It is not normal, but since I am not working on the mod anymore, this is not going to get fixed.

Synthetic Shells is not allowing me to assimulate organic pops from a primitive world I conquered.

Is this normal, or am I missing something?

Just did a Junkworld start and without cities it is brutal. Ever since PDX decided to disable Maintenance Hubs and concentrate Maintenance Drone jobs in cities, this start becomes one of trying to find someplace, anyplace, where you can set down and move your capital, leaving your home world as a general base supply area. The inability to generate amenities and not having any power districts built puts you behind so many 8-balls that I even thought of abandoning the place. I was hoping for to get the PD More Habitats as an early tech, but no-go. And the junkbot malus was insurmountable. Scrapbots were taken out after doing a lot and could never turn the corner. Absolutely brutal start even if you don't meet anyone early in the game. Might be doable with a totally blocked in set of city districts, or re-enabling the Maintenance Hubs. Starting out with negative energy income, no extra jobs or housing and no amenities...more than a bit harsh.

The Synthetic Shells is interesting as there is a trait mod that gives a robot trait Brain In A Jar. I based an Old World Blues run on that, with the Unofficial Machine DLC Traderbot type (which I hope is fixed at some point). Instead of a computer doing this to the brains, it was done by each other with a drive for SCIENCE! above all else. Not exterminators/assimilators, but a scientific collective that would love to form a Scientific Cooperative federation...because they must have ALL THE SCIENCE (sadly limited by what people think machines should be limited to).

The leader issue has been fixed BTW!

Fine by me, but the quote I showed you would also make sense in the Description: the fact that the brain is unconscious and held in a vegetative state is pretty important, as most would imagine the brain active and forced to watch, which would make no sense when factoring in the part that the Vat Prison AI took its Prime Directive to the most literal interpretation possible.

@TurtleShroom, I will add the trait in future.

@zeals_ It also appears that the upgraded science buildings duplicate the jobs, so I get 8 bio researcher jobs and 8 drone researcher jobs, and the artisan jobs become drone jobs for any building that isn't the bottom tier one.

And I'll update in a bit, but I'm playing ironman so I can't use commands

Oh, concerning the Vat Prison, the Description seems to indicate that you did not put my, or a version of my, clarification.

This was the suggestion I pitched, in the context of a special Trait: "Each of these robots has a physical brain of a single organic being inside it. The brain is not conscious and it does not think, nor does it affect or control the machine itself, but it will never die." .

This should be fixed now. If it is not fixed in your current game, try using the console and type: "event machine_defender.20" - without the quotation marks. Tell me, if it worked please. :)

For the Robotic Protector Civic it says that only the Organic Species can be scientists, but a robot of mine has become one too

Well, to me, I'd think "well the brain's already there, let's hook it up" would be logical.

The idea with the trait is quite nice, maybe I will add it. But with the liberation part, I probably won't do that anytime soon. Just editing a little bit, not too much. Would take more time, I think.

What happens if a Vat Prison robot is liberated? I think it should turn into a conscious, thinking Synthetic Pop, like normal Synthetic Ascension.

Just use your imagination. Say it is there and let them picture it. After all, not all of the AI machines would have brains in suspended animation vats

Make a Trait for the assimilated Pops.

"Each of these robots has a physical brain of a single organic being inside it. The brain is not conscious and it does not think, nor does it affect or control the machine itself, but it will never die."

Well, would be nice but sadly you would need a fitting portrait for that!

(Well, "un-thinking" is not a word, but you get my point.)

Oh! You know what you should do? Write the story by saying that you can actually see the brains on the robots. You know, like they did in the little mini-series next to "Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy", with the brain in a jar being kept alive by a monkey? Imagine the robots with a round, glass dome and the brain just sits there . Floating. Unthinking.

Can you imagine how terrifying that would be to an enemy? It'd scare the CRAP out of me.

Will edit it soon, thanks for your feedback!

Holy crap, that's utterly terrifying. I assume the brain is the source of energy and computing power, but the machine doesn't actually "think"? You should have been more specific about the description.

"Vat Prisoners"

"This artificial intelligence network was designed to assist in mind uploading its creators into PERFECT, IMMORTAL MACHINES. However, something went wrong, and the AI took its job literally. The brains are not uploaded into the machines. They are physically in the machines, suspended in liquid and without consciousness. Now, the network seeks to assimilate everyone."

So, it's like the Synthetic Ascension with the exception, that their individual minds are lost. They have no free will. The brains of the creators are inside the machine bodies but they are controlled by the A.I. Similar to Doctor Who's Cybermen.

And for the error, I need to look around.

I'm somewhat confused about the Synthetic Shells, as its description is rather odd. I assume that it is the same thing as the Synthetic Ascension, where the Pops maintain their original personalities and memories, but become robots?

I just wanted to inform you that the "failed to migrate government type" bug has happened to me before. It crashes my game. Do you have any solutions to this matter?

Very cool twist on the machine species/origin setup! I'm definitely going to follow this in the meantime. I can't really offer any suggestions presently, maybe a possible machine-machine rebellion (or pending machine vs. organics rebellion) origin option?

I could try doing that, but this mod only adds one trait - For the Scrap Bots.

If you have any traits, could you add support for the photosynthesis mod? Asking as it alters the archetype file.

You would just need to add PLANTOID to the archetype file.