Stellaris Dev Diary #218 - Plantoids Gameplay

[HFY]

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

This would make a good variant on Serviles.

These plants can only take Worker jobs, and don't consume any Amenities, but they generate +0.5 Amenities each.

Trait Name: "House Plant"

 

[Red Earth]

Gaia seeders: It says the building can be built on the ideal planet of you're starting species. Is this your base, unmodified starting species? Cuz what is considered your "main" species can change if you gene-mod them. So could you change your species and build it on different world types, or is it locked?

 

[drawar]

I'm disappointed, I think it's a missed opportunity to really created a difference gameplay

There are currently species that consume food, minerals or energy (robot).
Why not take the opportunity to base mixed consumption?

A plantoid pop could consume 0.5 mineral and 0.5 base energy.

Plantoid traits:
- Carnivorous: replaces mineral consumption with food, Army Damage + 20%.
- Parasite: replaces mineral and energy consumption with food, Worker Happiness −10% and Slave Happiness −10%
- Fruits plants : mineral and energy consumption +0.25, pop produces 0.5 food (or 0.25?)

Plantoid Civic :
- Organic Architecture: The (or 50%) cost of building minerals to replace it with food, +1 Building Slot


A fungoid pop could consume 0.5 mineral and 0.5 food.

Fungoid traits:
- Mycorrhiza : Farmers produce -1 food and +1 mineral
- Parasite: replaces mineral consumption with food, Worker Happiness −10% and Slave Happiness −10%
- Symbiosis: +0.1 (0.05?) Job output for other pops on the planet who do not have this trait.

Fungoid Civic :
- Decomposer: Purged Pops and Livestock produce +3 food, each organic military unit killed on a planet owned or controlled after a successful invasion produces 10 food.


Phototrophic and Radiotrophic are interesting traits, it might be good to make them available to all organic species as special traits with genetic ascension.

 

[SelchBuall]

So are the phototrophic and radiotrophic traits compatible with the necrophage origin? And if so does that reduce the food upkeep to 0%? And would that then mean they have no upkeep at all on tomb worlds with radiotrophic? Btw, love the flavor of some nightmarish mutants that subsist entirely on radiation and the dead.

 

[Stug_Life]

I'm loving these civics tied to certain species, is there any chance Necroids could have some specific civics or have reanimated armies only for them?

oh man, didn't realize there was so much disagreement about this XD.

 

[scaper12123]

Very good stuff, but I was hoping for some gameplay aspects unique to Plantoids as we get with Lithoids. Perhaps something along the lines of needing farms and hydroponics to generate pop growth, given the fact that you are plants. Although honestly, that would also be interesting as an origin condition.

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

Developers, this is amazing!

I thought Stellaris had already reached peak villainy with Nemesis, but with the new Food-to-Alloys civic we can reach new levels of evil. I'm of course talking about Livestock and purging pops to turn them into ships. You conquer enemies to turn them into ships to conquer more enemies to turn them into ships to...
It's brilliant. "Juggernaut is pops!"

Also honourable mention to the Phototropic trait. I can see it having a fun interaction with trade, with your pops literally eating trade and getting fat off the markets/ the stock exchange. The mental image of it is hilarious.

 

[Echo Candor One]

Can we take Idyllic Bloom and also have, say, a Gaia world start? If so, how do those interact? Will the build just be locked out on every planet except a gaia world, or will we be able to shape any world into a gaia world?

 

[SelchBuall]

Can we take Idyllic Bloom and also have, say, a Gaia world start? If so, how do those interact? Will the build just be locked out on every planet except a gaia world, or will we be able to shape any world into a gaia world?

Good question, i hope theres some unique interaction there that improves idyllic bloom, similiar to terravores. As it stands it seems underwhelming compared to the ascension perk. On that note how does it interact with world shaper? Seems like that would mostly void idyllic bloom then

 

[Ramidel]

Some of these are kinda neat.

Phototrophic

Flavorwise (ha), you eat sunlight, or tanning booths/greenhouse lamps. It's a plant thing; neat.

Mechanically, it's a shift in resources. I can see megacorps loving this because they print money through trade, and there's generally a lot more energy coming in than food - but there's also more uses for energy. Unless you've got a combo going that maxes energy production, this isn't worth it. Definitely not worth it for the Hive since the Hive makes food like gangbusters and is not exactly known for making energy.

Radiotrophic

I like the flavor. Fungi who evolved to feed on the radiation of a dead world! (Also makes for a neat "mushroom cloud" joke.)

Mechanically, they combo well with a Post-Apocalyptic civilization (accept no substitutes), and can do well as either the first race of a multispecies empire, or as a Fanatic Purifier. Their homeworld will require fewer workers working on the necessities, allowing for some early tall play where they generate more minerals and energy, and they can colonize tombs while other species settle other world types. That's worth two points in a species. I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone how to play Fanatic Purifier radiotrophs. Hives need to avoid this like the plague.

Budding

Pop assembly. It's a bit better than Rapid Breeders, but oh my leaves the cost. Not sure if "assemble more serviles" is worth it.

Catalytic Processing

By default, there's no increase in efficiency, but if you're producing food more efficiently than minerals somehow, it could be useful. I can see its use for hives (duh), but actually the snazziest combo I can think of would be Agrarian Idyll. Essentially, your farmers will produce the material for alloys alongside amenities; you will never need an entertainer again. RP-wise, this becomes a sort of "we grow the materials we need" high-biotech society. Consider this if you're up for pacifism.

