Stellaris Dev Diary #218 - Plantoids Gameplay

[Onimorphus]

Have to say those are some nice ideas the extra sun time induced...

Now some thoughts...

Traits:

I agree with what a lot of people already posted, that the Phototrophic and Radiotrophic traits are a little low on impact and costly for what they do, I like the idea of having Phototrophic be a 0 point trait with some malus associated, as is with Lithoid and Necroid, and Radiotrophic being the 1 point trait with the extras. Either that, or adjust the energy value to be more worthy the point investment (I love the suggestions of having the energy part be affected by the stars of the planets system, but i guess that goes beyond the scope of what the custodian team has time allocated to).

Budding looks like a fun trait to mess around with, not sure if it will be overpowered or not when the pop number snowball start rolling...

And I'm on the side of preferring to have the trait not locked for some species portraits (I would even like that the Lithoid base trait to not be locked to the portraits, the other specifics ones having the 0 point trait as prerequisite).

I get the argument of species getting too generic (and agree in many points to that on the game overall, specially on the 'all gameplay becomes the same' part), but personally part of what makes Stellaris different from the other space strategy game is exactly that absurd flexibility. I would actually like to have the AI generated empires follow some preset 'rules' on what sort of species it created, to give some consistency, but let the player be free to make whatever weird nonsensical trait and portrait combinations they may want (I'd rather have more things being soft locked to perk, civics and traditions, than to the portrait groups, and just set the random AI empire generation code to follow some 'preset generic builds' for empire creation for certain portrait groups).

(On the whole 'in real life' point... a lot of animals use sunlight to metabolize substances, like us with vitamin D, some animals even got symbiosis with algae to be self-sufficient, like some sea slugs,... not all plants make photosynthesis, some are colorless parasitic vines,... some fungi do seems to make some use of radiation for food, but none make photosynthesis by themselves, only lichens get near that, but like animals, they have symbiotic algae... and some algae have silicate based protective shells, to the point that we have some mineral deposit made of their compressed 'skeletons' that are not fossilized, just the mineral stuff straight from the living things... so... life as we already know is really, really, strange... )

Civics:

Catalytic Processing get us one step closer to having the so much asked for organic structures/ships (now just need some kind of 'biomass crystallizer' or something to solve the 'food >> minerals' part... ), not sure if really balanced (though numbers are always subject to change), but will be fun for the eco-friendly agrarian empires (and the recycling minded purifiers... yeah, the servitors and assimilators can't use the organics, but the exterminators don't seem to mind a little bit of "organically grown warfare")

Idyllic Bloom seems interesting, but for a non-removable civic feels lacking a bit. It competes with the World Shaper accession perk for the whole 'make Gaia planet' thing, so you are trading a perk for a civic, being able to start the terraforming sooner, but on a more limited scale (as the planet need to be of your species preference),... so, unless there were some changes on the tradition/perk side with the next update, its looks like an odd choice.

Maybe the final level building, or the civic itself, could give some extra bonus on Gaia worlds (extra production, growth, stability, districts... something?), or as have being suggested, make the lower level buildings terraform, or help terraforming, the other planet types (like allowing the level 1 building on any type planet, an it gives a buff reducing the time to terraform that world to your species type).

And as I commented about the traits, please don't lock them behind just some portrait types.

Overall I like the ideas the Custodian team is going for, now to wait next week for more...

 

[HFY]

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].

Eco-menopolis would be awesome.


EDIT: Idyllic Bloom really feels like an Origin, not a Civic.

Can't remove, incompatible with a lot of other Origins, and not really as impressive as most other Civics it competes against.

But it is competitive against some Origins ... for example, Life-Seeded

 

[Gorehuchi]

Can't wait for Lem! Here's hoping the team had a good vacation!

 

[Markwart Storme]

So it says that you can build Gaia Seeders on worlds ideal for your species.
This trait would be great for species for which Gaia Worlds ARE the ideal worlds.

