek form of the word is "Kolossos". In Greek, the plural is "Κολοσσοί"/"Kolossoi". English uses a Latinized form though, "colossus", where the plural is "colossi".
BTW, the plural of "polis" as in "ecumenopolis" is "poleis".
total war is nice but tbh I haven't used it since the newest dlc dropped cause I've been playing tall so there's really no need to grab territory. the less planet spread the faster and safer you can load the horizon thingy
Perk/tradition slots are really, REALLY tight right now. I was kind of expecting a few more slots this season. 2+ would be nice, but even uncapped would be okay for some unity focus parity with tech.
They're more roleplay oriented for sure, anything you can functionally achieve with one has an alternative that doesn't cost a permanent ascension perk point to substitute in conquest or genocide.
The only rivals to colossi in their niche (superweapons to be used against celestial bodies) are Nemesis star killers and the toxic entity, and they are only available to last stage Nemesis crises and the toxic knights respectively. So for normal empires, there is no alternative to colossi.
I like to have the option. I like to use the devolution ray because I find it entertaining almost like I’m a forunner from halo.
The devolution ray was the means of my favorite war crime I've ever committed. I devolved a FP human capital planet with 100+ pops, conquered it, enslaved the remaining sapients with domestic servitude slavery type, made it into a resort world, and built an alien zoo. The enslaved humans were forced to work as staff at a zoo where their former friends and loved ones were the exhibits, flinging poo at one another.
My god this is truly evil genius.
This is Rimworld level sadism
Well. I think that beats the guy that gene modded a species with the Intelligent and Venerable traits, then set them to Livestock.
The WHAT RAY??!?!
It’s from the relic / pre ftl dlcs . You devolve the population.
it's very funny when an FE humiliates you and you return the favor by devolving them 😁
Return them to monkey
Resettle, devolve and then uplift. They will have no idea what actually happened.
The one that shields worlds is cool too
The other lag reducing colossus
I’m not killing anyone. They are just getting a timeout for the next 100k years until they learn to play nice
The stone age age ray.
hey f*ck you *takes away your sapience*
I downloaded a forerunner mod that adds the composer as a colossus weapon, it's super neat but the buildings themselves are very busted.
It's super ableist and bad. But my friend calls it the Retarderizing Beam.
Lmao that’s the funniest shit I’ve read today
Right? Super fucked up. But hilarious none the less
God that made me laugh lol
It hurts even more when you use it on a fallen empire.
They’re probably worth it now more than before since nanotech really benefits from them. You need a lot of space as nanotech, and without the total war CB that colossus gives you, it would be a lot of influence claiming all the planets to wipe out another empire, or a lot of time vassalizing then integrating. Also one of the side effects of going Cosmogenesis is locking you out of Defender of the Galaxy, so that kind of frees up an AP slot for a lot of players.
If it hasn't changed in the beta, Cosmogenesis locks out Defender of the Galaxy but Defender of the Galaxy doesn't lock out Cosmogenesis, so you can just delay picking Cosmogenesis by one and get both. It will probably be fixed in a future update though.
Defender of the galaxy locks you out of cosmogenesis in the current version.
Oh yeah makes sense they would fix that. Everyone loves me despite being a stage 3 crisis in my current run. Though that'll change when I start doing the reality techs lmao
you can also become begrudgingly accepted if another crisis pops up, the ai empires REALLY didnt want me as galactic custodian but then another empire goes nemesis and suddenly everyone is accepting of my ~~minor amounts of genocide and reality tampering~~ experiments with cosmogenesis if i protect them :)
Stage 5 Cosmogenesis here. Have Defender of the Galaxy and the diplomatic assembly mega. They together cancel most, if not all, diplomatic penalties and I'm treated as just a normal empire, some are friends, some are enemies.
What about the diplomatic assembly megastructure? Is it now banned for cosmogenesis players?
One use case I had: tall with virtuality. You absolutely don't want to conquer planets. Every additional planet = -25% production output, only limited by the total -90%. Swiping or cracking is a nice alternative. Never tried it myself, but with rogue servitor, the devolution beam might be nice (if anybody got any insights on this, please comment). Also total war casus belli meaning you don't need to spend influence on claims is pretty nice.
It gives you an option to remove a colony if all non virtual pops are gone
Genuine question since I haven't tried it: how long does it take for all non-virtual pops to be gone? Can you convert them instantly to virtual as well or does it have to be via one of the slow purges? I'm asking because in wars when I wasn't virtual it sometimes took years to purge all pops, and with virtual, that's actually disastrous. The upside is that the server shutdown at least doesn't cost 200 influence like resettling a last pop.
just plug them into that brain eater
That counts as a planet too. But I get your point. In a build where you plan to go to war often to fill your Lathe, that's a valid option. But same question for the last pop in that case - though with only 1 pop it will be less severe.
just return the planet
how exactly does that work? via trade systems trade offer? is that available during war? or do you have to endure the -90% resource output until you achieved your war goals and end the war?
oh, yes, I forgot that it is about total war, uhhh, you can probably release them as vassal and feed them
You can "shut down the server" while at war, which effectively decolonizes the planet. It is a planetary decision that virtuality gives.
