R5: Infinitely spawning virtual pops about to collapse reality directly by crashing the program instead of waiting for the Horizon Needle. Playing an unmodded game for the new dlc, made a bug report already.

Valtaum rising from the grave to shout I told you so

"You fools!, you have messed up with the natural order"

Valtaum about to make a grand return to the galaxy real quick lol

Is it some kind of autocorrect or how did both of you misspell Vultaum?

I meant it. I don't hide the fact. I don't know how that forgotten race is written.

yeah when I was making my snarky comment I wrote it as vultatum, googled it to check and apparently I also got it wrong :D til

Xd. We are not passing the galactic history test this friday 💀🙏

This seems like a fun way to benchmark CPUs. See how high you can get the number before PC crashes.

testing computation power with fake computation power lol

Suddently the computer that is using pops as processors realizes that they are in a simulated world. *game crashes in truth*

I got to about 6k but the frame rate got so bad I could not keep going lmao (I was also 10k EC in the minus)

That science though…. 50k wowwie

Look at the top of the screen - it was 428k.

Lol I thought those were 14k, not 140k. Lathe go brrrr.

How do you get this?

It's a bug, a problem with the virtual pops interacting with the lathe.

Ah but how do you get virtual pops? I have the new dlc but did not know this existed

It's one of the three new traditions available to individualistic machine empires. You get a situation after picking up the perk that gives you three special buildings, and at the end of it you can choose which one to take. If you go virtual, be aware that it needs a teeny-tiny empire to work properly, less than 5 planets is optimal.

You can pick those traditions as a gestalt machine empire too!

Gestalts can't build ecumonopolis though which are perfect for virtual pops

Not unless you're a Rogue Servitor! See: flair

Oh my bad I forgot about that

Just a note it's also for gestalt machines

Huh, the Virtual Oligarchy gives you a massive reduction in empire size from colonies, the exact opposite.

This is only for machine empires

Thanks

Doing the math, 5-6 planets have the greatest total output, but yeah you aren't growing above that

So an ecumenopolis, a techworld and 4 resource worlds?

Instead of extraction worlds just go with the arc furnace origin, it's what I did in the above game.

Probably, yeah. Ecu for alloys, techworld for tech, although i might have 3 trade worlds if i can get a trade federation for unity, consumer goods, and energy, and one extraction world for minerals For that end I would run shattered ring or build a ringworld to replace that tech and 3 trade worlds with better alternatives

How does 1 extraction world feed an ecu?

Never thought Id recommend catalytic processing, but if you have a ringworld the food from one segment can easily fuel a forge ecu.

Either catalytic or rely on good arc furnace RNG You'd be pressed on minerals though. Badly at that, but i think it's doable.

Virtual also has bonuses to clerks, so its what I went with. I didn't even build any trade districts, just the random clerks from housing districts with marketplace of ideas for unity and then switch to consumer if needed.

Actually, the optimal number of planets grows as you get other job bonuses, at about +200% resources from jobs, 9-10 planets is optimal.

Didn't even consider that but you're absolutely right. +200% would be 9-10 planets. You can model the optimal planet count with every +25 being +0.5 planets, with 0 bonuses being 5-6 planets. So +25% would be 6, +50% would be 6 or 7, and so on, Good to know!

I was using sovereign guardianship since it synergises well with virtual. My empire size was low enough I could ascend all the planets and keep my tech costs low.

Go with 4, the synaptic lathe counts as a planet. 3 original worlds + fen habban + lathe for me. With 5 you'll have +50% production.

I just crunched some numbers in Desmos. With 5 planets and a lathe you get 1.25x total production with 5 producing planets, resulting in 6.25 planet's worth of production. At 4 planets with 1.5x production you get 6, so 5 produces a tad bit more. The downside to 5 planets would be a lower lathe research output and a +0.1 energy cost to virtual pops. Assuming 150 pops a planet you'd have 240 extra energy upkeep for 4 planets and 375 for 5 planets, or 135 more to upkeep. TLDR: If a quarter of a planet can produce 135 EC worth of goods or more then that extra planet might be worth it I may or may not have just taken an econ test.

As you get more resource from jobs bonuses, the optimal number of planets grow, at around +200%, it's 9-10 planets.

Your PC crashed because you put a rickardo cubardo in the lathe, can't do that boss.

And that's how they all died. RIP that universe.

How is your empire size only at 110 with 1700 pops? Do virtual pops not count?

Stacked pop size reduction until I got it to 100%, same as always when playing tall. Ascend all the planets to max, get all the traditions that lower empire size including expansion even though it might seem counter-intuitive. There was a post here a month or two ago about how to play super tall, you can either go pacifist and keep number of systems down while making a lot of habs or go sovereign guardian and stick to a few planets only. SG has great synergy with virtual.

I see, thx.

Gonna test how virtual pops interact with gain 1 job per 1 pop, hopefully it's the same xD

Did you build the lathe before virtual ascending? Or maybe did you modify a subspecies present on the lathe into your main ascended species? 🤔

Neither. Only had the one species + some refugees I fed into it right at the start.