Criptfeind: Sounds like Robots trade a gigantic early game advantage for a late game penalty compared to Synths. What about the other paths? Do they compare?
The other paths are okay. Synths get +20% to everything, and synth leaders get +5% to most things. You can also customize each pop for what resource you want it to make, like robots can (once you get synth though, the pop before synth are probably going to be stuck in some general path because it'd be micromangement hell to try to change them). Psi is okay, they get +10% to research and energy, and +5% happiness, and leaders get +10% to most things (except energy and minerals, but they do give bonuses to unity, which synths don't). Bio path... Well, depends on what you do. I don't think it's nearly as good as the other two. Realistically the bonuses are I think enough to wipe out whatever bad traits you picked, pick up a new general trait, and pick up a super trait. Since you don't get more picks you can't super minmax your race. I think the best super trait is probably +20% to science. My Alpha T'shalan get +20% to research, +20% to minerals, +15% to energy, and +20 years lifespan. The lifespan is just for roleplaying, and would be better off as something else. But really only the +20% research and +15% energy came from the ascension path. So that's the only real bonus there. Your leaders don't get any bonuses from the bio path. Which is a shame. You could try to like, gene engineer your dudes for their specific jobs with the bio path but since you can only do it world by world that sounds like absolute hellish amounts of micromanagement to me.
And you're right that the ascension bonuses are probably irrelevant in that they come too late into the game and you snowball. But the happiness bonuses come in very early, maybe not the +20%, but even at the start you'll have a at least relevant bonus to production from happiness and bonus influence to allow you to run more edicts or have more orbitals. I do think robots are probably just worse then organics 1 for 1, just that the ability to go super wide like you say is the strongest ability because the game super rewards going wide (with some exceptions). I think so long as you balance it okay (like obviously not doing extra colonies when you should be waring) it is a really big advantage. To be clear I dunno what is actually better with full minmax and all that. And I've not played robots nearly as much as I've played organics. I just don't think it's as overwhelming of a difference as I seemed to read from you at first since organics have a LOT of bonus over robots (or certain bonuses that robots get like immortal leaders don't actually matter very much) that might not be immediately obvious at first. I also find myself extremely crunched on every resource in almost every game until after the first war or two, and my feeling is robots let you spend more resources for development, whereas organics will probably actually get you more per pop. Eventually developing more will overwhelm when the returns come in. But I'm not actually sure if they'll come in early enough to be worth the costs you pay, assuming you have you know, a pretty typical couple thousand fleet power early war.
That said with the food stuff:
About the food thing, it's not that simple because power is super easy to get and not only do they come from planets, but asteroid bases as well. I can tell you power is not a concern as robots. They barely use any. It's minerals that are a huge issue. So every planet starts maxing for minerals and you end up with a gigantic mineral production line. Not to mention for organics you actually have to build food buildings and thus, "waste" the tile space for them. Robots get to optimize it.
You can sorta just replace power with food and robots with organics in the highlighted line. Organics don't need much food. You just get by with a few tiles for upkeep and maybe a bit extra for growth (just like robots would with power... And yes, orbital power is a thing, but that just means that organics need even fewer power plants on their planets) and minerals (and research) are the main thing you actually want to build.
There's also probably a big thing with start location. If you start in a big open area and can just expand expand expand I'd certainly rather be robots. But I've had starts (my current game in fact, although it's almost over) where I start in between two hostile powers with like 8 planets, 6 of which are 60% or more habitable.... Really glad I'm not robots in that one. Although I do play on hyperlanes and often with galaxies that have arms, which makes that sorta thing way more common then it probably is in most games.
Multiplayer sounds fun. Although I think it'd probably come down to player skill more then actual mechanical advantage.
I assume I'd get fucking crushed because I'm pretty bad at most games like this.
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Topic: Stellaris: Paradox Interactive IN SPACE (Read 1746495 times)