Stellaris II: I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Fungus Hivemind Overlords

[Silverraptor]

Alright. I've been hearing a lot about crusiers superior to Battleships, so I've come to ask, how so? Are they really that more cost efficient that they beat out the range of the XL on a battleship?

[The_Final_Stand]

So, story time.

Say, hypothetically, that year 180ish comes up. You've never really played this game before, but you're pretty much at the top of the tech tree, have 5/8 Ascension Perks, with a 6th slot open have a naval capacity of around 300 ships, and at that cap, a total fleet power of maybe 35000? You've stopped expanding outwards, but through the magic of Habitats are still building inwards. You're even 3/4 done with building a Ringworld!

And then the Contingency pops up. One of their four death-worlds is right in the middle of your empire. Since you're a Machine Intelligence, you promptly take -40% to everything. In a fit of fear, you join the human Federation, and since you didn't read the fine print, you promptly lose enough of your naval capacity that combined with the -40% you're now in the red for energy and minerals.

Also, all your ships take -lots% to their fire rate and accuracy, since they all have sentient AI.

Ok, so, a quick refit to replace the sentient AI and... why isn't the malus going away? Ok, fine. Let's just build a whole new fleet, with shield-breaking weapons galore, designed with advanced, but not sentient computers. Now I'm seriously in the red, desperately hoping that the Ghost Signal blocker project gets done Soon.

I'm up to around 45000 total fleet power, and I use that 6th Ascension Perk to take Defender of the Galaxy, for an extra 50% damage. Sweet. Oh hey, they just jumped into my Ringworld system. Send them all in! ALL OF THEM.

Hang on, a single one of their fleets is 75000?! That's only like 10K less than the nearby Fallen Empire's force they sent when I built a Frontier outpost too close! THIS IS MY ENTIRE NAVY, AND WE ARE BUT DUST IN THE STELLAR WIND.

Ghost signal's fixed, but I don't think I can come back from this. RIP the Mechazur Ascendency.

... So, from that description, what could I have done?

[Sian]

So, story time.

Say, hypothetically, that year 180ish comes up. You've never really played this game before, but you're pretty much at the top of the tech tree, have 5/8 Ascension Perks, with a 6th slot open have a naval capacity of around 300 ships, and at that cap, a total fleet power of maybe 35000? You've stopped expanding outwards, but through the magic of Habitats are still building inwards. You're even 3/4 done with building a Ringworld!

wait ... that seems pitifully low ... my cap reaches 300ships some 60 years into the game (even if I don't go above 50'ish% of my cap before I want to play with a FE) ... and unless you specificly want to cheese Unity/Tech production you don't stop expanding outwards (continuously, at a similar speed as your influence 'income' allows) before you run into borders that you can't push further back...

How many planets do you have, how advanced are their spaceports? are you vaugely beelining certain stuff in the Tech tree or are you dartboarding, with little to no consideration what's the most worthwhile path?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Alright. I've been hearing a lot about crusiers superior to Battleships, so I've come to ask, how so? Are they really that more cost efficient that they beat out the range of the XL on a battleship?

Generally because XL weapons are pretty inaccurate against anything smaller than a battleship. Cruisers are a general-purpose all-around useful ship to have in your inventory, and the backbone of just about any decently organize military fleet. Once you get them, you should focus on them almost exclusively when dealing with other races short of something like an Awakened Ancient Empire or similar crisis. They're also cheap enough to replace readily, much cheaper to replace than Battleships, so you can afford to lose a few.

Plus we're talking Cost and Fleet Cap tradeoffs. Cost for cost, Cruisers are extremely efficient against anything other than things the Precursors left lying around the galaxy or the odd awakened death fleet.

The only time Destroyers remain useful is if you are dealing with Macross Missile Massacre and need the extra Point Defense to beef up your defenses. But Cruisers are an amazingly versatile hull, you can build several different synergistic configurations to deal with just about any sort of opponent short of one of the Extradimensional Horrors or such. Now that frigate spam has been fixed, there's almost no reason to build them once Destroyers become viable (except maybe as torpedo spam into the middle game).

