Cyborgs, Xeno. Hybridization/Genetics, Terraforming and Gaia
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 12:26 pm
As numbers are the key to victory I tend to prioritize growth techs: more colonisable planets (so good with flat bonuses), more population on colonised planets (good with pop-dependant bonuses) and in the end more PPs and RPs and curves grow exponentially. Lets steamroll.
At some point of the growth tech tree, it strikes me as odd when I find hostile and poor planets with same pop cap for same size, specially when the hostile planet is right on the opposite side of the environment's wheel.
Also, the huge numbers of populations you can get with just researching, without terraforming, seems a bit out of control. In the end you end up forgetting about the whole environments plot of the species. Every planet is good for every race. Sure, you can and must prioritise the better ones, but that's for the first colony in a system (for a negligible optimisation of PP/RP production during the next few turns), but after that you just place outposts/colonies on every planet just ASAP. IMO that spoils that spicy (and strategic thinking) that the game gets from having different environments. I think Hostile planets should keep being relatively hostile, and certainly worse than Poor planets, during early and mid parts of Growth tech (i.e., until Terraforming).
Moreover, the good pop. caps you can get researching makes me think I'm losing time when I do Terraforming. In fact, I only do it because of my suspension of disbelief (I wan't my species to live more confortably), 'cause I know I'm delaying my military production and getting less outcome than just focusing on producing colonies, warships and troopers. I'd like to see terraforming as a more advantageous "building", or just remove it at all and consider that the different Growth techs are in fact forms of terraforming. But they are not, since the environment of the planet remains the same.
Nevertheless, removing Terraforming as a building would reduce some unwanted micromanagement (I saw some players complaining about current implementation of Terraforming) and make this part more in line with the "no no-brainer building micromanagement" phillosophy of FO, that I really love (more fun in less time and with less CTS).
So I got a few thoughts about all this, not nearly as a packed suggestion but a bunch possibilities:
1) Turn Terraforming tech into a more expensive one that lend every owned planet a nerfed form of the Gaia special, which will change environment (at most to good, adequate for exobots) at a speed tied to the infraestructure of the planet. Maximum speed should be similar to current minimum turns for Terraforming building, with minimum infraestructure it should be really slow. Thus, for maximum infraestructrure it would take around 10 turns, double for next down level of planetary infraestructure, etc. To follow the same phillosophy, Gaia Transformation would also be a more expensive tech that enables an automatic, slow improvement for every planet that is already good environment (it's the same kind of no-brainer building).
2) Nerf Cyborgs tech a bit, from the current "Hostile planet: (Tiny +2) (Small +4) (Medium +6) (Large +8) (Huge +10)." to just "(Tiny +1) (Small +2) (Medium +3) (Large +4) (Huge +5)", effectively halving its growth bonus. Bonus to ground troops would be the same, or even better if found to be neccessary to balance the tech.
3) Nerf Xenological Hybridization in the same line as Cyborgs: half the increase for Hostile planets from +2*SIZE to +1*SIZE (increase to Poor ones remain the same).
4) Maybe also nerf Xenological Genetics, so that Poor planet only gets the same increase as Hostile. I.e.:
From this:
- Adequate or Poor planet: (Tiny +2) (Small +4) (Medium +6) (Large +8) (Huge +10)
- Hostile planet: (Tiny +1) (Small +2) (Medium +3) (Large +4) (Huge +5)
To this:
- Adequate planet: (Tiny +2) (Small +4) (Medium +6) (Large +8) (Huge +10)
- Poor or Hostile planet: (Tiny +1) (Small +2) (Medium +3) (Large +4) (Huge +5)
At some point of the growth tech tree, it strikes me as odd when I find hostile and poor planets with same pop cap for same size, specially when the hostile planet is right on the opposite side of the environment's wheel.
Also, the huge numbers of populations you can get with just researching, without terraforming, seems a bit out of control. In the end you end up forgetting about the whole environments plot of the species. Every planet is good for every race. Sure, you can and must prioritise the better ones, but that's for the first colony in a system (for a negligible optimisation of PP/RP production during the next few turns), but after that you just place outposts/colonies on every planet just ASAP. IMO that spoils that spicy (and strategic thinking) that the game gets from having different environments. I think Hostile planets should keep being relatively hostile, and certainly worse than Poor planets, during early and mid parts of Growth tech (i.e., until Terraforming).
Moreover, the good pop. caps you can get researching makes me think I'm losing time when I do Terraforming. In fact, I only do it because of my suspension of disbelief (I wan't my species to live more confortably), 'cause I know I'm delaying my military production and getting less outcome than just focusing on producing colonies, warships and troopers. I'd like to see terraforming as a more advantageous "building", or just remove it at all and consider that the different Growth techs are in fact forms of terraforming. But they are not, since the environment of the planet remains the same.
Nevertheless, removing Terraforming as a building would reduce some unwanted micromanagement (I saw some players complaining about current implementation of Terraforming) and make this part more in line with the "no no-brainer building micromanagement" phillosophy of FO, that I really love (more fun in less time and with less CTS).
So I got a few thoughts about all this, not nearly as a packed suggestion but a bunch possibilities:
1) Turn Terraforming tech into a more expensive one that lend every owned planet a nerfed form of the Gaia special, which will change environment (at most to good, adequate for exobots) at a speed tied to the infraestructure of the planet. Maximum speed should be similar to current minimum turns for Terraforming building, with minimum infraestructure it should be really slow. Thus, for maximum infraestructrure it would take around 10 turns, double for next down level of planetary infraestructure, etc. To follow the same phillosophy, Gaia Transformation would also be a more expensive tech that enables an automatic, slow improvement for every planet that is already good environment (it's the same kind of no-brainer building).
2) Nerf Cyborgs tech a bit, from the current "Hostile planet: (Tiny +2) (Small +4) (Medium +6) (Large +8) (Huge +10)." to just "(Tiny +1) (Small +2) (Medium +3) (Large +4) (Huge +5)", effectively halving its growth bonus. Bonus to ground troops would be the same, or even better if found to be neccessary to balance the tech.
3) Nerf Xenological Hybridization in the same line as Cyborgs: half the increase for Hostile planets from +2*SIZE to +1*SIZE (increase to Poor ones remain the same).
4) Maybe also nerf Xenological Genetics, so that Poor planet only gets the same increase as Hostile. I.e.:
From this:
- Adequate or Poor planet: (Tiny +2) (Small +4) (Medium +6) (Large +8) (Huge +10)
- Hostile planet: (Tiny +1) (Small +2) (Medium +3) (Large +4) (Huge +5)
To this:
- Adequate planet: (Tiny +2) (Small +4) (Medium +6) (Large +8) (Huge +10)
- Poor or Hostile planet: (Tiny +1) (Small +2) (Medium +3) (Large +4) (Huge +5)