Amenities and the hive: I have no idea what I'm doing.

[Secret Master]

I've been doing well with hive minds, but there is one aspect to running a hive mind that baffles me: amenities and stability. Now, I do fine with less developed planets. I keep only a few drones on amenities (just enough to keep me at 0) and let the rest of the drones do more important jobs. It's not rocket science.

The problem is when a planet has a population of, say, 100 and lots of buildings. On a planet like that, there might be value in increasing stability through amenities. But every drone on amenities via the maintenance job is one less drone doing actual work. And even on my capital, I might have 20-25 POPs working maintenance just to keep the planet at decent stability. And that's on a planet with perfect habitability.

It looks to me like increasing stability via maintenance drone jobs as a hive mind is a losing battle in terms of efficiency. Why put another 5% of the population on amenities to only get a tiny increase in efficiency from stability? Where is the break even point? If I steal Fen Habbanis (since I can't make an ecumenpolis myself), is there a population point where it makes sense to run tons of amenities to increase stability?

 

[Less2]

I don't think there's ever a time in which an amenities surplus to increase stability is a good idea to pursue. It's just 2-3x less of a good idea for gestalts.

 

[Bouchart]

It's a lot easier to increase mineral/energy/food output than amenities output. Unless you want the horrors of micromanaging a Charismatic slave race to make amenities for you I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[mcolder]

More importantly why does the AI obsessively prioritize maintenance drone jobs??? You can literally be in the red in everything and it would still put drones in maintenance jobs before being forced to put them elsewhere by using job priorities which is a micromanagement nightmare because remembering what you disabled where is really rather bothersome.

High stability does have production benefits though and I think on large developed worlds having the bonuses to production adds up and you don’t have to add districts to admin cap to increase production.

 

[asaz989]

It seems like the AI doesn't even look at current planetary amenities balance when deciding priority for those jobs.

 

[Less2]

High stability does have production benefits though and I think on large developed worlds having the bonuses to production adds up and you don’t have to add districts to admin cap to increase production.

Amenities don't really get any better or worse depending on your population. It takes 200 amenities in a 100 pop planet to provide the same bonus that would take 20 amenities in a 10 pop planet.

 

[mcolder]

Amenities don't really get any better or worse depending on your population. It takes 200 amenities in a 100 pop planet to provide the same bonus that would take 20 amenities in a 10 pop planet.

Right but your raw production on a 10 pop planet doesn’t match the raw production on a 100 pop one, therefore the bonus doesn’t amount to as much in the less populated world.

 

[tobias.mb]

Intentionally overproducing amenities doesn't seem worth it. Especially for Gestalts, since those are really bad at producing amenities. On bigger, urban, worlds you can end up with half the building slots used for maintenance buildings.
imho excess amenities is more useful for regular empires. Just rulers + medics (+ priests - it's a major happiness buff for spiritualists) alone can often be enough to break even on amenities. Then you add commercial zones to improve happiness and in extension overall productivity.

 

[SadNova]

Yes it is an optimization question. So here's the deal:
1. Amenity doesn't modify the output, it is the stability that actually matters.
2. 100% stability gives a 30% buff to all the output. The equation is roughly like: (% of stability-40)/2 = % of buff. eg: 80% stability gives you 20% buff
3. Amenity only yields a maximum of 20% stability (you need about 50 amenities if I remember correctly). More amenities than that are just wasted.
4. Stability is also decided by the average happiness of all the pops. The problem of the hive mind (and machines) is that happiness is fixed at 50%. Therefore you can never get high stability like the organics. The base stability is 50% and amenity gives a max of 20%. That's it.
5. I personally disagree with the idea of a fixed 50% happiness for the hive mind. The hive mind are supposed to be the most stable, organized mind. If it is consistently "less stable", then what's the point?
6. With the current meta, the spiritualists is the best ethics in my mind. They can easily reach 90+ happiness without even thinking. The psionic ascension is also very powerful. The tradeoff of outlawing robots is nothing to compare.

 

[Less2]

Right but your raw production on a 10 pop planet doesn’t match the raw production on a 100 pop one, therefore the bonus doesn’t amount to as much in the less populated world.

Both are percentage based, so it doesn't really matter either way. Getting e.g. +6% production for 10 amenities on a 10 pop planet is the same exchange rate as +6% for 100 amenities on a 100 pop planet.

In fact you can argue that amenities are a worse deal since they stack additively with other bonuses. Amenities are more worthwhile on a starting planet only producing around 120% efficiency compared to a maxed and optimized planet producing at 150% efficiency.

 

[mcolder]

Both are percentage based, so it doesn't really matter either way. Getting e.g. +6% production for 10 amenities on a 10 pop planet is the same exchange rate as +6% for 100 amenities on a 100 pop planet.

In fact you can argue that amenities are a worse deal since they stack additively with other bonuses. Amenities are more worthwhile on a starting planet only producing around 120% efficiency compared to a maxed and optimized planet producing at 150% efficiency.

What I am trying to say is that in terms of actual raw materials not percentage, high amenities would generate more of a tangible bonus if there is already a lot of raw materials produced. It makes no difference if one drone producing 8 energy gets a 10% bonus (that’s only .8 energy) but if 10 drones producing 80 energy total get a 10% bonus then that’s 8 extra energy in that situation. I get what you’re saying about % but at the end of the day how much extra raw materials you get is what matters.

 

[Less2]

What I am trying to say is that in terms of actual raw materials not percentage, high amenities would generate more of a tangible bonus if there is already a lot of raw materials produced. It makes no difference if one drone producing 8 energy gets a 10% bonus (that’s only .8 energy) but if 10 drones producing 80 energy total get a 10% bonus then that’s 8 extra energy in that situation. I get what you’re saying about % but at the end of the day how much extra raw materials you get is what matters.