Some things I have done with them:

Corvette: Well, not much options here. Use 'em early game, crammed with missiles. Ignore 'em after. Some use in the mid game as torpedo spam since refitting them is pretty cheap.

Destroyer: Two main configurations:

Gunship/Interceptor. This is your interdiction hull, designed to hunt down 'vettes, and probably your first hull configuration. Pack 'em with missiles unless your opponent uses a truly enormous amount of PD, in which case go with whatever counters them. If you are facing primarily other Destroyers, consider Gunship/Gunship as an alternative.

Picket/Picket. This is your mid to late game point defense hull. Still capable of gunning down 'vettes, especially torpedo-based ones, but is primarily used in mixed fleets to thicken PD against Manticorian Missile Massacres (apologies to any Webber fans out there). If no opponents rely on missiles or fighters, then this designation becomes obsolete and can be safely retired.

Cruiser: Heart and soul of any mixed fleet

Broadside/Broadside/Broadside. Gives me six Medium weapon slots. Medium slots are really useful to have around, as you have the counter-PD missiles that are only available as Medium. At the same time, they aren't so large that they have a tough time hitting corvettes. When I first build them, I generally load them down with Missiles (Typically III at the time) with maybe one shield and the rest engines and armor. This works until other alternatives present themselves. It is capable of hunting down anything smaller than itself, and quite capable of taking on other Cruisers as long as you don't run into a type mismatch (i.e. someone bringing heavy PD to the field). If you are more concerned about 'vette spam, swap out the tail for Gunship.

Torpedo/Torpedo/Gunship. Basically downgrades missiles to Small instead of Medium, but also gives three torpedo slots. Since smaller missiles still have a commanding range in the early to mid-game, this might be viable for a little while. In effect, the missiles work well enough against lighter units, and the torpedos can dish out some serious pain on larger targets. This is more commonly found in a mixed fleet when I'm having to do something like bombard defenses and don't have battleships to do the job properly. Marginally less capable against Destroyers, particularly those in Picket configuration, but it is assumed that this unit works with other cruisers in a more typical Broadside configuration to support. This might also have late-game viability with energy torpedoes doing such insane damage against shields, and at such range. If you face enemies with shields, this would be viable to seed into your armada to strip shieldings so that when heavier kinetic weapons range in, they will have an extremely Bad Day.

In either case, the point is to maximize salvo density to penetrate any PD the opponent might have. NEVER build a Hangar module

Arty/Arty/Broadside: For when you need to 'punch above your weight'. This is almost more effective than Battlehsips at the battleship's game of pounding people into scrap at long range in a cost per weapon system calculation. Sure, it only has 2L/2M compared to a Battleship's 6L Arty configuration, but you can crank out twice as many of them as well. These ships are not intended to operate alone, but in an armada comprised primarily of Cruisers and maybe picket Destroyers. Ten or so of these fellows seeded in with the rest of your fleet strength can give someone a very bad headache, even if they ARE packing a Battleship or two.

Battleship: Slow, lumbering deathballs. They need range in order to be effective, because very little is stupid enough to permit it to close with them, or it would be suicide to wait until range drops to close with it.

Arty/Arty/Arty: Basically a cruiser writ large and slow. Six Large weapon slots to bring the pain down. By the time Battleships roll around, missiles will begin to become somewhat lackluster, so you can take advantage of the extra range Large slots provide to use Kinetic Batteries. Not particularly effective against smaller targets, that's what you have cruisers for, it is designed to batter down fixed defenses and horrors that the precursors shouldn't have screwed around with.

Spinal/Arty/Arty: Well, it's the only ship in your inventory that can mount those XL weapons, so why not try them out? You trade two Large weapons for it, though.

