How or why are my robots not upgrading to droids? (2024)

Hi,

I feel like this should be a sill question but after a break from Stellaris and returning for LeGuin, I cannot find out how to upgrade my robots to droids and on to synths. In previous versions, this has been automatic or player instigated (i think?). It's not happening automatically and I can't find anything to help me make the upgrade, either at robot factory or species level. I have now played a couple of games finding this issue and googled and trawled through the wiki to no avail.

Someone please put me out of my misery and tell me how to upgrade my robots (the sleeper must awaken! - ok, that would make more sense for teelpaths...)

BlackUmbrellas said:

"Droids" and "Synths" are no longer distinct species. The technologies simply unlock the ability for your robots to fill more complex jobs and give them a resource production boost.

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Thanks!

But there's no change to either their appearance or what they are called in the species tab. Maybe I expect that because of the tech thumbnail of a steadily more "human" face.

Edit: Also, I have robots and researched droids. They are definitely still robots - I cannot grant them rights better than servitude. Not sure if the upgrade has actually happened? Is there a message to announce that after the tech is researched?

alh_p said:

Thanks!

But there's no change to either their appearance or what they are called in the species tab. Maybe I expect that because of the tech thumbnail of a steadily more "human" face.

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The only change to appearance there ever was was their paint and lights, so it's not really unexpected that there'd be no significant changes now either.

alh_p said:

for whatever reason, I've still got robots. They aren't able to do any tasks other than workers.

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Shadowstrike said:

This was definitely a confusing change. I liked it better the way things were before.

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The old system had better readability, I suppose, but the current one has more flexibility, which I can appreciate.

Right, ok - it's a very understated upgrade and hidden process!

Thanks for pointing it out.

I agree it's confusing. I think a big part of that is the leftover name/designation changes that remain the titles of the research topics themselves.

There is no longer any corresponding species change (or even just a cosmetic name-change) that occurs for your empire-wide automatons, which leaves a person thinking that, "Hey, nothing changed".

This is perhaps less confusing as a new player to this setup, but for older players who had a differentiating line in their minds between robots/droids/synths from a gameplay standpoint, this can definitely be confusing. I know I did some clicking around on robots in the planet and species screens before it dawned on me what was going on, that's for sure.

I think though that even for new players it's a bit confusing. Perhaps changing the name of the research topics would help.

Personally, I'd like to see a cosmetic only name-change that happens for your automated (machine) populations. Perhaps only for non-player-modified robots for simplicity's sake. For example, all standard, unmodified robots have their names changed to "Droid".

Since the base species always remains in the species screen, even if a player has no unmodified robots, the base species would still turn over to "Droid". I guess that could also be confusing to a player not expecting it but...I donno. To me, that would be less jarring, for what little that's worth.

Your robots are droids if you've research the relevant technology, they're just called robots. They can also fulfill more jobs, such as technicians, metallurgists, and artisans... however I am unsure if they can fulfill clerk positions.

I agree, it can be confusing. My personal suggestion is to have the robots be color coded, so for the base portrait blue light is robot, yellow light is droid, and purple light is synthetic same as it was before Synthetic Dawn. The same could also apply for the Synthetic Dawn portraits, i.e. for the Avian portrait plain metal is robot, industrial yellow is droid, and black/red are synthetics.

Little Red said:

Your robots are droids if you've research the relevant technology, they're just called robots. They can also fulfill more jobs, such as technicians, metallurgists, and artisans... however I am unsure if they can fulfill clerk positions.

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Droids I believe can be clerks yes, synths for sure can.

Also it seems to me that unlike what the picture posted above says synths can be specialists, except researchers/culture workers, if AI policy is set to outlawed. Personally I prefer it that way.