So these guys can not build Gaia seeders? As they could only build them on, well, Gaia Worlds.

 

[vv221]

View attachment 745711​

Wait, have you been following my last game? How did you end up opening this Dev Diary with a screenshot of the empire I have been playing over the last two months?

Belmacosa Canopy

(galaxy-spanning thinking forest is a great concept, I love that Stellaris allows us to play that way )

 

[HFY]

(galaxy-spanning thinking forest is a great concept, I love that Stellaris allows us to play that way )

The Tree event is your fault, isn't it?

​

 

[ashaxyn]

Would be cool to get some "partial trait anarchy" game option, that would let empires in that particular match pick cosmetic species portrait and the archetype mechanics separately. Or, maybe we need a mod like this, if only stellaris had some lua or python mod tools

 

[Martok]

Not bad overall. However, I'll admit I'm a little disappointed that Plantoids won't have inherent racial abilities like Lithoids do. Seems like an obvious missed opportunity.

 

[vv221]

Hey, why would we want a species trait making us using less food? Nobody would want to pick that!

Wow, building alloys from food is overpowered!

Am I really the only one to draw a connection here?

 

[Pollux26]

That would just be the same as machine

An organic empire that sustains itself from purely energy would indeed be similar to a machine empire, but far from identical. For one you could still research robots and have them being assembled also consuming energy but having a different specialization. Another thing you could do is enjoy different government forms and happiness modifiers that you're locked out of if you're a gestalt machine empire. You could also enjoy the civics of an organic empire. And you could even use the ascension perks of an organic empire, like an energy consuming psionically ascended plant roleplay.

 

[Shaeliss]

Phototropic trades Food pop upkeep for EC pop upkeep...

As a MegaCorp main... This actually gives me ideas...

MegaCorps are the biggest EC printers there are...

 

[Pancakelord]

An organic empire that sustains itself from purely energy would indeed be similar to a machine empire, but far from identical. For one you could still research robots and have them being assembled also consuming energy but having a different specialization.

Personally, I think we should complete the wheel and go the other way for machines too lol:

 

[Druplesnubb]

I don't really get the Phototrpoic trait. How the hell does the sun not provide all the energy the plants could ever need? And if it doesn't, how did they even envolve in the first place?

Also, please consider making the Tree of Life origin available for Plantoids even if they aren't Hive Minds.

 

[Shaeliss]

I don't really get the Phototrpoic trait. How the hell does the sun not provide all the energy the plants could ever need? And if it doesn't, how did they even envolve in the first place?

Also, please consider making the Tree of Life origin available for Plantoids even if they aren't Hive Minds.

That's assuming every citizen would get optimal amount of natural sunlight. Might have worked in hunter gatherer societies or in more agrarian/rural societies... But heavy urbanization makes this less likely... So I guess they can use tanning booth tech to compensate for the lack of sunlight that urbanization would cause? Lots of obstacles to sunlight in densely populated urban centers...

 

[Ferrus Animus]

As flavorful as they are these new features feel a bit lacking.

One of the main issues here is: Replacing a cost with a similar different cost is not a bonus, so having it cost you something makes it bad. With 3.0.0. making pop efficiency a much more important factor, that makes it more costly.

So to the new stuff:
Phototrophic: While there are mroe ways to produce energy, there are also more demands for energy. All this trait does is make the energy pursestrings tighter, as food usually is easier to come by thanks to hydroponic and orbital farms and the lack of demand for it. For the same trait price strong gives me 2.5% more energy minerals and food, or agrarian ~7.5% more food and conservationist saves me 10% CG. All these traits provide a direct increase in my pops productivity, whereas Phototrophic doesn't and arguably makes the pops cost functionally more. Should be an optional 0 cost trait that doesn't count for the limit, and even then it might not be worth taking.