Broadside/Broadside/Broadside: I wouldn't suggest this configuration except in cases where you haven't really unlocked good weapons tech for some reason. It's got a generous selection of weapon size categories, and if you are missile focused it can be quite an impressive broadside. It has enough Medium slots to seed your salvos with enough ECCM (Swarmer missiles) to counter most PD you will encounter and enough total slots that your opponent will be having a very bad day. Unless that opponent happens to be another battleship or something bigger. However, this is basically trying to fill a carrier's role with a Battleship, and doesn't really make much sense. If you are using anything but missiles (which, let's be honest, are starting to become ineffective by the time Battleships roll around), this is a poor ship design in general, as you can build two cruisers to do a better job than this does by itself.

Hangar/Carrier/Arty: No. This is a trap. NEVER DO THIS! Bombers suck in virtually all ways compared to what you could mount in a Large slot, and a humble Destroyer in Picket designation has almost as much PD capability for a fraction of the cost. Three hanger slots is NOT worth what you sacrifice for this. And before you try to imply that Fighters are somehow worth using as PD, I'd strongly advise against building something as large as a Battleship designed exclusively for a purpose other than blowing things up. These things are hugely expensive, take forever to build, and eat up a lot of resources to maintain. If you still need PD for some reason at this point in the game, use Picket Destroyers.

[GloatingSwine]

Alright. I've been hearing a lot about crusiers superior to Battleships, so I've come to ask, how so? Are they really that more cost efficient that they beat out the range of the XL on a battleship?

Cruisers can still reach 90% armour and can get better shield regen. So whichever way you go they have more relevant protection than battleships. More to the point, cruisers have 1600HP whereas battleships have 2400 but cost twice as much.

Range is not so much of a thing beyond very short ranges, because at most it means one shot before everyone is shooting.

Now, cruisers are not as good in 1.8 as they were previously, because their movement pattern changed from Charge/Orbit to Orbit/Follow which means they blob up in front of enemy fleets and get shot more by XL weapons where they used to zerg around and drive out of orbit, but they're still more cost efficient.

[The_Final_Stand]

wait ... that seems pitifully low ... my cap reaches 300ships some 60 years into the game (even if I don't go above 50'ish% of my cap before I want to play with a FE) ... and unless you specificly want to cheese Unity/Tech production you don't stop expanding outwards (continuously, at a similar speed as your influence 'income' allows) before you run into borders that you can't push further back...

How many planets do you have, how advanced are their spaceports? are you vaugely beelining certain stuff in the Tech tree or are you dartboarding, with little to no consideration what's the most worthwhile path?

Ah, good, so I am bad at this game, and it's not horribly stacked against me.

Before the Contingency, 9 planets, all with maxed spaceports. 6 Habitats, and again, 3 Ringworld sections (half to quarter populated). 260ish pops in all.
Influence always (sample size = 2 games) seems to be my limiting factor, even if I go straight to Expansion tradition to cut my costs for Frontier Outposts and such. It's that, or just have blobs of influence out in the middle of space, which my mind will not put up with. And by the time I've got the influence I need, someone else has gotten there first. I'm not even using Influence for anything other than Frontier Outposts most of the time (or resettling to new colonies to quicken pop-building). And I'm not a war-monger - if I can be friends with someone, I will be.
My strategy for 4X has pretty much always been to build upwards and claim victory through technology. Except, of course, that's not an option here.

Is there a way to not "dartboard"? I pretty much go for what's cheapish, unless it's particularly rare or useful (eg, Jump Drive, bigger ships/starports, that early +influence tech)

I mean, again, this is all pretty much post-mortem. I don't think I can win this war - I'm pretty much bankrupted, my fleet capacity is lower even than it was pre-Contingency.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Ah, good, so I am bad at this game, and it's not horribly stacked against me.

