Require "collecting" traits to genemod

[Shadowstrike]

Here's an idea that might make genemodding more interesting: require you to have at least one pop with a certain trait (including habitability ones) to be able to genemod that into other pops. Now this creates an incentive to "collect" pops with desirable traits you don't have, so you can add them to species you want.

 

[Tamwin5]

Aggressive observation of primitives should also give the traits they have access to.

 

[Shadowstrike]

That would give some additional incentive towards aggressive observation...

 

[Pancakelord]

This would make finding sanctuary worlds with their wide range of pops very very nice.

Random mutation events should still occur though (like pops self-modifying - though I'm not 100% sure what triggers it) and xenocompatibility should have a chance IMO to produce random new traits not seen in either parent (including a "genome unstable" trait that is the species-equivalent of inbred - -pop growth -worker output etc)

 

[HFY]

Good reason for non-philes to accept refugees and they quarantine them to a gaia gulag...

 

[nightraven1901]

Hmmm... Hummm.... Hrrr... Har... Mmm... Hah...

Good flavour, would annoy me to no end trying to follow my builds.

I can offer neither outright agreement nor direct disagreement.

 

[Pancakelord]

Good reason for non-philes to accept refugees and they quarantine them to a gaia gulag...

Might be a good use for chemical bliss (possibly the only use for it? I don't know if i've ever used that setting...), buy up good gene candidates and dump them on a habitat or tourist world, rename it to 'Genetic catalogue' and then set them all to chemical bliss.

 

[nightraven1901]

Might be a good use for chemical bliss (possibly the only use for it? I don't know if i've ever used that setting...), buy up good gene candidates and dump them on a habitat or tourist world, rename it to 'Genetic catalogue' and then set them all to chemical bliss.

Huh. That's a good use of Chemical Bliss (I never use it either in its current configuration) The trick would be in never letting that world take bombardments, as each pop on it would be costly if lost. I mean, we might as well get some mileage out of it, right?

 

[Pancakelord]

Huh. That's a good use of Chemical Bliss (I never use it either in its current configuration) The trick would be in never letting that world take bombardments, as each pop on it would be costly if lost. I mean, we might as well get some mileage out of it, right?

I'm genuinely not sure what the intended use for chemical bliss ever was - besides being a good segue in to blorg-body-pillow jokes on streams?

And true about bombardment, my first instinct was to go for a habitat - dump it over your homeworld, or in your home system. If an enemy is bombarding your home system's colonies... well, lets just say your personal gene-zoo probably isn't going to be your biggest issue at that point lol.

The bonus trade value from chemical bliss would go nicely with a tourism world & domestic servants, though. Most gene builds are slave/authoritarian focused anyway, so why not have your exotic, drugged-up menagerie of aliens 'servicing' your empire's wealthiest ... in between blood & bone-marrow extractions.

 

[nightraven1901]

The bonus trade value from chemical bliss would go nicely with a tourism world & domestic servants, though. Most gene builds are slave/authoritarian focused anyway, so why not have your exotic, drugged-up menagerie of aliens 'servicing' your empire's wealthiest ... in between blood & bone-marrow extractions.

Now, that might work too. I already tend to have a clerk race by 2250; I could make them operate in chemical bliss. They'll never be researching (they're likely to be slaves/serviles) so the penalty wouldn't matter.

Next runthrough: drugged up service staff. I'm more personable when stoned; why not see if works for clerks too? Also: they should be very fertile too. I like happy specialists (sooooooooooooo glad Paradox decided to make them give a happiness buff when they're enslaved like I asked. It's dirty, but it's realistic...) Thanks! I needed a "reason" for my next run

 

[HFY]

Huh. That's a good use of Chemical Bliss (I never use it either in its current configuration) The trick would be in never letting that world take bombardments, as each pop on it would be costly if lost. I mean, we might as well get some mileage out of it, right?

I expect you'd make a copy of the traits you care about across a more populous subspecies, so losing your initial sample might not matter.

(Unless you mean you'd only have access to traits which were originally evolved for that species... but then buying a slave pop for a trait might be deceptive and annoying, unless the UI showed which traits were "legit" and which were artificial.)

 

[nightraven1901]

I expect you'd make a copy of the traits you care about across a more populous subspecies, so losing your initial sample might not matter.

(Unless you mean you'd only have access to traits which were originally evolved for that species... but then buying a slave pop for a trait might be deceptive and annoying, unless the UI showed which traits were "legit" and which were artificial.)

You're right. Any trait I actually wanted would be stored in triplicate.

I actually thought about that second point; slave markets are notoriously dishonest trading sites, they should be trying to up-sell you and make you believe the slaves are more valuable than they are. Of course, there needs to be a recourse for people wronged to make amends- I suggest raidable slave market sites. Wanna rip off my empire? Have some lasers.

 

[Tamwin5]

I think it would be something where once you have the trait, you have it. No losing knowledge due to losing pops (although you might need a special project to study a species to gain access to their traits).

 

[nightraven1901]

I think it would be something where once you have the trait, you have it. No losing knowledge due to losing pops (although you might need a special project to study a species to gain access to their traits).

Ooooooh, like how seeds work in Banished. Yeah, no, that's kinda perfect. It's not like we're much good at synthesizing genes from scratch (normal gene therapy is more around suppressing/altering extant genes to serve our purposes; though, I admit a Stellaris player-empire gets far above modern technological capabilities) and that would neatly represent our nation's genetic storage drives now having access to improved exogenetic materials from new species we encounter.

A +1 for you,

 

[Pancakelord]

So I went diving in to the traits to check something and noticed that it is actually possible to do this.

Robotic traits use a potential check which means that you cannot mod X trait on to a pop unless some conditions are met. Normally this would be "is this thing a robot?" but this can be applied to bio-traits too, here's an example of what I mean (untested)

And then write an an event to run once a month for any country that has gene engineering - it basically scans your empire species (not pops) and if you have trait X in your empire add a national flag (hidden) saying has found_trait_x then you can insert the gene, if not a tooltip would fire saying "We dont have this gene data yet" - if the flag already exists, abort that check for performance reasons.

That's the only way I can imagine it being done, I cant imagine it'd be too hard to implement.

 

[Gundabadguy]

I like this idea a lot. It actually makes the game for realistic. However, I think that when you get the second ascension perk in the Genetic branch then you longer need a species with that trait.

 

[HFY]

Omnicodex random race spawning gets a lot more important with this variation.

(Then if you're a Xenophobe you can eat the genetic contributor pops.)

 

[nightraven1901]

So I went diving in to the traits to check something and noticed that it is actually possible to do this.
View attachment 632220
Robotic traits use a potential check which means that you cannot mod X trait on to a pop unless some conditions are met. Normally this would be "is this thing a robot?" but this can be applied to bio-traits too, here's an example of what I mean (untested)
View attachment 632222
And then write an an event to run once a month for any country that has gene engineering - it basically scans your empire species (not pops) and if you have trait X in your empire add a national flag (hidden) saying has found_trait_x then you can insert the gene, if not a tooltip would fire saying "We dont have this gene data yet" - if the flag already exists, abort that check for performance reasons.

That's the only way I can imagine it being done, I cant imagine it'd be too hard to implement.

And a +1 for you for dedication. I'll need to go through the code in full detail sometime... Grumble grumble reading code grumble grumble.