They will always struggle with deviancy on big planets with many pops.
So will machine empires, and yet machine empires are overpowered.
Personally, I've never found deviancy to be a problem with gestalts outside of fringe scenarios, and I've never found deviancy + maintenance to require significantly more investment than providing consumer goods in a non-gestalt empire.
Yes they are directly comparable. All you need is to be at +0 consumer goods and you are alright as non-Gestalt. The whole science production chain for non-Gestalt using consumer goods also means that you pay much less minerals per science produces.
Consumer goods require building slots.
Non-gestalts using consumer goods for science means that non-gestalts need building slots for consumer goods factories to keep science up. This eats into building slots, just like gestalts needing maintenance depots or sentinel posts. In the late game, non-gestalts can partially get around this by using high tier buildings or ecumenopoli, but both also require advanced resources.. which also require minerals. There are more factors which go into consumer good production than just the mineral cost, and this is without even considering that hive minds excel at mineral production.
Why would you ever call maintenance drone jobs subjective. Its clearly not. There is no decision whether to use these jobs or not. You have to use them.
There is no decision whether to build housing or not. You have to use it.
You are talking about sacrificing one essential thing (maintenance drone jobs) for another (housing). In either case, you will need to make up the difference elsewhere. The question is what is more valuable to you in the situation you are in. That is a subjective choice.
I have already explained to you that Hiveminds do not even have more Housing than Machines or other empires. Machines get +2 housing per maintenance depot, Hiveminds only ever get +2 if you build your culture worker building (which by the way also only provides up to 7 jobs, instead of 10 for non-Gestalt) then you add that 10% housing reduction for Machines which Paradox decided to not give to Hive worlds for whatever reason.
+2 housing per maintenance depot is a great tradition, and is certainly better than the hive mind variant. I have talked about hive minds having comparatively weak traditions already.
But none of this will change the fact that 5 housing, 1 maintenance drone and 1 technician drone is not strictly better than 6 housing. You are not saying "hive minds have weak traditions and can't get housing from maintenance depots" you are saying that hive mind housing districts are objectively the worse than alternatives. That is not true.
Also, expanded warren vs. upgraded drone storage.
Hive worlds are good because hive mind resource districts are good. A primary benefit of both hive and machine worlds is the ability to ignore resource deposits, and that is a bigger benefit to hive minds than machine empires. Hive worlds can be significantly better than machine worlds at producing food or minerals even with the reduced housing need of machine worlds, and can nearly keep pace with them in producing energy.
Again, I feel like you are doing exactly what you accused me of doing earlier, looking at the raw bonuses and concluding that one option is better, without considering how it interacts with other mechanics.
At this point we have no reason to believe Paradox is even going to do anything for Hiveminds. We have been pointing out the same issues for months and asking for Civic updates. But even when Paradox reworked Warrior Culture in the past, they completely ignored strength of Legions for Hiveminds even though both used to be identical.
I agree entirely. Again, I've made no effort to hide the fact that I think hive mind civics are boring thematically and underpowered mechanically. As said, they've become my favourite type of empire to play, and I want Paradox to work on them and make them better. But I think that's something which should be done regardless of whether hive minds are "underpowered" or not.
Personally, I really don't think they are underpowered, and I wouldn't want to see them generally buffed across the board or their weaknesses removed, because I think that would make them
less unique. Hive minds should have their own playstyle, and I'm fine with them being weaker in some areas provided they are stronger than others, which they currently are.
I think we spend too much time comparing everything to the latest meta builds and demanding everything else be brought up to that level. But I think if we indulge that desire too much, we're going to end up with a very flat and homogeneous game.
maybe i don't need guide but like i say, always got problem with energy 
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