Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

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Oberlus
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Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#1 Post by Oberlus »

Right now there are five metabolisms in FO. Organic, Robotic and Lithic are identical to each other (each has three specials to boost population), and Self-sustaining is like any of those with the three specials for granted . Then the phototrophic has no specific specials but is affected by the star type.
Now there is the seed for a new metabolism, gaseous (or sth like that), that presumably can only live (until late game) on GGs.

I'd like to have less simetry among the three first. What could be done for this? Something that applies to all the species of each metabolism.

...

Maybe there's no point on doing that, and the only focus should be on differentiating species. For example adding more traits.

Some traits could be metabolism-specific (but not granted to every species of that metabolism, I'm talking about species traits). For example:
- Genetists (can have it only organic species): makes cheaper and faster (half cost, half time) xenological genetics.
- Adaptive genome (organic only): makes cheaper and faster xenological hybrids.
- Biomorphs (organic only): Gives bonus to spionage/diplomacy, if ever implemented.
- Asteroid dwellers (lithic only?): can inhabitate asteroid belts (like exobots).
- Ravager (robotic only?): after each combat, a percentage (10%?) of the destroyed robotic ships, both allied and enemy, can be salvaged and put into service (with pilots of the ravager species, ships piloted by the ravager species must be present in the ravaging fleet).
- Expert Breeder (organic only): has a boost on the build time of organic hulls (-25%?).
- Electronics Specialists (robotic only): the robotic hulls build by this species are 33% cheaper (only applies to the hull cost, not the rest of parts).
- Asteroid Makers (lithic only): the asteroid hulls constructed by this species has +40% hull points (only applies to the hull HPs, not the armour plate parts, so only for the biggest hulls it would be comparable to an extra extern slot with armour plate).

Can't think of anything for self-sustaining or phototropic. That bugs me. But I got some ideas for specials somehow related:
- Tranquility Extract: if planet focus set to growth, cancels all the effects of xenophobia in the planets within supply range.
- <Gas #1, #2 and #3 improbable names>: Can only happen on GGs. If focus is set to growth, it gives +1 to supply range. I would give those less probability (and stronger protection) than the organic biosoup and the such, to make it really hard to get the three of them on a single game.

Oh, and the anti-specials: specials that can be exploited (by setting the focus to growth) to disturb the populations of certain metabolisms in the vecinity (maybe with the same spread mechanics than the biowarfare building we have, because supply group doesn't make much sense here) by causing a malus on population, just the opposite of a regular metabolism special. To remove the effect, the enemies must conquer the planet and change the focus, or kill all the population and revert the planet to outpost status. There could be one type for each metabolism (including self-sustaining, phototrophic and gaseous).

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new trait

#2 Post by Ophiuchus »

I really like the idea of species traits. But I think its too early in the project for such a thing, because balancing is already difficult enough and has to be redone and redone and redone.

If we make the traits have a noticable big effect, we HAVE to care constantly about balancing.

If we make the traits having a small effect, its only for flavor. So then.. why bother?

I think before introducing so much complexity we would need either a stable game (not sure if that will ever happen) or a tool/framework which helps with balancing.

Also AI is a special concern. The traits should be designed in a way that the AI cań easily use them. So e.g. if the AI can judge the usefulness of ships based also on the actual hull cost, its not a biggie to add a trait which gives a boost to certain hull types.

So actually before introducing a new type of trait I guess there needs to be an effort.
So for the long run maybe someone of the AI team can judge what kinds of traits are easy to add.
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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new trait

#3 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote:I really like the idea of species traits. But I think its too early in the project for such a thing, because balancing is already difficult enough and has to be redone and redone and redone.
I completely agree (with this and almost all your unquoted words). I think this is something near the tail end of the road map (as well as some other things I posted)
This post is the fruit of some insomnia. When I have an idea/concern, I tend to post it here as a journal. But I trust dev's wit to ignore them and focus on what they find more important. And I'm not expecting dev's to keep a track of every suggestion in the forum (in fact, not even of every PR or issue in the github). If time goes by and something "important" (IMO) gets no attention, forgotten in the forum, I could point it out (again with no expectations or bad judgements of the results, dev team has a very solid and sound view of the game and its development, that's good) or learn to try and implement it.

