Xenophobic trait issues

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BlueAward
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#61 Post by BlueAward »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:13 pm
BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:04 pm Is xenophobic frenzy supposed to work per planet in vicinity or per different species in vicinity? I suppose it works per planet, but it does not seem to be explained, like what vicinity, is it hops or uu (universe units?)
Copied from Pedia page for Xenophobic with the PR merged:
I meant the max population part (for Trith), not stability
Oberlus wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:13 pm
BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:04 pm I played with Trith a bit and my main beef now are ancient guardians affecting my population (stability too).
That haven't changed in a long time.
Hasn't there been some relatively recent change that increased amount of stuff guarded by guardians? I got like three in my vicinity and it was bit much for max population hit

I never played Trith before, avoided like a plague and even eradicated from my empire if I conquered some, so cannot compare to what it was before
perhaps ancient guardians should be ignored like I think exobots are
Open to debate. I haven't seen them as a problem when I played Trith. I just invade them and they disapear.
Eventually nothing is a problem, particularly in single player, regardless of species you play. Early game, not so much. I could readily deal with a few native species but ancient guardians... sigh. That is a lot of production that could be better used elsewhere, generally quite a waste to me to deal with ancient guardians before you have production or research to spare... but for Trith felt forced to deal with them sooner than I wanted, disadvantage particularly in multiplayer I imagine
Or I would get slightly less salty too if xenophobes or at least trith got cheecent caper bombardment tech(s)
That sounds OK. In Racial Purity better? I think it makes little sense to get cheaper bombardment when you capture a xenophobic species.
Well could only be reduced if xenophobe / Trith are your main species, no? There are variety of unlocks I think only happen for main species, at game start, as compared to something like sneaky or telepathic that happens also if you acquire given species later

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Oberlus
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#62 Post by Oberlus »

The population malus for Trith (and for any other xenophobic selfsustaining species, but the are no more) was introduced to help nerf their huge population bonus from self-sustaining.
I'm all in to change that for something else (or even to remove it if Trith are no longer a nice species to have).
But have you tried Racial Purity and Conc. Camps with Trith?

The equation for the pop malus from "nearby" species isn't easy. It's in the xenophobic macros file withing the species folder.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#63 Post by wobbly »

BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:08 pm Hasn't there been some relatively recent change that increased amount of stuff guarded by guardians? I got like three in my vicinity and it was bit much for max population hit
Its an inadvertent effect of not boxing players in with monster spawns. For a basic growth or export special the odds are:

30 % unguarded / 42 % guard ship / 20 % Ancient guardians / 8 % Cloud Cover

However if it can't spawn a guard ship it's currently:

30 % unguarded / 49 % Ancient guardians / 21 % Cloud Cover

Edit: I guess the simplist change I could make is to change the split between ancient guards and cloud cover to 50/50. That'd change approx 1/3 of them into clouds.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#64 Post by BlueAward »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 10:45 pm The population malus for Trith (and for any other xenophobic selfsustaining species, but the are no more) was introduced to help nerf their huge population bonus from self-sustaining.
I'm all in to change that for something else (or even to remove it if Trith are no longer a nice species to have).
But have you tried Racial Purity and Conc. Camps with Trith?

The equation for the pop malus from "nearby" species isn't easy. It's in the xenophobic macros file withing the species folder.
Another nerf for the selfsustaining start of Trith is getting medium planet, which nerfs all the subsequent population extending bonuses too, like even the early subterranean habitation, compared to species that start with large planets, and that compounds my grief from the ancient guardians

I am going the route of purging other species with camps, it seems the only way for Trith. Haven't crunched the numbers, it feels like it barely gives back of what I spent on troop ships (or not at all, depending on how defensive the natives are), but on the flip side I get an usable outpost which I should factor into P&L calculations as a big positive, and also my Trith planets reclaim self sustaining population bonus, so as designed. But it doesn't feel like I can do anything else than camps, with the stability malus and all. At best try to exploit necessity and unchanged research focus for research species, maybe. Guess this does not bode well for Eexaw either because they don't have the selfsustaining going for them, and while they are good for ships you really need only one planet for that (even if that paints a target on that planet)

