I want to start by saying: no, I don't think 100% habitability on nearly every planet was reasonable.
That said, 75% on the most habitable planet is no good. We're talking about a machine specifically designed to function in a specific environment. Somehow it's less adapted for that environment than a naturally-evolved creature? Humans (real life humans) are getting to the point where we can make robots that function equally as well or better than humans in specific conditions on Earth. So you're telling me that a FTL civilization has slid backward compared to what real-life humans can already do?
The flat +50% minimum to habitability makes even less sense. If I design a machine to function in seawater, then put it in the desert, what does that machine do? Probably little to nothing until it suffers a catastrophic failure.
I propose setting machines' habitability at the top end to 100% but only for their tailored environment. Ocean world pops , for instance, would get a flat -50% malus on all non-ocean worlds. That's then compounded by the environment. So, placing a ocean machine pop on a desert world would be the same as purging that pop. It'll "exist" for a while until it doesn't. In lieu of using the Species menu to change the habitability trait, creating a machine colonization ship should come with the option of tailoring the colony to the chosen planet. However, there's a downside. If your machine species is oceanic, then the first time you produce a 100% habitability colonization ship for a tropical world, it'll take 2x the time and cost. Similarly, colonizing a desert planet for the first time will require 5x the time and cost. Moreover, these colonization ship types cannot be pre-produced - a suitable planet where the "Colonize" button can be clicked is required, since otherwise your machine empire has no way to gather data for their colonization attempt. Lastly, there should be a chance that the colonization fails (all pops die) the first time colonization is attempted in a new environment. In return, once a successful colonization of the planet is achieved, subsequent colonization attempts will be no different from the species' original habitability trait.
In this way, it becomes possible for machine empires to achieve 100% habitability on every world type, but it's a process of trial and error. You might think this is still overpowered, however consider this: an oceanic machine would need to tailor its colonization ship to gaia and relic planets at 2x the cost and production time, plus the risk of failure. Meanwhile, other species can simply drop a colony without issue. Rigidity comes with both upsides and downsides.
As for lifespan, why would a machine have a mortal lifespan? We're not talking about a hivemind's drones, we're talking about a machine. It makes perfect sense that their bodies might break down, but why in the world would they die from that unless long-term codebase corruption was involved? Just restore from a backup.
I propose repurposing machine lifespan via a debuff called "incompatibility." Over the time the leader uses its original form, it'll likely develop individual preferences and idiosyncratic behaviors tailored to its leadership style. Its limbs and senses being standardized at production time is a slight problem from this perspective: as it adapts to its daily existence, some bits of wear and tear might become a hindrance. Parts can be replaced, but partial upgrades may have the issue of drifting in exact specification over dozens or hundreds of years. Therefore, for each [Lifespan years] (±20) the unit is operational, it'll gain another stack of Incompatibility. This will reduce its skill parameters by, say 20%, and dramatically increase the risk of catastrophic malfunction. Restoring the unit to its pristine state could be a project or task which takes the unit out of its leadership role for a time. It should also cost more energy depending on how many stacks of incompatibility are accumulated, since virtual re-training will be more intensive. Furthermore, the time taken should not be too long, but the cost should be rather high so that during times of resource deficit or war it might not be possible to remove these stacks of incompatibility right away.
As an additional suggestion on this point, if the goal was to make machine empires more similar to biological ones, then restrict this feature to the gestalt consciousness trait. Perhaps a machine empire went the route of freedom from central control to avoid the development of a gestalt consciousness, that's fine, but it makes zero sense that a gestalt consciousness would let its specialized skills die simply because the forms those skills inhabit became old. Remember, every part of a gestalt consciousness empire is akin to a "limb" of the leader, so replacing those limbs should be a matter of course unless data corruption is involved.
Speaking of corruption, to anyone who uses the analogy that you need to reinstall Windows every few years: no, you don't. The DCOM Subsystem's RuntimeBroker has a permissions conflict with Windows Update. You fix that and it never needs a reinstall; I've been using the same copy of Windows since 2015. I've even swapped out all the hardware twice and guess what? All I had to do was reinstall the chipset. Although this was difficult since safe mode crashed, lol. As for Linux, this one is even easier to maintain, just read the logs when something breaks and don't misconfigure things or install unreliable beta packages. Any disaster is likely to be user error, because even bad packages can easily be downgraded or uninstalled via the emergency terminal, which is not affected by corruption in the same way as Windows' safe mode. I once installed a problematic compositor that turned Linux into a black screen, but I had it fixed within a few hours - and frankly, it wouldn't have broken had I bothered to read the warnings.
If you don't understand what I'm saying in this last paragraph, that's fine. Just realize that a FTL machine empire would be waaaaay more computer savvy than I am.
