Stellaris Dev Diary #218 - Plantoids Gameplay

[guiskj]

The changes look neat! A few thoughts:

1. Phototropic seems like it could have some potential, but it feels a bit lackluster. Energy is more useful than Food, by and large, so shifting more of your economy to require energy isn't a benefit unless the RNG gods really messed you over on Food production. This trait really requires some kind of combo to shine, but one that is fundamental to the entire economic structure, like the Void Dweller origin's difficulties with getting food. Other than that, the benefits would be subtle at best, like HM's developing more Generator worlds than Farm worlds, or helping build an economy more geared towards Synth Ascension.
   
   Ultimately, I think this trait just needs a slight boost to really be noteworthy - photosynthesis has to be easier to gain nourishment from than growing food, since pops can just stand in the sun, so a small reduction to the energy upkeep cost would really be all it needs. Instead of replacing 50% base Food upkeep with Energy upkeep, it should replace it with, say a 40%-30% Energy upkeep, for a total reduction of 5%-10% upkeep.
   
   
2. Radiotrophic is a much better trait IMHO. It leads to a notable play style of nabbing Tomb Worlds, pairs wonderfully with the Post Apocalyptic origin, and still has all the benefits of Phototropic. Even if you don't want to destroy the galaxy, it might be worth it to get Become the Crisis so you unlock Armageddon Bombardment Stance and turn uninhabited planets into Tomb Worlds!
   
   Also, Embrace the Worm. That is all.
   
   
3. Budding! Expensive, but good to have as your empire grows. The snowballing effect will be nice. It will be better for empires that consolidate pops onto larger worlds, to churn out pops more quickly, maybe with the Corvee System or Subsumed Will. It has obvious utility with Syncretic Evolution, since choosing which species grows has a penalty otherwise.
   
   Since this costs 3 points, and you start with 24 pops normally, you'll get 0.48 more pop growth which increases from there, which is more than the 0.3 bonus from Rapid Breeders. While Rapid Breeders feed directly into base pop output, Budding gives you 1.0 pop growth with 50 pops on a planet, isn't affected by planetary capacity, and combines with Cloning Vats. It may end up being too strong, even as a 3 point trait. Pops are power.
   
   
4. Catalytic Processing opens up opportunities. Food is generally easier to get than minerals, and being able to shift Alloy production off of minerals to food allows for some great possibilities. It pairs well with Agrarian Idyll (though that does stop Ecumenopoli), and late game you can use Ring Worlds for massive food production for alloys. This seems like a very strong Civic for building up an economy more quickly.
   
   Ring Worlds are being reworked, but this is a massive boost the Ring World origin as it stands. Whether that will remain once it's changed, we'll see, but it alleviates the mineral burden the origin has to deal with.
   
   I'm a little curious why Rogue Servitors and Driven Assimilators are not allowed to take this Civic - was it too powerful for MEs that needed food for their economy anyway? It's rather baffling that the MEs with the most reason to take this Civic are prevented from doing so. A standard ME doesn't have to change their play style significantly to benefit from this civic, and MEs don't produce as much food as organic empires anyway. Given that a DA or RS would have to choose between this and Rapid Replicators as their other starting Civic, I'm not sure why this choice was made.
   
   
5. Idyllic Bloom is interesting. Gaia worlds are great -100% Habitability and 10% more resources from jobs? Yes please. Overall, the stages seem balanced. A notable energy cost, but attainable. The real hurdle comes from the volatile gas cost for later stages and development.
   
   What's really beneficial with this civic is the 10% and 5% pop growth bonuses from the first two phases, which are also the least expensive in terms of gases, and provide a nice 10% Habitability bonus with the second stage. I'm assuming the pop growth bonus remains after you finish the process, since Gaia Worlds normally don't get growth bonuses.
   
   The main drawback is that the Civic only allows for worlds matching your species' specific planetary preference to be terraformed this way. While this is necessary for early game balance, I have to wonder if it'll be too restrictive to really make this Civic worthwhile in the end. You can terraform other worlds to your species' preference, but to begin the Gaia World process you need 10 pops on the planet, so it's a much more involved process.
   
   I think the Civic - since it can't be removed - would benefit from some buffing and tech gating. For example, you can use the first two phases out of the gate, and you can use them on any planet class matching the base species: Wet, Cold, or Dry. With the Terraforming tech, you unlock phase 3 and can apply it to any base planet. Climate Restoration unlocks Phase 4.
   
   While the example listed is for a Hive Mind, but I don't think this Civic is worth it for Hive Minds. Hive Worlds are just too good - you'd want to replace all your Gaia Worlds with Hive Worlds, and since this Civic can't be removed, you'd end up with dead weight. For this Civic to really be worth it for HMs, it'd need to terraform them into Hive Worlds.
   
