Catalytic Processing Civics should reduce the probability of drawing the Bio-Reactor tech not increase it.

[owd456]

They are empires that have doubled down on their need for organic food; they should not be treated as an empire who's main species doesn't eat organic food. They currently have a x20 multiplier for a building they they would never build.

As a side note Bio-Reactor is labeled as a rare tech but it's more common than t1 farm tech due to having same base weight, no malus modifiers and more common (and way stronger) boost modifiers.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

why would you NEVER build it? you probably end up with way more food than needed, and the building allows you to skip building ANY energy worlds and have ONLY food worlds.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Bioreactor is only particularly good for Anglers and Agrarian Idyll (sorta, this one is weak, now), who get buffed farmers. Or livestock builds.

In the short term, it's also ok for catalytic/bioship empires that are going all in on food production techs for other reasons and skipped energy production techs entirely (to focus on e.g. energy weapons). But that's a very marginal thing.

Much hay has been made about whether it would be better to make it also buff technicians (so that they burn food to make energy), or if the building should just turn food directly into energy like its old design did. But either way: the current design is only useful if you have a very strong reason to prefer working farmer jobs.

Otherwise you're better off just working technicians.

why would you NEVER build it? you probably end up with way more food than needed, and the building allows you to skip building ANY energy worlds and have ONLY food worlds.

A farmer gets +60% to food output from tech. A technician gets +60% to energy output from tech. A farmer that also makes energy does not get +60% to energy production from tech.

So, supposing you have e.g. +90% from other sources (subsidies, designation, stability, etc.), 100 farmers with a Bio-Reactor and Food Processing Center will make 6*2.5=15 food and 2*1.9=3.8 energy. But if you ditched the Bio-Reactor and just used technicians, you could make the same with 15/2.5/8=75 farmers and 3.8/2.5/8=19 technicians (total 94). Same output, 6% fewer pops (and fewer districts needed, in bulk).

If you have more food than you need, convert a food world into an energy world; it will have the same output with fewer pops.

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Anglers want to use the Bio-Reactor: many jobs making 8 food, 2 energy, and 2 trade is better than slightly fewer jobs making 10 food and 2 trade plus a few making just 8 energy. Agrarian Idyll is sorta the same (though amenities are cheap, now, so maybe not so much). They are the exception that illustrates the rule: it's only good if your farmer jobs are so much better that you'd rather have more of them.

You can work yourself into that position if you skip all the energy generation tech but did pick up all the food production tech, but that would have to be a rush thing: in the long term you'll be better off just picking up the missing techs.

 

[RingworldUtopia]

Bioreactor is only particularly good for Anglers and Agrarian Idyll (sorta, this one is weak, now), who get buffed farmers. Or livestock builds.

In the short term, it's also ok for catalytic/bioship empires that are going all in on food production techs for other reasons and skipped energy production techs entirely (to focus on e.g. energy weapons). But that's a very marginal thing.

Much hay has been made about whether it would be better to make it also buff technicians (so that they burn food to make energy), or if the building should just turn food directly into energy like its old design did. But either way: the current design is only useful if you have a very strong reason to prefer working farmer jobs.

Otherwise you're better off just working technicians.

A farmer gets +60% to food output from tech. A technician gets +60% to energy output from tech. A farmer that also makes energy does not get +60% to energy production from tech.

So, supposing you have e.g. +90% from other sources (subsidies, designation, stability, etc.), 100 farmers with a Bio-Reactor and Food Processing Center will make 6*2.5=15 food and 2*1.9=3.8 energy. But if you ditched the Bio-Reactor and just used technicians, you could make the same with 15/2.5/8=75 farmers and 3.8/2.5/8=19 technicians (total 94). Same output, 6% fewer pops (and fewer districts needed, in bulk).

If you have more food than you need, convert a food world into an energy world; it will have the same output with fewer pops.

---

Anglers want to use the Bio-Reactor: many jobs making 8 food, 2 energy, and 2 trade is better than slightly fewer jobs making 10 food and 2 trade plus a few making just 8 energy. Agrarian Idyll is sorta the same (though amenities are cheap, now, so maybe not so much). They are the exception that illustrates the rule: it's only good if your farmer jobs are so much better that you'd rather have more of them.

You can work yourself into that position if you skip all the energy generation tech but did pick up all the food production tech, but that would have to be a rush thing: in the long term you'll be better off just picking up the missing techs.

if you're going catalytic, you should go all-in on buffing your farmers. and why should i convert a food world into an energy world, instead of using that extra food to power an alloy ecu?

 

[Abdulijubjub]

if you're going catalytic, you should go all-in on buffing your farmers. and why should i convert a food world into an energy world, instead of using that extra food to power an alloy ecu?

A farmer gets +60% to food output from tech. A technician gets +60% to energy output from tech. A farmer that also makes energy does not get +60% to energy production from tech.

So, supposing you have e.g. +90% from other sources (subsidies, designation, stability, etc.), 100 farmers with a Bio-Reactor and Food Processing Center will make 6*2.5=15 food and 2*1.9=3.8 energy. But if you ditched the Bio-Reactor and just used technicians, you could make the same with 15/2.5/8=75 farmers and 3.8/2.5/8=19 technicians (total 94). Same output, 6% fewer pops (and fewer districts needed, in bulk).

 

[Exasperation]

To put it another way, 1 generator world and 4 farm worlds (with no bio-reactors) would produce more than 5 farm worlds with bio-reactors. Using the numbers from upthread, assuming ~3k workers per world (for easy math) you're looking at something like 600 energy + 2400 food in the former case vs. 570 energy and 2250 food for the latter. It turns out that planetary specialization is pretty good.