I myself think that there are many other points more important than this one. For example, I really want influence, diplomacy, AI's self-learning that could put an end for good to the AI weakness, customizable species, monster-like ship designs (a whole new organic hull subline, based on monsters design), a complete overhaul of the tech tree (mostly to help differentiate strategies), a complete redesign of the weapon/shield/armour system (IMO we need paper-scissor-rock system) and some others I can recall now.
If we make the traits having a small effect, its only for flavor. So then.. why bother?
I slightly disagree with this. For example, differentiating between organic, lithic and robotic has small effect in the game, but it brings a lot of flavour.

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new trait

#4 Post by wheals »

Just want to point out that robotic isn't quite identical to the other two; it lets you use Robotic Interface Shields, unlike Organic and Lithic. The natural extension of that concept to me would be to tie in Organic species to the Solar Concentrator, and do something similar with Lithic and the asteroids hull line.
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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new trait

#5 Post by dbenage-cx »

We would need either a bunch of new species to utilize such traits (not all need extra traits) or some kind of random species name and trait selection during setup/universe generation (sub-species?).
I would hope most traits would aim to balance themselves out as well, with sparse use of traits that augment a species for over/under weighted attributes.

My main concern with a new metabolism is disturbing a potential to balance between metabolisms (easier to do so with a prime number).
If we want to keep that potential and add this one, might consider removing Self-Sustaining and reassign Trith, Acirema, Kobuntra, Nymnmn, and Experimentors.
This new metabolism could take on a definition of planet size determining environment.
If environments can be reworked to accept different conditions other than planet type (star type, planet size), we might do away with a lot of the special casing needed for those two metabolisms.

Ship parts/hulls (and if/how they relate to metabolisms) can be worked on in meantime, but need a rough plan along with other mechanic additions (influence/diplomacy) before any meaningful shift of tech tree can be done.
Traits which have some effect on tech tree should be added before rework, whoever does the work on tech tree can then account for those traits.
Adding a bunch afterwards means another balance pass for new variables, which I'd gamble would not be done with as much attention.

Expanding on wheals comment, Phototrophic->Energy, leaving a new line needed for Self-Sustaining and/or Sly's metabolism.

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new trait

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'd avoid adding another metabolism type. Any more and they will be too indistinct, and would require too much extra content to use them (eg. species and metabolism-specific specials).

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#7 Post by labgnome »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:53 amCan't think of anything for self-sustaining or phototropic. That bugs me.
-Energy Harmonics (phototropic only): boost to fuel for energy hulls, +2?
-Solarium Engineers (phototropic only): reduction in cost and time for stellar tomography
-Energy Bodies (self-sustaining only): reduction in cost and time for pure energy metabolism
-Extra-dimensional (self-sustaining only): boost to speed on all ships
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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#8 Post by LienRag »

For flavor and immersion, having traits tied to metabolism is a good thing, I reckon.
But it limits the number of combinations, so let's take care of not overdoing it...

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#9 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:53 am
Some traits could be metabolism-specific (but not granted to every species of that metabolism, I'm talking about species traits). For example:
- Genetists (can have it only organic species): makes cheaper and faster (half cost, half time) xenological genetics.
- Adaptive genome (organic only): makes cheaper and faster xenological hybrids.
Wouldn't it be more interesting for them to have better boni from Xenological Genetics and Hybridation ?

Anyway your proposal is quite easy to test, do you want me to alter the FOCS file for Xeno techs accordingly ?
What would be the species bearing these traits, and to which level ?