Before the Contingency, 9 planets, all with maxed spaceports. 6 Habitats, and again, 3 Ringworld sections (half to quarter populated). 260ish pops in all.
Influence always (sample size = 2 games) seems to be my limiting factor, even if I go straight to Expansion tradition to cut my costs for Frontier Outposts and such. It's that, or just have blobs of influence out in the middle of space, which my mind will not put up with. And by the time I've got the influence I need, someone else has gotten there first. I'm not even using Influence for anything other than Frontier Outposts most of the time (or resettling to new colonies to quicken pop-building). And I'm not a war-monger - if I can be friends with someone, I will be.
My strategy for 4X has pretty much always been to build upwards and claim victory through technology. Except, of course, that's not an option here.

Is there a way to not "dartboard"? I pretty much go for what's cheapish, unless it's particularly rare or useful (eg, Jump Drive, bigger ships/starports, that early +influence tech)

I mean, again, this is all pretty much post-mortem. I don't think I can win this war - I'm pretty much bankrupted, my fleet capacity is lower even than it was pre-Contingency.

Unlike most 4x games, you HAVE to expand aggressively in the early game or lose to macro. Focus on minerals and energy to begin with. You were way low on population, and probably were throughout most of the game. If a planet is colonizable, consider it for colonization before bothering with an outpost, unless you're plying the starlanes and it is at a valuable choke-point. Outposts, in general, are only good for collecting resources that are normally out of reach but not close to a habitable planet, or for certain border-push strategies against the computer if there's a habitable planet just inside his border.

There should never be a point in your game in which your population is stagnant. Habitats and Ring Worlds are supposed to be for after you've got 300+ population.

There is almost literally no such thing as 'over-expansion' in this game. Any kind of Habitability bonuses you can snap up are golden (unless you are robotic and thus don't concern yourself with biological needs like 'climate'), anything that gives you more Core Worlds is solid, anything that lets you spread faster is essential. You can afford to skimp on research early-game, while focusing on energy and minerals.

Don't worry, you'll eventually get there with science, and you can't neglect it forever, but being behind on science isn't the instant 'you lose' that it is in most games, as long as you are at least in the same ballpark as your opponent. And fighting a slightly more technologically advanced opponent, as long as he doesn't have the fleet depth to back it up, is actually a really GOOD thing, because your science vessels can bootstrap you into his tech.

Get your economy in order before you 'build tall'. Your initial goals are three to five colonies and 100 minerals per month before you get hedged in by neighbors, which is when you start teching and building fleet up to cap. You will, of course, snap up any science that comes your way, and always scan those anomalies (at least ones with 20% or lower fail chance), but if given the choice between building a mining depot or a research depot, make it the mining depot every time. Develop energy and minerals on colonies before developing anything else.

[LuckGuy]

Do bombers really actually suck? Is that maybe old version information? I've had ai bomber heavy forces really do a number on my fleet battleships, and having enough pd to hold them off takes up a chunk of fleet capacity. When I've used carrier battleships they seem to work ok.

I'm still super new with only 8 games played (all lost) so no one should take my word for anything, but my inner Adama really wants some battlestars.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Do bombers really actually suck? Is that maybe old version information? I've had ai bomber heavy forces really do a number on my fleet battleships, and having enough pd to hold them off takes up a chunk of fleet capacity. When I've used carrier battleships they seem to work ok.

I'm still super new with only 8 games played (all lost) so no one should take my word for anything, but my inner Adama really wants some battlestars.

Destroyers with Flack set up as Picket/Picket will completely negate any sort of bomber threat with a trivial investment of fleet capacity. Maybe invest in 15-20 of them in a 50k fleet.

Furthermore, it's not that bombers are bad so much as the other options are so much better. Bombers ignore shielding, so if you are heavy shielding then yea, they might sting a bit. But compared to Giga Canons or even Kinetic Artillery? Not really much of a comparison. Bombers take too long to get onto target, don't do much in the way of sustained damage, and are too vulnerable to elimination.