It also seems to me that racial purity does not cancel xenophobic frenzy on population hit. If I purge the natives then I am reclaiming my population bonus a little, but don't tink that happens for racial purity and keeping the species, but it may as well be by design, especially if you take into account the fluff... So there exists some confusion between xenophoic frenzy of Trith on population malus and on stability malus (maybe it should be called differently for the pop hit)

Overall I can make it work, but experience with other species is much better to boot. There is some nice potential with self sustaining metabolism, but in early game it feels like it is nerfed too much (depends on luck of the draw though, how many radiated planets are in the area and how many ancient guardians are in the area - may actually be quite nice with lucky start.. which can always be said I suppose), and late game other empires will not be that far off or even might be better off, especially if they freely take advantage of better flexibility with good enrvironments without need to terraform (and let's not forget self-sustaining works only on good environment, another nerf to that trait) or of any other assorted stuff like bright stars, growth specials (that AFAIR don't require good environment), and even plain old research into max pop extending techs that lowers the difference that selfsustaining gives, too.

EDIT: I realize I am not covering planetary stealth bonus but it is a nice bonus, just not something I pay much attention to, though something definitely on the plus side for Trith, but Laenfa seems better to take advantage of that angle (can't comment on Sly, no real experience there).. But maybe Trith look better than Etty for that angle indeed

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#65 Post by BlueAward »

wobbly wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 10:57 pm
BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:08 pm Hasn't there been some relatively recent change that increased amount of stuff guarded by guardians? I got like three in my vicinity and it was bit much for max population hit
Its an inadvertent effect of not boxing players in with monster spawns. For a basic growth or export special the odds are:

30 % unguarded / 42 % guard ship / 20 % Ancient guardians / 8 % Cloud Cover

However if it can't spawn a guard ship it's currently:

30 % unguarded / 49 % Ancient guardians / 21 % Cloud Cover

Edit: I guess the simplist change I could make is to change the split between ancient guards and cloud cover to 50/50. That'd change approx 1/3 of them into clouds.
Perhaps I just had an unlucky start in some star corridor where I would be easily boxed with monsters, so instead I'm surrounded by ancient guardians... Dunno, I am only salty about them giving me a hit to max pop on my Trith capital early on, and no easy way to deal with it, again, early on. And that hits right into what I think is the main thing going on for Trith. I guess that angle wasn't considered before. I'd be completely happy if they simply did not count for frenzy just like exobots, and cheaper bombardment could also help with that, to a lesser extent perhaps, but then maybe cheaper bombardment plays nicely into xenophibic tendencies? Best would be both of course... Removing malus completely would be even nicer for Trith but may be too deep of un-nerf.


Side note - in 4.9, 4.10, I would routinely use conc. camps in single player - they were really good for blitzing through enemy empires once you're at that stage. No need to wait for happiness to grow, and then industry meter itself, for the planet to be usable, you can just feed war machine right away with production, or planting better suited species, terraforming or whatever you fancy with the production, and once the planet was done it would be ready for presumably better species (not necessarily my main empire species, mind you). Now, with stability changes and racial purity policy, that playstyle of mine is a harder proposition, though may be still viable if you go monospecies, and since Trith is already bound to have racial purity, I may welcome bits of that playstyle back. But I am not yet at that stage in my playthrough really, hence complaining mostly about early game, and still would not be convinced it is something that you could roll with so easily in multiplayer. Multiplayer somehow doesn't strike me as something where enemy would let you just waltz into their territory like AI is powerless to avoid

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#66 Post by wobbly »