   While it may seem that the Nu-Boal origin wouldn't be beneficial with this civic, that's really not the case. Relics are expensive with long cooldowns, and this Civic can only be used on one specific planet type. The Nu-Boal relic doesn't have that restriction - you're better off using this Civic on your species' specific planet type and using the Last Boal on other planet types.

Nice review!

I 100% agree with your suggestion that for Hive Minds, Idyllic Bloom should turn the planet into a Hive World, or at least give the player an option between the two.

 

[Pillage]

Honestly, the traits seem a little underwhelming with the exception of budding. Catalytic processing could be really strong for shattered ring, allowing you to use the ludicrous amounts of excess food as alloys. Idyllic Bloom seems like the most fun though, letting you play as the Baol without forcing you to pick an AP or get lucky enough to have the Baol as your precursor. Can't wait to tear into this stuff and convert the entire galaxy into beautiful utopias for my plants. Only gripe is that the gaia terraforming is limited to your ideal habitability, but I'm sure you can cheese this using glandular acclimation.

 

[permeakra]

> Catalytic processing *might* actually be pretty good, especially for hives.

It is just plain overpowered. Alloy production is the key to strong fleet and is usually limited by weak mineral production. With this civic one can focus mostly on food production which is more efficient to begin with.

 

[Pancakelord]

Budding: This trait allows you to produce some pop assembly. Multiple Species with this trait can help provide pop assembly on potentially another species. For example, two species with the Syncretic Evolution Origin can together assemble one of the two. This trait can probably be especially great for a Hive Mind species.

Does this trait also work with Bio-trophies? Might lead to some odd interactions with Rogue servitor AIs if they are swapping between machine production and plantoid/fungoid assembly (whilst also growing bio-pops).

Idyllic Bloom: This Civic lets you transform planets into Gaia Worlds by building Gaia Seeders and upgrading them. The Gaia Seeders have 4 phases, with the 4th and final phase triggering the terraformation of the planet to a Gaia World. Available to regular empires as well as Hive Minds.

​

do the bottom growth stats persist even when T4 seeder is finished? I.e. you get
+15% growth speed
+30% habitability (I suppose this is irrelevant at T4 with Gaian worlds set at 100% habitability)

Feels a bit weak if I'm honest (particularly if you roll the Baol precursor lol) compared to other civics, given that pop growth mostly dies off around midgame if playing aggressively (making that 15% negligible later on), and Gaian world habitability is already 100% / has no CG habitability-debuff. And you can already gain like 20% hab from Soc techs (probably more from other sources) on regular worlds (and another +20, so 40% on tomb worlds).

I'd have expected something like a further %reduction in plantoid/fungoid upkeep on these worlds, or maybe a reduction in housing usage by plantoid/fungoid pops/drones on Gaian worlds (almost a soft addition to carry capacity - or just multiply CC by 1.5x on Gaia worlds for these empires), to make them more pop-dense like an ... "organic ecumenopoli" alternative [for non-hive empires, as hives, get hive-worlds].

 

[Pillage]

It is just plain overpowered. Alloy production is the key to strong fleet and is usually limited by weak mineral production. With this civic one can focus mostly on food production which is more efficient to begin with.

I wouldn't say its OP, it just shifts your focus. Catalytic Technicians use 50% more food than Metallurgists use minerals, just like how farmers produce 50% more food than miners produce minerals. I also think food overall needs more uses, so this is a very welcome addition in my book.

 

[blacksmith]

Well, plants in real life can`t just sustain themselves on pure sunlight, the have their roots to get minerals, take in CO2 from the air, and, when there is not enough of things to eat from the soil, plants can just LITERALLY eat other creatures, venus flytrap style. It wouldn`t make sense for a plant to sustain itself on sunlight alone.

I don't disagree with your statement that plants in real life can't sustain themselves on pure sunlight, but rock people in real life can't sustain themselves on minerals alone?

 

[fourteenfour]

PDX, when will all users have the new ship preview function? Will we all get it in the next update or before?

 

[Pillage]

I don't disagree with your statement that plants in real life can't sustain themselves on pure sunlight, but rock people in real life can't sustain themselves on minerals alone?

A. we don't have "rock people" we know of IRL, so we wouldn't know if they can sustain themselves off of minerals alone or not
B. A lithoid is fundamentally different on the most basic genetic level, using silicon instead of carbon for their DNA. Minerals probably contain specific nutrients that cannot be found in food, while they might not need any of the nutrients found in food due to their different biology and dietary requirements.

tl;dr, yeah it makes sense rock people only have to eat rocks.