Let your inner Yamato tell your inner Adama to go sit in a corner.

[Sian]

Unlike most 4x games, you HAVE to expand aggressively in the early game or lose to macro. Focus on minerals and energy to begin with. You were way low on population, and probably were throughout most of the game. If a planet is colonizable, consider it for colonization before bothering with an outpost, unless you're plying the starlanes and it is at a valuable choke-point.

My rule of thumb is to settle any and all planets that are above size 15'ish (unless the resources the planet have is very good), unless they are in a Star system with planets totalling ~28'ish in size ... and then I'm sorting by habitability and 'somewhat' distance, and strategic value to get my priority list

Outposts, in general, are only good for collecting resources that are normally out of reach but not close to a habitable planet, or for certain border-push strategies against the computer if there's a habitable planet just inside his border.

Outpost are only for when there is resources to be gotten that can't conveniently be taken by settling a planet (and in any case, only when you run out of other things to use your constructor fleet on), or if you need to push just a tad to access a habitable planet (or if playing on Hyperlanes only, a strategically important choke point) inside foreign territory.

[The Glyphstone]

How exactly is border range determined? Is it a distance from the inhabited planet based on that individual planet's pops, or is it an empire-wide parameter affected by your total population and extending from inhabited planets?

[factotum]

It definitely can't be based on an individual planet population, because the border range of newly-settled colonies doesn't change as it gains pop.

[Kaptin Keen]

It definitely can't be based on an individual planet population, because the border range of newly-settled colonies doesn't change as it gains pop.

... yes it does. Doesn't it? I think it does. Never checked in any actual, literal way, but I'm 100% sure borders grow as population grows. Could be incidental, obviously, but I always assumed the opposite.

[tonberrian]

There might be a time factor. I think borders extrude based on population but can only grow so much in a given month, so it takes a while to get to where they finally end up as. Wiki says that expansion is 15% per pop.

[Guancyto]

Today I learned that Awakened Empires can win Conquest victories if they subjugate the entire galaxy under their particular vassal-type.

Obv I rewound a month and rebelled (a tough war even when I controlled 80% of the galaxy and they were at max decadence), but it was surprising to see.

[GloatingSwine]

My rule of thumb is to settle any and all planets that are above size 15'ish (unless the resources the planet have is very good), unless they are in a Star system with planets totalling ~28'ish in size ... and then I'm sorting by habitability and 'somewhat' distance, and strategic value to get my priority list

There's relatively little benefit to having sub-14 planets in the same star system, because you still eat the same penalties to tradition and tech cost.

I stick to 16 and up unless the planet has a positive mineral modifier or Betharian Stone.

[Kaptin Keen]

My rule of thumb is to settle any and all planets that are above size 15'ish (unless the resources the planet have is very good), unless they are in a Star system with planets totalling ~28'ish in size ... and then I'm sorting by habitability and 'somewhat' distance, and strategic value to get my priority list

My rule of thumb is to achieve a visually pleasing shape to the blob of my empire. I will generally colonize any planet I can get my hands on, expand it to it's max in every way, build mining/research stations everywhere.

I am, in short, technically terrible at the game - however, it just feels negligent to go for less than the total sum of everything.

[Sian]

My rule of thumb is to achieve a visually pleasing shape to the blob of my empire. I will generally colonize any planet I can get my hands on, expand it to it's max in every way, build mining/research stations everywhere.

I am, in short, technically terrible at the game - however, it just feels negligent to go for less than the total sum of everything.

I'm speaking early-mid game, about priotizing where to use my first n Colony ships ... late game when you've plateaued on your access to more Traditions (or have picked everything you feel is worth it), i go after just about everything as well

[Grim Portent]

Early game is about rapidly grabbing all the best stuff you can and optimizing it for maximum output, late game is when you mop up the scraps and chuck whatever junk you want on them, though optimized set ups are still preferable I often stop caring once I've got a dozen good colonies.

