Why purging pops requires food?

[Hundar]

As per title, i dont understand why would i need to feed a population i am actively killing, it makes no sense and it also introduces several problems! How can this got past testing is beyond me!

I was playing a deterministic exterminators, and as anybody who plays knows, the first years you are very likely to find yourself in wars. You are incentivized to quickly conquer planets and get to purging, since it yelds energy (aka money in the past). This worked well before, since it played along with your starting civic.

With the new economic system however, now purging pops requires resources, food in my case. This conflicts not only logically (why would i feed a population i am killing), but mechanically: as an exterminator, expecially during the first 20 years of game, purging pops may as well kill your economy and your game since now you have to waste money buying food or setting up a food production, which as robots YOU DONT HAVE.

Thus i am asking the devs to please issue an hotfix on this, just remove the upkeep from purging pops, it makes zero sense!

 

[Enailios]

Am curious, when/if you hit the food shortage situation, does the debuffs impact you empire-wide or only the pops that need food? If only organics, then maybe not so bad?

 

[namewhichisnottakenyet]

Isn't it obvious?

You're sending exterminator robots into the burned-out husks of your victim's former cities, where the organic survivors try to survive by salvaging the remains of their former civilization, and actively try to hide from your extermination squads.
Your extermination squads counter this strategy by intentionally placing supplies as bait in open locations where they just have to wait for the puny organics to show up.

 

[Nerisande]

There is no fun when organics die due to some natural reasons before you can kill them by yourself. And having fun is a key principle of any homicidal empire. So feed the organics before purge, do not displease your fellow murderbots.

 

[Hundar]

Am curious, when/if you hit the food shortage situation, does the debuffs impact you empire-wide or only the pops that need food? If only organics, then maybe not so bad?

It affects your whole empire, since technically those pops are your pops, even if you are purging them! i ended up in bankruptcy during a war caused only by food shortages (since ofc i didnt produce food), it disbanded my fleet. I quitted the game immediately because the situation was so bizzare i couldnt believe what happened

 

[Cleaving3]

Bold of you to assume you aren't using bio-weapons. That does seem like a major issue though.

 

[GhostDanny]

Why can't you use the flesh of the ones you've already killed to feed the others?
As long as no one blabs about it, they're not going to know what soylent green really is.

 

[XCodes]

IIRC pops that you're purging also take housing and amenities. It's not that you're supporting them, it's that they're freeloading/stealing as they struggle to survive.