(plus, a true lithoid with silicon-based DNA wouldn't be able to survive coming into contact with oxygen as it would oxidize into Silica, like what happened to the Kha'lanka, so applying real life science seems a bit silly to me)

 

[blacksmith]

A. we don't have "rock people" we know of IRL, so we wouldn't know if they can sustain themselves off of minerals alone or not
B. A lithoid is fundamentally different on the most basic genetic level, using silicon instead of carbon for their DNA. Minerals probably contain specific nutrients that cannot be found in food, while they might not need any of the nutrients found in food due to their different biology and dietary requirements.

tl;dr, yeah it makes sense rock people only have to eat rocks.

(plus, a true lithoid with silicon-based DNA wouldn't be able to survive coming into contact with oxygen as it would oxidize into Silica, like what happened to the Kha'lanka, so applying real life science seems a bit silly to me)

I would like to clarify that we don't have 'plant people' IRL either, so we also don't know if they could sustain themselves off of 'energy' alone. Energy is also a somewhat nebulous idea. It does not have to mean just sunlight. In the same way that I can accept that rock people live off of minerals alone, I can accept that plant people live off of energy alone. It just seems weird odd to me to treat minerals and food so differently from a gameplay perspective.

 

[eagletrekkie]

I would like to clarify that we don't have 'plant people' IRL either, so we also don't know if they could sustain themselves off of 'energy' alone. Energy is also a somewhat nebulous idea. It does not have to mean just sunlight. In the same way that I can accept that rock people live off of minerals alone, I can accept that plant people live off of energy alone. It just seems weird odd to me to treat minerals and food so differently from a gameplay perspective.

Sure, we don't have 'plant people' but we do have plants, which are clearly intended to be analogous to the plantoids, given the addition of this trait. As such it's completely reasonable to draw connections between plants and 'plant people.'

 

[Critical Ethics]

Does this trait also work with Bio-trophies? Might lead to some odd interactions with Rogue servitor AIs if they are swapping between machine production and plantoid/fungoid assembly (whilst also growing bio-pops).


do the bottom growth stats persist even when T4 seeder is finished? I.e. you get
+15% growth speed
+30% habitability (I suppose this is irrelevant at T4 with Gaian worlds set at 100% habitability)

Feels a bit weak if I'm honest (particularly if you roll the Baol precursor lol) compared to other civics, given that pop growth mostly dies off around midgame if playing aggressively (making that 15% negligible later on), and Gaian world habitability is already 100% / has no CG habitability-debuff. And you can already gain like 20% hab from Soc techs (probably more from other sources) on regular worlds (and another +20, so 40% on tomb worlds).

I'd have expected something like a further %reduction in plantoid/fungoid upkeep on these worlds, or maybe a reduction in housing usage by plantoid/fungoid pops/drones on Gaian worlds (almost a soft addition to carry capacity - or just multiply CC by 1.5x on Gaia worlds for these empires), to make them more pop-dense like an ... "organic ecumenopoli" alternative [for non-hive empires, as hives, get hive-worlds].

If I'm reading it right they all replace each other. So the level one building makes you grow more pops as preparation for transformation. The level 2 has lower pop growth because it's focusing on your increased biomass to bump the habitability. The third one has no growth boost and purely boosts habitability, and the final stage completes the terraforming and presumably self destructs.

So late game on most planets you'll probably rush to the end but early game/feeder planets you have the option to hang around at the 20% growth rate for as long as it feels useful.

Will the boost apply to organic pop construction too?

 

[megaboto]

tbh, i kind f agree with the underwhelming part, for some things.
specifically the phototrophic, which does not change up a lot. you do not really get any boni or mali from it, and the game play effect is minuscle. though i guess as a precursor to radiotrophic it does kind of make sense, but...it is kind of lacking. you struggle with energy more likely than food, as food is only there to be eaten. an idea, maybe as a civic or something though, is to let your ships have food as maintenance rather than energy, as energy is used for building and district upkeep, and ship upkeep as well. i guess something to do with food is needed to begin with(though i guess it can be coupled with catalytic processing)

the argument "let other species have that too" however does not apply particularily well because, it is meant to spice up the plantoids DLC. giving it to everyone resets the thing to zero
unless, another solution is, to be honest, to basically make the traits be part of the plantoids DLC but to be able to give the traits to anyone. that way you have something nice to use without any(or few) restrictions

as for the forge catalytic processing it is usually detrimental in my opinion. most of the minerals are needed for the sake of alloys, and you get them from both mining planets and space. in space, however, you cannot have food as deposits. although, i guess you can have it for roleplay or to supply minerals to the consumer goods industry instead.

as for the gaia terraforming as a plantoid that does sound quite nice/interesting, it takes some bit more than 5 years to do it, though building speed influences that - so you can do it faster, though not neccesarily by a whole lot. so plantoids, compared to lithoids improve their living conditions, while lithoids can just deal with any living condition but grow slower.