I do think machine empires single biggest advantage is the ability to directly optimize their pops for maximum resource gain. As organics I usually wind up with wasted pops, like a miner modded pop running the planetary capital on a mining world because it's too annoying to arrange for an energy focused pop to do it, as machines/synths I can just choose to build a unity/energy pop right on the capital and the autocthon monument and dump the other specialists all over the rest of the planet. It might not seem like much compared to 100% habitability at first, but those little bonuses add up fast.

I think Hive Minds might be the weakest government at the moment. Machine Consciousness have the habitability and adaptability advantage over everyone else, and normal empires have more ascension paths available, can easily assimilate other species, can have slaves and y'know, everything else. Hive Minds just ignore happiness and get a growth speed buff.

[Olinser]

... yes it does. Doesn't it? I think it does. Never checked in any actual, literal way, but I'm 100% sure borders grow as population grows. Could be incidental, obviously, but I always assumed the opposite.

Border from planets is based primarily on population, yes. You can test this yourself if you resettle population from an inner world to a border world you can literally see the border decrease from one area and increase in another - this is actually a really big strategy point for very valuable systems if an enemy suddenly colonizes/frontier outposts an area that pushes their border and you lose a Strategic Resource system to immediately resettle 3-5 pops to your nearest colony to push it back (or just to claim it in the first place).

Direct quote:

Newly colonized planets begin with an initially small border, expanding slowly with time. Colony borders are further expanded by 15% for each Pop beyond 1.

Frontier outposts do continuously grow border slowly once they are built but this is MUCH slower than colonies.

[Sholos]

Question from a newbie. When do you start ignoring tiles' natural resources in favor of other buildings?

[boomwolf]

When I'm at the point I can make single-purpose planets mostly.
Especially if that planet has a strong modifier bias (or combination of thereof, a combination of modifiers can create massive biases) towards some sort of resource.

[Olinser]

Question from a newbie. When do you start ignoring tiles' natural resources in favor of other buildings?

Food in particular you can start ignoring pretty easily after the mid game once you start getting higher level farms and the +% bonus research, with Hydroponic farms on all spaceports and level 3 or 4 farms you only need a couple farms per planet - just a couple food bonus planets can feed multiple other planets.. Small +1 bonus researches also start getting less and less useful as you get further in the game.

I don't generally ever ignore power or minerals because those are always useful as your fleet increases to maintain upkeep unless there is a big penalty or bonus on the planet.

[Grim Portent]

I tend to start specializing planets at about the 3-4 mark. I get 1 energy, 1 mineral and 1 food planet going if organic, replacing the food one with energy or minerals if mechanical depending on if I have enough energy to sustain my pops by that point. From there I expand into more energy and mineral worlds and start adding science worlds.

The main things for me are having the mineral processing plant and energy grid, plus the ability to modify the planet pops to be specialists. From there it becomes more and more beneficial to specialise as times goes on.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So... machine world. It costs an ascension perk, and it needs two others to become available. It does a robot good, but not cyborgs. Which is a bit pissy if you are Assimilators. Fortunately, I have enough habitats and Sanctuary captured to have space for all of my collected intelligences. But really worth it for me? Eh...

For Determined Exterminators, it seems natural. You won't have any organic components anywhere, so it's just a flat gain.
For Assimilators, it is more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, you've probably got a LOT of robotic pop, more than cybernetic pop except in conquered territories. But an ascension perk is huge, that's like the ability to build a Dyson Sphere or something. It isn't something you should dive for early game, the 15k energy cost is prohibitive before other megastructure options end up on the table.
For the Servitors, it's kind of a trap, because you can't grow any trophies on a machine world.

I don't know if it's really worth the ascension point unless you are a Determined Exterminator. If you get mega-construction as your second ascension perk, you can get either Machine World or Ringworlds as your third ascension perk... is machine worlds really a better choice than ring-worlds at that stage in the game?