BlueAward wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 12:28 am Perhaps I just had an unlucky start in some star corridor where I would be easily boxed with monsters, so instead I'm surrounded by ancient guardians... Dunno, I am only salty about them giving me a hit to max pop on my Trith capital early on, and no easy way to deal with it, again, early on. And that hits right into what I think is the main thing going on for Trith. I guess that angle wasn't considered before. I'd be completely happy if they simply did not count for frenzy just like exobots, and cheaper bombardment could also help with that, to a lesser extent perhaps, but then maybe cheaper bombardment plays nicely into xenophibic tendencies? Best would be both of course... Removing malus completely would be even nicer for Trith but may be too deep of un-nerf.
Reducing the number of ancient guardians is probably good in itself, there's certainly too many for my taste.

Regarding cheaper bombardment, I actually think it fits well with Trith, I suggested it over here:

https://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtop ... 15&t=12459

Then completely forgot about it and did nothing. Note, the bombardment UI is most likely still buggy, it was last time I used it.

Regarding the topic in general I just started a Trith test run and I get a weird fluctuation on the stability of my capital: 19.5, 20, 19.5, 20, 19.5, 20 with an unknown -0.5 popping up then vanishing.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#67 Post by wobbly »

BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:26 pm Another nerf for the selfsustaining start of Trith is getting medium planet, which nerfs all the subsequent population extending bonuses too, like even the early subterranean habitation, compared to species that start with large planets, and that compounds my grief from the ancient guardians
I also notice "xenophobic frenzy" nerfs the pop tech bonuses, at least when below max. nerf:

Code: Select all

            priority = [[TARGET_POPULATION_LAST_BEFORE_OVERRIDE_PRIORITY]]
            effects = SetTargetPopulation value = Value - min(
                    max(Value, 0) * 0.4 * (1 - 0.8^[[XENOPHOBIC_SELFSUSTAINING_QUALIFYING_PLANET_COUNT]]),
                    3 * Target.HabitableSize  // Cap malus at the self-sustaining bonus
                )
Trith.png
Trith.png (59.35 KiB) Viewed 1347 times
This was taken turn 8 by the way, and adjusted for frenzy, aprrox values are:

Good Environment: + 7.2
Homeworld: + 4.8
Self-Sustaining: + 7.2
Planet Ecology: + 0.8
Sub Hab: + 2.4

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Oberlus
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#68 Post by Oberlus »

BlueAward wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:26 pm racial purity does not cancel xenophobic frenzy on population hit
Yes. Racial Purity affects stability only.
"New" xenophobic frenzy/harassment affects only stability (there was before a hit on PP and RP).

The population malus for xeno-self-sustaining is capped at -3*planet_size. So for Trith, if you don't kill other species nearby, you end up with a non-self-sustaining species. That is not that bad, even if you count the starting medium planet, but won't play well if the galaxy is brimming of non-Trith species around them.

Check out the equation for Conc. Camp PP output: It's negligible when done in planets with tiny populations and huge when you can do it in very big populations.

Self-sustaining bonus outside of good environment could be brought back, I guess. But it was taken because Trith were OP.

Late game, Terraforming (plus Terraforming policy) sounds great for Trith/Eaxaw going single species empire.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#69 Post by BlueAward »

Bottom line is I am not complaining about Trith in general. Self sustaining is great, and I had great experience with camps (however that sounds) in single player before influence/stability/policies changes. Telepathic is less relevant if you can't take advantage od interdesign academies, but I take whatever bonus I can.. better stealth included

I would rate Trith higher than Abbadoni for example, and higher than Eexaw, at least in single player. In multiplayer I think having some better piloting species is more relevant, Eexaw at least have that (and nothing else so I would rather hand over government to some other species). Trith would still be in the bottom part of my tier list, but I am not having bad time with them

I am complaining about the starting conditions though, and identified ancient guardians' hit as most immediately concerning

I would be game to play as Trith in multiplayer with no diplomacy, at least if the start was somehow improved

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#70 Post by wobbly »

BlueAward wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 8:59 am I am complaining about the starting conditions though, and identified ancient guardians' hit as most immediately concerning
Can you do me a favour? Test with this copy of monster_guard.macros and see if it's any better?

