Every other Precursor has universally useful relics/bonuses/resources from completion, except for Zroni... Zroni is COMPLETELY useless unless you want to take psionics, and it kind of forces you to do so (since otherwise, the relic and bonuses are useless). For everyone else, you get a useless system ( Zro you can't harvest) and a mediocre relic. (+20% Ship Damage for 5 years, or a tiny amount of Ruler XP, or +5% stability when activated. Yay?). It just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. You could also argue the same about Baol, since the gaia-seeding is useless for machine empires. So, I say restrict Baol and Zroni to biological empires, and Zroni restricted to non-gestalt. Otherwise, not sure, maybe give the relic some useful passives for non-psionic empires?
Zroni precursor seems pretty useless unless you're going for psionic ascension
- Thread starter SuccZucc88
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Zroni are useless for gestalts (Ariphaos Unofficial Patch even restricts it from gestalts) but actually quite useful for normal, non-psionic empires as well. Zro is extremely valuable, and you get a ton of it, along with a ton of minor artifacts, letting you float your economy on those for decades.
The Baol are crap for machines, so no arguments there. But incredibly good for other empires (pop speed, gaia worlds/free pops, and minor artifacts? Yes please!).
That being said, the precursor that's worst (by far) is the Yuht. Unlike the Zroni/Baol who are useless for a small subset of empires, the Yuht are useless for everyone.
The Baol are crap for machines, so no arguments there. But incredibly good for other empires (pop speed, gaia worlds/free pops, and minor artifacts? Yes please!).
That being said, the precursor that's worst (by far) is the Yuht. Unlike the Zroni/Baol who are useless for a small subset of empires, the Yuht are useless for everyone.
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Why has Paradox let this situation of some precursors being utterly useless persist?
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Zroni also give you...
...a lot of guaranteed Scientist Experience through their many, relatively easy digsites
...an above average amount of Minor Artifacts for a Precursor
...a few Zro deposits on habitable planets (which will be added to your income once colonized, even if you don't have the tech)
...Psionics as a tech option (and 25% free progress on it - only if you're organic of course) through one of the digsites. Even if you're not going for Psy Ascension, that tech has a pretty useful passive bonus of -10% empire size from pops and is quite hard to get if you're not spiritualist and fishing for it with the appropriate scientist. This also means that Zro Distilation and the pretty big economic boost you'll get from harvesting all the Zro spawned by other digsites is only one rare tech roll away.
Is that on par with a free ringworld? Well, it's probably nowhere close. But it's certainly not "COMPLETELY useless" either (unless you're a machine, then that's almost true).
Overall... in a vacuum I actually like how it's designed since it actually gives you a reason to diverge from your original plan... but I totally understand why people find it annoying. It's the only one that pushes you towards a specific playstyle, while the others just give you something that's, more or less, universally useful. I'm not sure a Precursor is really the right place for such a mechanic, especially when it can trigger for empires that really have no use for most of the bonuses.
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Because they apparently don't really give a damn. Precursors are all out of whack. Yuht are beyond useless in every conceivable way. Irassians aren't particularly great either. Zroni are "meh", even with the resources unless you go Psionic it's not really something you'd want.
Precursors really need a balancing pass. Don't nerf the good ones, buff the bad ones. Yuht homeworld, artifact, and or secrets need a buff for example. Irassians are almost as bad, etc.
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The Yuht aren't "beyond useless". They've got the third best home system, and their artifact gives you a bunch of free pops over the course of the game.
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The Yuht home system gives you 10 of all research, same as Irrassian, First League, and Vultaum. 5 exotic gases, once again same as Irassian and Vultaum. If you claim that 10 energy/10 minerals matter in any way I'm going to laugh.
None of those are in the same League as Cybrex or First League. Zroni gives you 5 zro, which is worth much more, Baol gives you a world, also worth more altogether. Yuht is tied with the weaker home systems.
The Yuht "deeper secrets" gives you a completely useless planetary decision one does not need in any kind of way shape or form. Because it has too little impact.
And the Yuht cryo core is about one of the weakest if not the weakest artifact there is. By the time you get it, the initial colonizing frenzy is long since done. Even if you finish it very early on, you will not get any appreciable number of pops out of it throughout the game. Let's be super generous and say you'd get 30 pops out of it. Even 40. Congratulations. You managed to get as much value out of that as taking a single planet from your neighbour around midgame.
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"Not very good" and "beyond useless" are not the same thing. Your argument defeats itself.
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for the same reason paradox hasnt expanded traditions, not given gestalts any mechanics, or ignored warfare
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The only really useless precursor in my opinion are the Irassians... A mediocre home system and an absolut useless artifact active effect. The Zroni on the other hand are maybe the most usefull, enable early psi ascension (even for materialists!), a lot of zro and a good amount of minor artifacts. The only real downside is for gestalts but i'm not sure that gestalts can get the Zroni. And the other major downside at least for me personal....its by FAR the rarest spawning precursor and i would like to see them much more often.
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The Home System is not very good, the Artifact is pretty much useless and has no impact as it both comes too late and brings too little to the table, and the Yuht secrets are beyond useless. Adding all of this up makes it the worst Precursor.
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Be that as it may, it's still better than not getting a precursor at all.
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I mean, yes. Technically. But I have never not gotten a precursor and I've got almost 2k hours in the game.
-10% empire size from pop count sounds nice until you do the math. It's effectively meaningless.
Wrong, you need zro distillation, which is a psionic thing (or at least SUPER rare)
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I think Zro Distilation should be a regular rare tech and not require Psionic Theory so you could at least mine it and sell it on the market or when Unchained Knowledge resoultion five has been passed so you can use the Extradimensional Experimentation decision without jumping through several hoops.
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I'd argue more for the converse: compared to the other two ascension paths, psionic ascension is severely underpowered unless you get the Zroni precursors. The Shroud in particular has a totally different power level with the Psionic Archive versus without it (and it's a passive effect, so you're free to triumph some other relic).
It's a bit of a problem if the devs ever decide to rebalance psionic ascension to make it competitive with synth or bio ascension: if they make psi ascension worth taking without Zroni, it will become OP with Zroni. This is another reason to maybe tone down a bit the ascension-specific benefits of the Zroni while giving more benefits to empires that don't go through psionic ascension.
It's a bit of a problem if the devs ever decide to rebalance psionic ascension to make it competitive with synth or bio ascension: if they make psi ascension worth taking without Zroni, it will become OP with Zroni. This is another reason to maybe tone down a bit the ascension-specific benefits of the Zroni while giving more benefits to empires that don't go through psionic ascension.
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Yeah psi is better for RP/aesthetic, half of the ship parts require amazing rng to A. roll the methods of getting them, and B. actually succeeding the Shroud RNG. Otherwise, synth/bio are much better objectively. It's a shame.
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Yeah it's very wierd... like- why do you need to be a psionic to harvest some funny mind-expanding chemicals? DUMB
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Nah, Irassians are pretty good. But Yuht are shit, yes. (tho lorewise I like them the most)