Idyllic Bloom

A locked civic in place of an ascension perk, no tech required - at least at first. That would be a fair trade, but you still need to terraform any world that isn't your type. On worlds of your type, it's quicker than regular gaianization, a little cheaper energy-wise, and gives bonuses instead of penalties while ongoing, but is more expensive in exotic gas (so you can't gaianize your homeworld right out the gate). It's also not tech-locked.

If you want to have your species become a garden across the galaxy, go nuts. Personally, I'd rather go for the ascension perk if I was going to paint the map green.

 

[Kaoru Sen'nin]

The more I read it and the more I am disapointed by the traits. It's basic and lack the "'wow" feeling that the Lithoid or Necroid species pack have.

Changing food by energy is either useless or even detrimental. I can't see any situation where it is actually good to have that.
.... maybe for a desert planet start where you have more energy district... maybe.

 

[Snorro Soliman]

Seems cool! Bask in the sunlight and use excess food to build warships...
Is it possibly to reverse engineer the phototrophic and radiothropic traits as genemod master, or, like with lithoids are thet exclusive to a 0point trait(Plantoid)?

If not, i can finally make photosynthetic humans(like in knights of sidonia..)

 

[Ferrus Animus]

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

Still need minerals for buildings, districts and space mines as well as refining into strategic resources.
Normal empires still need minerals for CGs.
Hives still need mienrals as job upkeep for all the jobs that would use CG.
Machines can go almost mineral free, but the allowed civics don't use food anyway, so it's a bit a wash, and taking Rockbreakers as civic is more efficient in that case.

 

[Me_]

Pretty cool. I especially like the fact that the new traits are limited to Plantoids/Fungoids only. There's way too much "bland mess" in the game of everything being available to everyone and therefore nothing feeling unique or recognizable.

I hope that there will be more additions like this in the future.

 

[Gal_Mundr]

Hello, for a very long time I wanted to write about this, but did not know where, I will write here. It would be very nice if you add ships and robot cities to the synthetic dawn DLC. Because when robots use organic cities with facilities for organics or organic ships, it doesn't look quite atmospheric. If the synthetics had ships remotely similar to the ships of the contingent, or their ships would simply have sharper forms, it would look more atmospheric, just as it would be possible to add cities that, for example, also have a more "effective" design in the opinion of synthetics. In general, I want to say that robots lack individuality, because all DLCs that add new races: plantoids, lithoids, necroids, etc. (with the exception of synthetics) have their own ships and cities.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

Still need minerals for buildings, districts and space mines as well as refining into strategic resources.
Normal empires still need minerals for CGs.
Hives still need mienrals as job upkeep for all the jobs that would use CG.
Machines can go almost mineral free, but the allowed civics don't use food anyway, so it's a bit a wash, and taking Rockbreakers as civic is more efficient in that case.

I've played multiple games as a hive-mind with catalytic processing and didn't build a single mining district and my empire was doing fine economically.

 

[Echo Candor One]

I've played multiple games as a hive-mind with catalytic processing and didn't build a single mining district and my empire was doing fine economically.

I'm pretty interested in what these looked like on the drawing board. What were some older iterations of the traits? I'd love to be able to follow the brainstorming into the play-testing and then into the balancing and get a sense of how the custodians approach development.

I think there are some myopic hot takes in this thread, though; Tomb world-loving plant people that either terraform planets into Gaia worlds or Armageddon bombard them into energy efficient population hubs is absolutely on the table right now and I'm there for it.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I'm pretty interested in what these looked like on the drawing board. What were some older iterations of the traits? I'd love to be able to follow the brainstorming into the play-testing and then into the balancing and get a sense of how the custodians approach development.

I think there are some myopic hot takes in this thread, though; Tomb world-loving plant people that either terraform planets into Gaia worlds or Armageddon bombard them into energy efficient population hubs is absolutely on the table right now and I'm there for it.

Best example that I can share of an earlier design is Budding originally was a lot more powerful (around 0.05 assembly IIRC) but also increased housing usage and reduced normal pop growth. We decided that was a bit too complicated for the design and scaled it back.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

I've played multiple games as a hive-mind with catalytic processing and didn't build a single mining district and my empire was doing fine economically.

I don't dispute that is shifts a hive's economy much more towards food and with the nowadays higher space mineral income you might get by without mining districts, but I was more replying to the diea that it'd allow one to go fully organic technology, whereas a even a catalytic hive needs to keep minerals in mind.

Though you can now make a Lithoid Hivemind with Catalytic Processing, eat minerals and process food into alloys and wonder why all those other aliens are doing it wrong.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

I don't dispute that is shifts a hive's economy much more towards food and with the nowadays higher space mineral income you might get by without mining districts, but I was more replying to the diea that it'd allow one to go fully organic technology, whereas a even a catalytic hive needs to keep minerals in mind.

Though you can now make a Lithoid Hivemind with Catalytic Processing, eat minerals and process food into alloy and wonder why all those other aliens are doing it wrong.

You could even play a lithoid necrophage hive-mind with catalytic processing and use the food gathered from your livestock to build your spacecraft.