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/4289/files

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#71 Post by Ophiuchus »

I'd say make all (or most) kinds of ancient guardians non-interacting with xenophobic stuff.

So for Trith they need to be either half-sentient or having telepathic shields.

Anyway some ideas for types of ancient guardians:
half-sentient degenerate, half/non-sentient experimental creation going wrong/killing the creator, half/non-sentient weapon system, having natural or artificial telepathic shields

also not sure if planetbound non-colonizing species should count for normal xenophobes. depends on the xenophobic species i guess.

Of course we could also go the other way round: ensure a certain amount of "challenges" around Trith to wipe out - in order to balance self-sustaining bonus over time.

NB: beige goo should not trouble Trith - they are mindless AFAICR

P.S. we should also add an alternative to wiping out other for xenophobes; e.g. a prison-shield around planets which safely stores the others away. These prison/isolation shields could also exist as a relict or be yet another kind of ancient guardian.
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#72 Post by Oberlus »

Maybe create a new tag for non-sentient species: the ancient guardians if we like (or some types of ancient guardians if someone develops more than one), exobots, beige goo and anything else we like.
Then exclude species with that tag from the Trith pop malus.

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#73 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 11:16 am Maybe create a new tag for non-sentient species: the ancient guardians if we like (or some types of ancient guardians if someone develops more than one), exobots, beige goo and anything else we like.
Then exclude species with that tag from the Trith pop malus.
Biege goo are "insane", "intensely private", "protective of their secrets". Pretty sure they are sentient.

I agree with the exception for ancient guardians. I also think they should be exceptions to vassalization (along with exobots).

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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#74 Post by Ophiuchus »

we could add grey goo (military nanites) as ancient guardians or even paperclip producing goo (having transformed most of the planet into paperclips)
wobbly wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 11:25 am I agree with the exception for ancient guardians. I also think they should be exceptions to vassalization (along with exobots).
+1

Edited by Oberlus to correct authorship of quote.
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Re: Xenophobic trait issues

#75 Post by BlueAward »

Sorry I have not run a new game with Trith yet to check lowered ancient guardians, but modded xenophobic.macros

Code: Select all

XENOPHOBIC_SELFSUSTAINING_QUALIFYING_PLANET_COUNT
'''Statistic Count condition = And [
                    Planet
                    Species
                    Not Or [
                        Species name = Source.Species
                        Species name = "SP_EXOBOT"
                        Species name = "SP_ANCIENT_GUARDIANS"
                    ]
                    WithinStarlaneJumps jumps = 5 condition = Source
                    WithinStarlaneJumps jumps = 2 condition = ExploredByEmpire empire = Source.Owner
                ]
And that certainly helped. However I suppose I do not understand the jumps condition, particularly the second condition. It counts planets within 5 jumps from my planet, but also within 2 jumps if I explored them? Is not the second condition redundant? I guess I do not understand it

If you just count all planets within 5 jumps, then scratch my readiness to play Trith in multiplayer, I guess. Not really envisioning clearing out planets within 5 jumps on multiple fronts, so I guess I'm not getting much out of selfsustaining metabolism, so what else is there? If I want camps, I could go monospecies with any species, not Trith in particular. So I guess I'm in favor of reducing the range on the malus. Kind of depends on how many systems there are to expand to, but even with 46 systems per empire my intuition is 5 jumps is too much to build a solid core of nonaffected planets (also depends if you are positioned in a corner or elsewhere)

(I may be overreacting here, 46 systems per player may as well be enough to build a solid core... do not really know, just it feels too much having 5 jumps... and for really long games I would entertain idea of moving planets around with planetary drive but don't think that's really a viable proposition in multiplayer)

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