AI now receives a bonus to tech produced when they hit the upper tech tiers, rather than to research speed. This way, vassals who are paying a science tax will pay an increased science tax. Tax evasion loopholes on technology have been closed.

Set component weights to 0 too, which I hope won't make the Knids think they need to redesign their own ships, in spite of changing the designs being set to "no".

Attempted to throw even MORE roadblocks at an Awakened Ascendancy when it comes to building Knid ships and using Knid tecnology. They seem to want to use those ships instead of their own fleets in spite of them having no default design, and having designs set to not be possible. The AI weights are now set to zero, any kind of Knid ship is listed as "always no". It should just not be possible. I'm not sure how many more "off" switches I can flip with these guys.

The Ascendancies get ALL techs all the time. It's tough to deal with when it comes to adding things they aren't supposed to have!

DDM shields now upgrade to hardened DDM shields, and both forms of hardened defenses upgrade to Specter Armor.

Starbases should no longer be able to equip armors that make them move faster or become more evasive.

Nations with the Idyllic Bloom civic can now upgrade to advanced Gaia worlds when they have the tech.

Changed corporate building advantages to affect production via jobs, rather than net empire resource production. I noticed that AI Megacorps seemed to be pulling a startling amount ahead if they had vassalized several nations, and I realized they were probably getting a percentile bonus to the vassal subsidies they were receiving.

Decreased upkeep costs on DDM Catalytic Technicians so that they use the appropriate amount of food. Added some traits to Cyborg ascension and Bio ascension to offer a bit more to both ascensions. Bio can now make livestock work without suffering a cavalcade of drawbacks - it's still less efficient than farmer jobs can ultimately be, but it doesn't require districts. I think it opens up a few dystopian or outright evil empire options, such as playing a Necrophage that turns their prepatent species into livestock while creating new Necrophage pops via abduction and purging.

With the Cyborg ascension, I had wanted to follow the rules and have the new traits suffer an energy upkeep, but I think that may be a living standards thing which means I can't touch it without altering vanilla files. It adds redundant traits, so you can double up on some of the options already offered by Cybernetics, but the redundant traits impact happiness and lifespan. There's also a tech for an additional trait point and trait pick, since as it is Cybernetics seems like the weakest ascension to me. I may come back to this and work on it more - I imagine doing more traits that continue to be redundant, but which lower happiness and lifespan even further so the lives of your cybernetic pops get worse and worse the more efficient you make them. A lot of sci fi dealing with cybernetic enhancements gets into the inequity of transhumanism so ideally I'd want to to be something where select species with access to ruler and specialist jobs would be a whole lot better off than species that are relegated to chattel.

I also expanded the nano technology stuff a little further. Worlds can be upgraded again. Currently they produce a huge excess of resources but at some point I'll add more tech and weaponry to spend those resources on.

Adjusted the dark matter upkeep of arcology districts down quite a lot. I think I forgot to alter those costs way back when I changed them over from being free resources to districts that required workers, and I just never noticed because I often only build a few ecumenopoli in a game. It wasn't until I did a playthrough where I decided to convert ALL the planets into ecumenopoli that I noticed they were bankrupting me.

Corrected Criminal Heritage code so that they will still give up their criminal ways when being vassalized even if their ethics prevented them from being oligarchic. I did this by forcing them to become xenophile pacifists after they are conquered. That swift slap in the face really calms them down, you see.

Reduced Consumer Good upkeep of Institutionalists by 1 and increased their Trade Value production +2. That leaves them still more expensive than the average scientist per unit of science, but a little like having half a Merchant job thrown in, minus the amenities. Considering they occupy a minimum of four worker jobs which otherwise produce nothing just to reach baseline competency, that's probably fair.

Added a 5% bonus to leadership experience to "Advanced Tutelage", mainly because in a lot of games I would do a good enough job keeping my leaders alive that when the tech popped up, I kept avoiding it since my scientists weren't in need of replacement.

Also added resource production bonuses to the "help computer" stuff triggered by far advanced DDM technology, so the AI is given the impression of an improved economy even though they won't naturally start converting everything to the advanced planets and buildings.