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#10 Post by LienRag »

I really like the Asteroid Dwellers.
If we can make Asteroid Belts harder to colonize (not colonizable by Colony ship, three times longer to finish a Colony building on them than on other planets) then it'll give a specific flavor.
Asteroids colonies of Asteroid Dwellers could also have a stealth bonus (an inhabited rock can hide behind a non-inhabited rock).

Another lithic-specific trait would give a stealth bonus on Barren or Radiated planets, another on Infernos and Radiated.

An Organic-specific trait could help symbiosis with the Organic Hull line, getting better stealth for these ships. A similar Trait could give better speed, another one better fuel.

An Organic-specific trait could allow to live in harmony with the planet, getting a focused Influence bonus on Terrans, Swamps and Oceans (or separate that in two traits).
Another could give ability to talk to Gaïa, giving a Research bonus on a Gaïa planet.

"Water-borne hormones" (again, Organic-specific) could give +3 stability bonus on Ocean planets.

"Spacefarers" for Self-Sustaining could allow to sprout natural and derivating at random Colonies (the player would only have the choice to settle the new system they go into, or to leave them derivating to a further system).

Ability to refuel on bright stars could be a Trait (so not limited to Laenfas) for Phototropic, and with different levels.

For Robotic, maybe a specific focus (available to those who have the trait) like "swarming" ? It would produce a little production, a little research and a little Influence...

Or "combining" ? Allowing to launch warships (combined robots of the Specie) at the cost of Population, not Production ?

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#11 Post by LienRag »

There's been discussions on how the metabolisms (lithic, robotic, organic) and the ship hull lines (asteroid, robotic, organic) have a fluff that calls for interactions between them.
The problem so far has been to find a way to make these interactions between metabolisms and hull lines work in an interesting way, without driving the player's strategy. So far nothing good has been proposed.

What about Policies that would work with a specific metabolism ?

Like a military policy "Hull integration" that would allow Lithic metabolisms to be integrated in the hull itself of Asteroid Ships, giving them +10 Stealth, +1 Shield, +1 Fuel, +10 Speed (since the ship doesn't need to accommodate living space inside it for the crew) and -50% upkeep (also half the IP cost with the Engineer policy) ?
I guess that it could be unlocked by Augmentation ?

Another one being "Crew-Hull Symbiosis" making Organic Hulls get +20 Speed +20 Steatlh +20 Detection as the ship is able to react more instantly to his crew's intentions and to communicate better with it ? Unlocked by MegaFauna Endocrine system ?

Robotics already have RIS so I'm not certain they need their own Policy, but if someone can come with a good idea, why not either.


It's also possible to have Social Policies that work only for a specific metabolisms :

"Beowulf cluster" makes all Robotic Species interconnect, giving them a focused Research bonus of 0,005 per Pop on robotic planets of the same Empire¹ within a 3-jumps distance, and a focused Influence flat bonus of +1 per robotic planet of the same Empire¹ in the same system or neighboring ones ?

I'll let others find ideas for Lithic, Phototropic, Self-Sustaining (having a good one could help the Trith, but it would need to not be a no-brainer) and Organic.

And for Economic Policies :

"Slow crystallization" : Lithic species get half Growth rate but +1 unfocused Influence per planet.

Ditto, I'll let others find ideas for other metabolisms.

¹ Or maybe also from allied Empires having adopted the same Policy

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Re: Differentiating metabolisms (or species?) with new traits

#12 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Oct 16, 2022 10:43 am Like a military policy "Hull integration" that would allow Lithic metabolisms to be integrated in the hull itself of Asteroid Ships, giving them +10 Stealth, +1 Shield, +1 Fuel, +10 Speed (since the ship doesn't need to accommodate living space inside it for the crew) and -50% upkeep (also half the IP cost with the Engineer policy) ?
This reminds me of a LotR role-playing campaing in which one of the players magically got an Orcslayer sling during character creation of his hobbit. The game master counterattacked with a patrol of trolls armed with hobbitslayer fishing rods.

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