Also, for your 'base race' upon initial creation, there is ZERO reason to not take Enhanced Memory, and every reason to do so. You see, your base units are only going to be utilized to do things in the early game. After that, you have mods you make to your species to make them more effective at what they do, be it mining, energy, or research. However, all of your leaders are going to be your BASE not your modded versions. So you get the +2 leader cap, essential for any robot-style play, but then you can almost immediately make three variants, and by simply removing Enhanced Memory from each of these, you have the points necessary to get bonus minerals, bonus energy, or bonus research. In fact, the bonus minerals and energy can also get something else useful (or at least something like Bulky removed).

[Yuki Akuma]

Your Leaders will continue to be whatever your primary race is. So if you mod every single member of your species to no longer have Enhanced Memory, then your leaders will stop having it too.

So keep that in mind.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Your Leaders will continue to be whatever your primary race is. So if you mod every single member of your species to no longer have Enhanced Memory, then your leaders will stop having it too.

So keep that in mind.

You only need to recruit the odd scientist to replace ones eaten by researching bad things or getting caught in the crossfire researching enemy debris once you get going, so there's not much call to worry about that after your early game phase. You've already GOT your three guys doing your three research established and your Admiral as well before you start specializing, and you've got 2-3 scientists already out exploring as well.

That's the fun part about immortal leaders... they don't die, so they don't need to be replaced.

So sure, some guy you are using to augment research in a colony might only be able to hit level 8 instead of 10... but in all honesty is never going to hit either number before the end of the game anyway. So much less important.

[Yuki Akuma]

No, your current leaders will change if you mod every member of your original species. As will your ruler. You need to keep at least one OG guy around being useless to benefit from that strategy.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

No, your current leaders will change if you mod every member of your original species. As will your ruler. You need to keep at least one OG guy around being useless to benefit from that strategy.

I would scarcely say +2 to all leader caps is 'useless'. Put him on a Unity building, which no one else gets bonuses to anyway. Done.

[Silverraptor]

So... machine world. It costs an ascension perk, and it needs two others to become available. It does a robot good, but not cyborgs. Which is a bit pissy if you are Assimilators. Fortunately, I have enough habitats and Sanctuary captured to have space for all of my collected intelligences. But really worth it for me? Eh...

For Determined Exterminators, it seems natural. You won't have any organic components anywhere, so it's just a flat gain.
For Assimilators, it is more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, you've probably got a LOT of robotic pop, more than cybernetic pop except in conquered territories. But an ascension perk is huge, that's like the ability to build a Dyson Sphere or something. It isn't something you should dive for early game, the 15k energy cost is prohibitive before other megastructure options end up on the table.
For the Servitors, it's kind of a trap, because you can't grow any trophies on a machine world.

I don't know if it's really worth the ascension point unless you are a Determined Exterminator. If you get mega-construction as your second ascension perk, you can get either Machine World or Ringworlds as your third ascension perk... is machine worlds really a better choice than ring-worlds at that stage in the game?

Also, for your 'base race' upon initial creation, there is ZERO reason to not take Enhanced Memory, and every reason to do so. You see, your base units are only going to be utilized to do things in the early game. After that, you have mods you make to your species to make them more effective at what they do, be it mining, energy, or research. However, all of your leaders are going to be your BASE not your modded versions. So you get the +2 leader cap, essential for any robot-style play, but then you can almost immediately make three variants, and by simply removing Enhanced Memory from each of these, you have the points necessary to get bonus minerals, bonus energy, or bonus research. In fact, the bonus minerals and energy can also get something else useful (or at least something like Bulky removed).

I haven't played servitors, but couldn't you make a ring world and habitats for all your organic pops and get the bonus from having them around plus the bonus of machine worlds as your core production worlds? I'm not familiar with the organic pops rules though with that strategy. Are you able to relocate them to other planets?