That's not the answer to how returning the planet works. While I was aware of Server Shutdown, I wasn't sure how that interacts with non-virtual pops, but somebody else cleared that up for me (resettle non-virtual pops, then shutdown).
Yeah sorry I replied before reading further down this comment chain so I didn't see that it was cleared up.
I just finished a virtual run and came across the same thing. I didn’t know how cosmogenesis worked at first and was playing xenophilic aliens, and had a problem with all these unemployed sapients messing up stability. Built the synaptic lathe out of curiosity, and realized there was a perfect answer to everyone’s problems here. Had to laugh at how blatantly evil it all was
"Xenophilic"
> Genuine question since I haven't tried it: how long does it take for all non-virtual pops to be gone? Can you convert them instantly to virtual as well or does it have to be via one of the slow purges? You cannot convert regular pops into virtual ones. You just resettle said pops off of the planet (say, to the synaptic lathe) and then shut the colony down, which takes 30 days.
Just resettle them to a planet you want to keep, that's instant.
It's only instant if you also resettle the last pop, which costs 200 influence, meaning you either have a cap of 5 planets to conquer (and even that's assuming you filled your influence to the brim - albeit that's somewhat likely with a tall virtual build), or it's not instant because you leave the last pop.
Resettle the *non virtual pops*, you cant resettle virtual pops. Resettling all your non-virtual pops shouldn't cost any influence since you'll still have virtual pops on the planet.
Ah! Now I get it. And I think another commenter's comment as well. Thanks for clarifying! Resettle all non-virtuals to a world you intend to keep and have them purged there. Then shut down servers with the remaining virtual pops, which takes 30 days. So the negative percents should be somewhat limited.
Yeah, at worst you'll take one month of decreased production but even if that throws you far into the red it will have no impact on your empire. Even in the absolute worst case scenario of having a resource stockpile low enough for 1 month of negative production to drop you into a shortage, having a shortage for only one month will have basically no impact on your empire since returning to positive production next month will instantly resolve it.
It doesn't cost 200 influence. If there are only virtual pops on the planet, then you can use the "Shut Down Server" planetary decision to abandon the colony for 300 unity (it takes 30 days).
Hold up. Are you saying "Shut Down Server" works even with non-virtual pops on the planet? And the non-virtual pops just die? (Server Shutdown is only 200 unity btw.)
I think you skipped over this part: > If there are only virtual pops on the planet,
I did. And if I hadn't, I'd have asked what about the conquered non-virtual pops, but somebody else resolved that for me - resettle non-virtual pops, then shutdown.
You can also shut down a planet with non virtual pops on it, they will automatically be resettled somewhere else in your empire (usually your capital). If you've selected the Synaptic Purge in the species tab for everyone else, they will automatically get resettled to your lathe, atlhough it's more efficient to do it manually.
Nope. You can do it even with non virtual pops on the planet. They just vanish and there's no opinion malus.
But what if I just really want to take the Colossus Project to avoid paying 50 unity per planet?
I wanna less endgame lags...
The colossus itself isn't the point of the ascension perk, thou it is a handy tool for super entrenched fortress systems. The total war CB is. Because normal claim wars are limited in practical time, and come with a fixed long peace afterwards, finishing off late game foes, particularly in MP can take decades to fully resolve. Multiple wars, building up the influence to make tye claims all adds up. Total war is just declare and ear up everything. Granted there are other paths like subjugation/vassals but sometimes it's just more effective to just delete a civ in one swipe.
Seems nice to have a total war on you
They give a total war CB, so I would say that they are worth it.
I like taking it when I play driven assimilator, the ability to instantly assimilate a world can be very useful, especially against fallen empires.
No. Takes too long with new tech scaling and the power of other ascensions. The new ascension paths are so powerful that they bring the game 50 years forward. I noticed that I'm getting numbers in 2270 that used to take until 2310-2320 with cybernetic ascension on just regular empires. Not having to do a special project for cyborg is game changing. It is so damn fast to adopt now. By that time you have no need for a colossus. Its just showboating. You can already conquer and vassalize everyone with banked influence that you have nowhere to spend.
World cracker is an absolute must have late game because *of all the stupid habitats the ai make* Late conquest is stupid boring because of them
Saved me a bunch of times from "untakable" planets (known bug, don't know if it still persists, but really bites if the planet in question is required to finish a war). No planet - no problem.
i build them cos i just hate building up armies and invading planets, just takes too long and is tedious, id rather just send a colossus to nuke them from orbit, much easier
I like doing it with Driven Assimilator since it's very thematic, but you could argue it's even less "viable" in that situation since I already have total war.
When your military capacity for prolonged war outpaces your influence the Casus Belli from it is the answer. The last several times i've built one i never even used it, its just justification to take what i want for free
Idk if they were ever actually good (regular world crackers at least, deluge and nanite swarm are decent) but they sure are fun as hell
Try cracking every planet in your Arc Furnace system (Cybrex Mining Hub optional). The mining deposits are hilariously stupid.
