Trith OP

[Oberlus]

Playing v0.4.8 RC1 merged with PR #2168

Trith population figures are broken (OP).
Right at start homeworld is 32 base (plus -6.25 from two native planets 3 hops away), good medium colonies get 17 easy (with xenophobic malus) and poor are habitable right away (roughly pop=HabSize). It's insane.
Is it because of the "new" priorities or xenophobic malus is broken?

[Dilvish]

Playing v0.4.8 RC1 merged with PR #2168 ... Trith population figures are broken (OP).
Is it because of the "new" priorities or xenophobic malus is broken?

They had/have that same starting pop in 0.4.7.1 (I just double-checked)
Volker has proposed some adjustment to make xenophobic a more significant malus, but we won't be tweaking those things for 0.4.8

[Oberlus]

Fair enough.
I never realised Trith were this OP

[Jaumito]

Is it because of the "new" priorities or xenophobic malus is broken?

More likely, it's because self-sustenance bonus is broken. Always has been.

[Oberlus]

You're right.

Two possibilties came to my mind regarding self-sustaining metabolism:
- Nerf its bonus: 2*HabSize instead of 3*.
- Apply the same -50% malus that the Sly has.

Other option, more complicated and work-demanding, to revamp the environment system to make the certain bonuses (like self-sustainance) only apply once certain condition is met (probably certain tech unlocked).

[Jaumito]

The problem with self-sustenance is not that the growth bonus is too big (since SS species don't get the growth focus, other metabolisms can actually outgrow them given time and space, if they manage to find all their growth specials) - it's that they get this bonus right from the start. So I don't think just nerfing the bonus is the way to go. Either

revamp[ing] the environment system to make the certain bonuses (like self-sustainance) only apply once certain condition is met (probably certain tech unlocked).

or maybe halving their pop growth rate would be better solutions.

Or just make sure every SS species gets crippled in other departments at the design stage. Metabolisms don't really have to be balanced, as long as the playable species are.

[Oberlus]

Someone (maybe Gault-Drakkor, or you... can't remember) proposed greatly reducing the pop growth tech as a way to eliminate any unbalance from the game.
I liked that suggestion but not getting it too far, because I think some species+strategies should be able to outperform other species+strategies, while this nerf-pop-growth suggestion was able to equalise the performance of every species regardless of the strategy and if it was AI or human. effectively stripping your choices of any significance (and that would make the game rather boring for me, I want to be able to do the things right or wrong depending on my choices).

But lets consider it.
Self-sustaining is OP for two reasons: has a great production&research at its homeworld right from start, and can colonize poor planets very early (although has no adequate planets). Both aspects together allow Trith to get early advantage on production&research unless they are really unlucky at start, and thus soon they can get enough growth techs to colonise hostile planets early game.
So, one thing that would eliminate the second point (fast colonisation of poor/hostile planets) is to make the self-sustaining bonus apply only if the TargetPopulation meter is already positive. If this would restrain their expansion long enough it could be the only change necessary.
To eliminate the initial boost on good planets Trith get from self-sustaining, nerfing the growth rates could work just fine. But how would be this implemented? Because the problem at start is that there is no growth pending, homeworlds are at max pop from start. So would homeworlds begin at 1 population? Maybe make the starting population of homeworlds and colonies equal to 1+homeworld bonus? So every species would start with size 9 (some 7) and begin growing to reach its max. value (for most species that would be the environment bonus, for Trith it also would include the self-sustaining bonus), and new colonies would be as always, starting pop 1.

[Ophiuchus]

One could restrict growths bonus by research. If you dont have enough tech, you get a negative 'Insufficient growth boost research' effect showing the difference between the growth boosts from the growth specials including the growth focus and the effective growth bonus.

Empire would start e.g. at 2 growth bonus max and there would be two techs which give a +3 each. So every species could use growth focus from the start. And trith would need to spend research to get its full selfsustenance bonus.

[Magnate]

One could restrict growths bonus by research. If you dont have enough tech, you get a negative 'Insufficient growth boost research' effect showing the difference between the growth boosts from the growth specials including the growth focus and the effective growth bonus.

Empire would start e.g. at 2 growth bonus max and there would be two techs which give a +3 each. So every species could use growth focus from the start. And trith would need to spend research to get its full selfsustenance bonus.

This is interesting and more gradual ... but Oberlus's "make the self-sustaining bonus apply only if the TargetPopulation meter is already positive" is simpler and easier to understand - if we're ok with the cliff-edge it creates.

[Ophiuchus]

One could restrict growths bonus by research. If you dont have enough tech, you get a negative 'Insufficient growth boost research' effect showing the difference between the growth boosts from the growth specials including the growth focus and the effective growth bonus.

Empire would start e.g. at 2 growth bonus max and there would be two techs which give a +3 each. So every species could use growth focus from the start. And trith would need to spend research to get its full selfsustenance bonus.

This is interesting and more gradual ... but Oberlus's "make the self-sustaining bonus apply only if the TargetPopulation meter is already positive" is simpler and easier to understand - if we're ok with the cliff-edge it creates.

ATM there is no target population effect considering the current target value in effect processing. But i think the infrastructure for implementation is there so should not be a big effort. Implementation effort for AI would be similar in both cases.

Before doing the AI work i suggest checking if the nerf is not too nerfy