Honestly, I have always found the spiritualist/materialist division odd in Stellaris, why do my spiritualists oppose "souless machines" so much? Why can't they worship a machine god or something. And why do materialists seem so intent on willful ignorance of an entire field of study, after all, sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Yea...it would be nice lol

Thanks for letting me know. I've been without a computer capable of playing the game for some time, so I'm unable to look into it, but I'll try fixing it when I get my computer back. Probably gonna take a while though -.-

Does not work as of 2.1

@CactusFantastico

I like this theory, however it's possible for pops from a materialistic empire to migrate to a psionic empire, and then develop their own psi powers.

It's also not locked to ethics or time, it has a chance to happen as long as the pop is organic, not rebelling and lives in a psionically ascended empire, so even a materialist pop that migrated here 1 year ago can experience awakening, so it's not just the second generation of immigrants or the opening of the mind to the possibility (adopting spiritualism)

That's good. I haven't played Stellaris in a while, been waiting for this expansion, so as soon as stuff starts updating (and i can afford the DLC) i'll look into seeing if anything needs tweaking

Yep, worked for me in 2.0.

Anyone tested with 2.0?

I liked to think of it more that their minds were closed to psionics and therefore could never harness it, unless their populations divulged in ethics. I also find it annoying that materialists cannot ban AI.. any rational person can see AI could be a threat. Do you think you could implement that?

I'm assuming it'll be working in the new patch?

Thank you, was just looking for something like it. Now if you could just make a similar perk for enabling bots as spiritualists...

Yes, you can use The Flesh is Weak and still have psionics. In my personal game i've modded it so like, you can take all three of the base ascension perks at once, since like, you only really can't because of balance reasons, but synthetic evolution is a definite like, stopping point.

You said I must not have the Synthetic Ascension perk to become Pragmatic Materialist. So can i have Psi Cyborgs if i have the Flesh is weak as well?

Yes, it should be fine to use with any future version of the game

Can I use this in 1.6.1 without any problems?

I see that. I"m not sure if that nulls it out or if the following research expertise modifiers override that. Either way, its basically rare or impossible to get psionics if your not spiritualist, which is kinda silly, so this gives another option.

Try looking at the very first weight_modifier. There's a factor of 0 if you don't have either Spiritualist or Fanatic Spiritualist.

I just pulled up the main base game tech file, and they do allow you to research psionic tech as a materialist when you have a researcher with the expertise for it. but it's still a random chance and the base chance is already super low if your not spiritualist, so I just prefer a more direct approach.

That last part wouldn't even work. It used to back before 1.5 when psionics was available for all non-Spiritualists. After 1.5, however the requirements for Psionic Theory is now "Must fulfill both conditions: 1) Either be non-Materialist or have researcher with Psionics Expertise AND 2) Be Spiritualist"

So if you want to use the Psionics toys with the Materialist ethos, then making this mod was a good idea, as it's impossible otherwise.

Well yeah, that is kinda true, what with the Shroud and everything, but at the same time, it's not too much of a logical jump to just say "if it exists, its part of the universe, the shroud exists, therefore its a part of the universe" or something like that. While the transcendence perks with psionics tend to be more spiritualistic, there are many applications of psionics in game that are fundamentally practical, like the psi-warriors, precognitive interfaces, psi jump drive etc. Even the materialist fallen empires have these technologies, which from a roleplay type perspective would imply they embraced this ideology as well.

Really I just got tired of not being to use all the cool psionic toys from base stellaris and other parts mods when playing materialists, so this is, in my opinion, a somewhat balanced take on the issue as an alternative to desparately trying to get a researcher with psionics expertise.

Isn't the entire idea that Psionics in Stellaris *isn't* natural functions of the material universe? And that in order to understand them, you have to both realise and accept that there is more than just the material universe? And that even if you can observe that the neighbouring empire is telepathic, you can't discover how they are telepathic simply by investigating the material world?

Still, mods are there for customising your game, so if you want psionics for Materialists don't let me stop you.

Interesting idea, thx!