the budding trait though is a tad like the volatile excrements/the gas/crystal variants, in that it has pretty much no impact to be honest - the excrements are actually used to open up the market prior to aquiring the actual thing rather than producing it. a total of 1 extra pop growth at 50 pops is...not a whole lot to be honest. however, thinking about it, rapid breeders do not have a lot either. so i guess it is just me thinking that traits do not do all that much i guess, so i cannot really complain now that i think about it

anyways, i hope to see some more good content by you guys. though some things feel like they do not do a lot o guess it is balanced in some ways, so, do your thing sirs/misses

 

[G S Palmer]

This looks amazing! The traits are really nice, and I'm especially excited for the Idyllic Bloom civic!

 

[Soletestament]

Just for clarification, are megacorps going to be restricted from any of the new civics? I see Catalytic processing has megacorporation in the description, but you say elsewhere that the civics are available for regular empires and hive minds. So is Idyllic Bloom also available for megacorps?

 

[Jean-Luc]

Glad to see these additions but Phototrophic feels kinda pointless utility-wise. You're paying 1 trait point to....get what exactly? To replace half of your pop upkeep for a resource that's generally more useful than food? I guess you could gene-mod your species into it once you have a dyson sphere or something but it's very...meh.

Ideally this trait should simulate photosynthesis by removing or reducing the energy upkeep in systems with brighter-type stars or on temperate and hot planets.

At the very least it should be a 0-cost "flavor" trait (Radiotrophic should cost 1pt in this case) or bring the energy upkeep down a bit.

 

[Less2]

Catalytic processing looks like it might be pretty good. Others are kind of ehh. Also won't Catalytic processing completely screw up the production chains whenever an empire with the civic conquers one without it or vice versa? I can see conquest quickly devolving into hell as a hundred districts need to be swapped after every war. And we all know the AI won't be able to handle these swings.

 

[Objulen]

This is a nice analysis, I agree. However the fact that this exists is just another painful stab at Hivemind and Gestalt players. Because we have been asking to be able to get the Horizon Signal event for years! But for some reason its still not possible for Gestalts to get the Horizon Signal event. Hopefully the devs will finally listen and enable this event for everyone.

It'd be nice, but it's a bit of a niche change. Though having the Mind converse with the Worm offers some very intriguing storytelling. Much like if a Hive Mind was able to use the Zeroni precursor chain to speak with a Shroud god.

 

[Echo Candor One]

So these additions to the plantoids are on the scale I was expecting, and they are cool -- but I was, personally, hoping for something similar to the way Lithoids work -- IE, your portrait is a plantoid, and therefore your starting species has some innate plant mechanic (or behavior? perhaps a civic or two that only makes sense for plant society?)

Any chance of baking the energy change (or some other innate plantly effect) directly into those good good leafy boys?

Edit:
just came back to shout "plaannntss iinn SPAAAAACE" and say that I'm pumped for Lem

 

[Objulen]

Does this trait also work with Bio-trophies? Might lead to some odd interactions with Rogue servitor AIs if they are swapping between machine production and plantoid/fungoid assembly (whilst also growing bio-pops).

That's a good point.

For SE's, you can only have one pop assembling at a time - a bio pop or an organic pop, if you have cloning vats and the robot building. If it works in a similar manner, then it would largely be a waste, because by the time you have enough pops on a planet to really justify using it over standard drone production values, you'll probably have as many bio pops as you need for Unity.

However, it might help if you're trying to get bio pops for a large tier-2 production bonus, which would mostly be on Ring Worlds anyway.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

If the goal is to make plantoids more differentiated from other phenotypes, similar to how lithoids and robots work differently from other pops, there really needs to be a 0-cost "Plantoid" trait. It could use the properties of the suggested "Phototrophic", whose net value is around zero, while keeping (an improved version of) "Phototrophic" around as an option for those who want to go more "fully" photosynthetic. (It is also important that the traits give objective net benefits, otherwise they would hurt AI players and thereby disincentivize use of the DLC.)

• Plantoid (0, all plantoids): -0.50 food upkeep, +0.50 energy upkeep
• Phototrophic (1): -0.25 food upkeep, +0.15 energy upkeep
• Radiotrophic (2): -0.25 food upkeep, no extra energy upkeep, tomb worlds: -0.50 energy upkeep, +30 % tomb world habitability

The phototrophic/radiotrophic traits could then also be made available for all non-lithoid non-robots.
The traits would still hold a special role for plantoids, due to their synergy with the "Plantoid" trait.
This is not far-fetched, scientifically; humans are capable of photosynthesis of vitamin D, and some animals can do even more.