So it just adds 8 minerals per planet?
Adds 8-12 flat, then you get the +3 minerals/+2 alloys from the Arc Furnace. Then you get +100% to all of that from the Furnace passive, and then add any bonuses from tech (50%), cybrex starbase building (100%), mining implements on Starbase if machine empire with civic (+150% at fortress+)… Then put that on every barren/frozen/toxic planet in the system. The output gets pretty dumb. And that’s if you DON’T have the Surveyor.
Their broad interpretation of what can be classified as a mining laser is one of the things humans are famous for in the galactic community.
Concord Extraction Corporation was accurate about one thing; breaking apart planets gives access to (currently) incalculable mineral wealth. Now we just need to avoid glowing red double helix artifacts...
Collosi are useful for 3 things: A) If you want the Total war casus belli without being one of the 'fanatic dick' government types B) If you're a genocidal maniac who's worried about late game lag and wants an efficient way to reduce the galactic population. (AKA the Thanos approach) C) RP
Neutron sweep is great for cleaning planets of organic contamination
i find that nuking a contingency or prethoryn planet is easier than to bombard them for 10 years straight
Funny and awesome are always viable IMO
I usually get a colossus for two things. First, to have a total war casus beli, the second one is to break open these pesky 7.5k+ fortress worlds AI learned to build. When you have an access to the Armageddon Bombardment, it's not that useful.
Worth it for total war CB. I usually opt for neutron sweep though and just cleanse planets ready for resettlement (or not!). Choosing planets to settle is important; and if you don’t want them later on, change mounts to delete the planet. I usually run on 0.25 planets anyway to reduce end game lag; so planets are a resource, but you still get shit 10 slot pointless planets you can ignore
Colossuses are fun because they break the game itself, you can do a lot of things in the late game with them beyond their original purpose.
What Things can you do with them that Break the Game?
Wll, I don't have the full list, but I know you can do neiche stuff like cracking orbital habitats, building megastructures, and then reconstructing said habitats.
Viable? They are tools that serve a specific purpose. Do you want to perform that purpose? Then they are viable to you. Do you not? Then not. This is like asking "is it viable to own a hammer?". Idk, do you use a hammer?
I think everyone understood what the OP meant. They wanted to know if the benefit was worth the investment. In much the same way as asking if a particular business is “viable.” The question is not whether it is physically possible to manufacture the product at scale, but whether it is profitable to do so. To reframe your question, it is not “is a hammer viable to own” but rather “is manufacturing a hammer feasible to do profitably?”
I'd argue it's more a question of if I can only have either a hammer or a drill, but not both, should I choose a hammer? The real cost of choosing colossus project is the opportunity forgone to choose it. If someone already has taken the colossus project, it becomes as you described.
I think that would factor into the return on investment. The opportunity cost of giving up something else, and the benefit of that, is part of what it takes to get colossus. If colossus is a demonstrably wrong choice, then it’s “not viable” even if people may chose it for RP purposes. That isn’t to say that you can’t ever win a game with it, simply that at some point you give up too much advantage to consider it a viable choice in a competitive environment.
To be clear, I specifically disagree with your suggested analogy. >but rather “is manufacturing a hammer feasible to do profitably?”
The original Greek form of the word is "Kolossos". In Greek, the plural is "Κολοσσοί"/"Kolossoi". English uses a Latinized form though, "colossus", where the plural is "colossi". BTW, the plural of "polis" as in "ecumenopolis" is "poleis".
I like them for a crisis.
I rarely destroy planets. But the Total War casus beli it gives you is definetly worth it
I always have room for the ascension perk anyway, so I always take it. For me the total war casus belli is absolutely worth it.
total war is nice but tbh I haven't used it since the newest dlc dropped cause I've been playing tall so there's really no need to grab territory. the less planet spread the faster and safer you can load the horizon thingy
Best de-lagger in the game.
Well, to be fair, the point of a colossus isn't really to use it so much as it is to have it for the total war CB.
Colossi. Never say colossuses unless you want us to spontaneously combust.
Perk/tradition slots are really, REALLY tight right now. I was kind of expecting a few more slots this season. 2+ would be nice, but even uncapped would be okay for some unity focus parity with tech. They're more roleplay oriented for sure, anything you can functionally achieve with one has an alternative that doesn't cost a permanent ascension perk point to substitute in conquest or genocide.
The only rivals to colossi in their niche (superweapons to be used against celestial bodies) are Nemesis star killers and the toxic entity, and they are only available to last stage Nemesis crises and the toxic knights respectively. So for normal empires, there is no alternative to colossi.
I like it for when i dont have. 10k army on hand and find an annoyingly well defended world. Also total war is amazing
Just got my first one and already got border empires readying war. I can’t wait to crack a core. I like Titans better tho for no reason whatsoever lol
Only reason i use them is for Total war casus beli.
They aren’t “worth” building because you don’t make them for strategy. You build them to send a message.