Radiotrophic: Same problems as above. But also benefits tomb world settling. Tomb worlds are rare and saving 0.5 food for pop on tomb worlds is not really a good perk. Similarly the +30% wont make tomb worlds worth settling on its own. Apocalyptic civs and purifiers might get a bit from this, but not really 2 trait points worth. Really not worth it.

Budding: This one is interesting. Expensive, but it provides exponential growth. Potentially massively powerful, potentially too little for the price. Not much to criticize here, but this trait will probably get some changes once people put it through their paces.

Catalytic Processing: Like said above, a raw exchange at a price is a cost for nothing. 9 food instead of 6 minerals at face value is same price, 1.5 times the base output of a single worker.
However it costs a civic. Mining guilds is another civic I can take instead, at which point alloys cost me 1.2 times a miners output compared to the 1.5. of this civic. In addition the resource processing buildings increase base porduction by 1 and 2 flat. So a miner eventually produces base 6 minerals, enough to supply a metallurgist, whereas a farmer only produces 8, so less than a Catalytic Technician needs. Add mining guilds and the Metallurgist only requires 6/7th of a workers base production whereas a CT requires 9/8th. Definitely a bad deal. And while food is easier to produce, at the amount alloys get produced eventually that is no longer a significant factor.
Balanced upkeep for Catalytic Technicians would be 7.2 at game start and 6.8 late game. So 7 should be a good number here.

Idyllic Bloom: This one looks underwhelming. Now maybe Gaia worlds get a significant buff (and better features when terraforming into them), but right now the civic as presented besides the costs for the building themselves is a bit steep. You trade one of 2/3 civic slots permanently for one of eight Ascension perk slots. Idyllic Bloom is a bit faster and cheaper as welll as giving partial bonuses, but occupies planetary production capacities and and is much more niche. With the restriction of planet type before being able to start however, the additional costs (unless this interacts very beneficially with genemodding) makes it in total slower and more expensive than using world shaper.
Again, this is appearing more a sidegrade, than an upgrade, which at its cost makes it a total negative. Given current numbers I do not see value picking this over hive worlds for a hive mind or preferring it over world shaper despite the fun flavor.
For Life-Seeded it is a trap.
Frankly I think the planet type restriction nerfs it too much. If it provided a Seeder 0 that terraformed same climate category into preferred and Seeder -1 that terraformed off climate into the right climate, that would be interesting, giving us an alternate approach to terraforming, but as it is it feels too niche, especially for a locked in civic.

Honestly, the issue with 4 of these 5 elements is the idea: pay a cost to do thing X differently but for the same price. Doing a thing at the same price differently shouldn't cost anything, because if it does it is a total negative. Warrior Culture works because it provides additional output instead of being only a sidegrade, apply this lesson here.
And I do get that these elements are meant to be flavorful more than competetive, but they can be both without compromising their flavor, and punishing flavorful empire design is not providing a good play experience.

 

[HFY]

Phototropic trades Food pop upkeep for EC pop upkeep...

As a MegaCorp main... This actually gives me ideas...

MegaCorps are the biggest EC printers there are...

View attachment 745921

So what you're saying is...

Money doesn't grow on trees, but trees do grow on money.

 

[Darklight731]

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?

I will believe this only after you prove to me that rock people eat things other than minerals in real life.

 

[adil3tr]

These feel incredibly underwhelming

I actually agree, these don’t seem that creative. I expected a little more for the plant specific ones and definitely more for the universal ones. This basically just adds a playthrough where you turn your captured livestock into alloys. That’s interesting but I was hoping for more and the Gaia world one would be worth more if there were fewer ways to get Gaia worlds. I wasn’t a fan of adding relics and the one that just magically turns your planets into gaia worlds is a perfect example of why.

 

[Ninking]

Missed opportunity for a plantoid trait in the likes of "Naturally High: The trimmings of this species is an appreciated recreational drug (+X happiness)"

 

[CReaper210]

Now we just need an organic ship set so we can **pretend** that we have bio ship

I've been asking for this for so long. I just want to roleplay as an entirely organic civilization, technology and all.