That said, 75% on the most habitable planet is no good. We're talking about a machine specifically designed to function in a specific environment. Somehow it's less adapted for that environment than a naturally-evolved creature? Humans (real life humans) are getting to the point where we can make robots that function equally as well or better than humans in specific conditions on Earth. So you're telling me that a FTL civilization has slid backward compared to what real-life humans can already do?
The flat +50% minimum to habitability makes even less sense. If I design a machine to function in seawater, then put it in the desert, what does that machine do? Probably little to nothing until it suffers a catastrophic failure.
I propose setting machines' habitability at the top end to 100% but only for their tailored environment. Ocean world pops , for instance, would get a flat -50% malus on all non-ocean worlds. That's then compounded by the environment. So, placing a ocean machine pop on a desert world would be the same as purging that pop. It'll "exist" for a while until it doesn't. In lieu of using the Species menu to change the habitability trait, creating a machine colonization ship should come with the option of tailoring the colony to the chosen planet. However, there's a downside. If your machine species is oceanic, then the first time you produce a 100% habitability colonization ship for a tropical world, it'll take 2x the time and cost. Similarly, colonizing a desert planet for the first time will require 5x the time and cost. Moreover, these colonization ship types cannot be pre-produced - a suitable planet where the "Colonize" button can be clicked is required, since otherwise your machine empire has no way to gather data for their colonization attempt. Lastly, there should be a chance that the colonization fails (all pops die) the first time colonization is attempted in a new environment. In return, once a successful colonization of the planet is achieved, subsequent colonization attempts will be no different from the species' original habitability trait.
In this way, it becomes possible for machine empires to achieve 100% habitability on every world type, but it's a process of trial and error. You might think this is still overpowered, however consider this: an oceanic machine would need to tailor its colonization ship to gaia and relic planets at 2x the cost and production time, plus the risk of failure. Meanwhile, other species can simply drop a colony without issue. Rigidity comes with both upsides and downsides.
As for lifespan, why would a machine have a mortal lifespan? We're not talking about a hivemind's drones, we're talking about a machine. It makes perfect sense that their bodies might break down, but why in the world would they die from that unless long-term codebase corruption was involved? Just restore from a backup.
I propose repurposing machine lifespan via a debuff called "incompatibility." Over the time the leader uses its original form, it'll likely develop individual preferences and idiosyncratic behaviors tailored to its leadership style. Its limbs and senses being standardized at production time is a slight problem from this perspective: as it adapts to its daily existence, some bits of wear and tear might become a hindrance. Parts can be replaced, but partial upgrades may have the issue of drifting in exact specification over dozens or hundreds of years. Therefore, for each [Lifespan years] (±20) the unit is operational, it'll gain another stack of Incompatibility. This will reduce its skill parameters by, say 20%, and dramatically increase the risk of catastrophic malfunction. Restoring the unit to its pristine state could be a project or task which takes the unit out of its leadership role for a time. It should also cost more energy depending on how many stacks of incompatibility are accumulated, since virtual re-training will be more intensive. Furthermore, the time taken should not be too long, but the cost should be rather high so that during times of resource deficit or war it might not be possible to remove these stacks of incompatibility right away.
As an additional suggestion on this point, if the goal was to make machine empires more similar to biological ones, then restrict this feature to the gestalt consciousness trait. Perhaps a machine empire went the route of freedom from central control to avoid the development of a gestalt consciousness, that's fine, but it makes zero sense that a gestalt consciousness would let its specialized skills die simply because the forms those skills inhabit became old. Remember, every part of a gestalt consciousness empire is akin to a "limb" of the leader, so replacing those limbs should be a matter of course unless data corruption is involved.
Speaking of corruption, to anyone who uses the analogy that you need to reinstall Windows every few years: no, you don't. The DCOM Subsystem's RuntimeBroker has a permissions conflict with Windows Update. You fix that and it never needs a reinstall; I've been using the same copy of Windows since 2015. I've even swapped out all the hardware twice and guess what? All I had to do was reinstall the chipset. Although this was difficult since safe mode crashed, lol. As for Linux, this one is even easier to maintain, just read the logs when something breaks and don't misconfigure things or install unreliable beta packages. Any disaster is likely to be user error, because even bad packages can easily be downgraded or uninstalled via the emergency terminal, which is not affected by corruption in the same way as Windows' safe mode. I once installed a problematic compositor that turned Linux into a black screen, but I had it fixed within a few hours - and frankly, it wouldn't have broken had I bothered to read the warnings.
If you don't understand what I'm saying in this last paragraph, that's fine. Just realize that a FTL machine empire would be waaaaay more computer savvy than I am.