You don't seem to understand how it works.

If you have 100 pops, you need 200 amenities to get the same bonus that you would get with 10 pops that had 20 amenities. You pay 10x the cost (by needing to produce 10x the excess amenities), for 10x the raw benefit.

 

[Secret Master]

I don't think there's ever a time in which an amenities surplus to increase stability is a good idea to pursue. It's just 2-3x less of a good idea for gestalts.

So, it's not just me being bad at math. There really isn't a compelling reason to optimize amenities when you could put those drones on a job that actually produces something useful for the empire.

It turns out I got Fen Habbanis this game. Just for the lulz, I might take a save when I fill it up, and see if I can produce more alloys by adding alloy jobs (via building slots) or whether I can produce more by adding maintenance jobs and boosting the output of the alloy districts.

I'm guessing I'd make more alloys by just adding alloy buildings, but it's worth looking at.

 

[01d55]

When ordinary empires produce amenities, they are also producing unity or trade value from the same job, so getting some extra productivity can make sense because the pops working amenities are not 100% consumed by the amenities job.

Gestalt maintenance gets nothing except amenities, which obliterates the case for getting more than the minimum requirement.

 

[permeakra]

If I steal Fen Habbanis (since I can't make an ecumenpolis myself), is there a population point where it makes sense to run tons of amenities to increase stability?

You won't be able to run populated Fen Habbanis with amenities significantly above neutral. 250 pops (a fully populated industrial FH) would take ~ 10 fully filled maint depot with 50 maint drones and you would need some sentinel posts as well to suppress deviancy, and there are synapse drones; while there are only 16 building slots on the planet.

Hiveminds are so bad at producing amenities that you NEED to offload everything you can to habitats, because your planets of decent size are mostly filled with amenity and deviancy buildings. Thanks goodness, hivemind habitats are a lot better than those of regular empires.

 

[mcolder]

You don't seem to understand how it works.

If you have 100 pops, you need 200 amenities to get the same bonus that you would get with 10 pops that had 20 amenities. You pay 10x the cost (by needing to produce 10x the excess amenities), for 10x the raw benefit.

I do understand this. What I am trying to convey is how realistic it is to have 20 amenities on a 10 pop planet like what are your districts and buildings in this situation? Do you see what I'm saying? While when your planet gets to 100 pops you need to dump pops in jobs or resettle. Your districts are maxed, your buildings are maxed, so dumping them into Maintenance jobs is to me efficient, because it gives an overall bonus to EVERY job, the building is much cheaper to buy and operate, instead of adding another Alloy Foundry and only getting extra Alloys or only getting extra Research or what have you. Sure if your play style is such that each planet is maxed at one thing I understand how that would be more efficient but if you want an overall bonus to all of your jobs on a planet, dumping excess drones into Maintenance jobs might not be a bad idea once your world is highly populated. Before that it simply doesn't make sense to use high amenities because you don't have enough base production. Additionally, the math is a tad more complicated, there is a 5 Amenities base usage regardless of planet size, so you always pay that, and some traits and techs significantly decrease your Amenity usage.

I am certainly not saying that this area cannot be improved or balanced more.

Also I am personally having somewhat of an issue specializing planets because the economy is so bouncy that I often find myself building for whatever I need at the time wherever that slot is available.

 

[y2Kaje]

When ordinary empires produce amenities, they are also producing unity or trade value from the same job, so getting some extra productivity can make sense because the pops working amenities are not 100% consumed by the amenities job.

Gestalt maintenance gets nothing except amenities, which obliterates the case for getting more than the minimum requirement.

This. I will also add that for 'regular' empires, amenities do not directly increase productivity; rather, they increase pop happiness, which leads to higher pop approval rating and subsequently, higher stability. It's the higher stability that actually provides the production boost.

For Gestalt empires, since happiness is a non-factor for drones, that mechanic is skipped and amenities surplus leads directly to production boost. As others have pointed out, the trade-off isn't really worth it so don't aim for it.

I personally try to keep my amenities and excess housing as close to > zero as possible for gestalts. To accomplish that I try maximize production districts, and use a minimal number of hive districts along with expanded hive warrens and maintenance depots to balance everything out. I don't have a current save to reference, but IIRC I could get by with 2-5 hives and max 2-4 warrens/depots depending on planet size with Mastery of Nature and the extra district from Expansion traditions.

To be fair, this isn't really possible until you unlock hive worlds which allow you to build as many production districts as you want, as well as specialize your planets. Until you reach that point, it's a balancing act and I try to avoid colonizing worlds with a low number of resource districts.

A specialized production world doesn't need that many building slots to function. Consumer goods are a non-issue, and you can offload alloy production to habitats. Ultimately on a specialized production planet I would end up with one fortress, one Unity building, 2 maxed out research labs, the required 2-4 warrens and depots, 1 sentinel post, 1 resource silo, a military academy if I felt like it, the appropriate booster building for production type, and a few strategic resource buildings.

The remainder of my strategic resource buildings would come from dedicated alloy habitats. You also don't need any pop growth buildings after a planet is 'finished', so replace the spawning pools and clone vats if you built one. With only 1 sentinel post you may still get a bit of deviancy on larger worlds, which isn't generally a problem and can even be nullified with a righteous governor if you feel strongly about it. Shopping for the right governor can be a huge pain though, especially once you are way over the admin cap and it costs a ton of energy to keep rolling through leaders. At least once you reach repeatable techs, however, they live a long damn time.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope some of this was helpful

 

[Arkton]

Well I'm really curious how 2.2.3 will impact this. Afaik you will need 1 of 4 Pops for Gestalts in Amenity Production just to break even. Given that you can't increase this production in any way, will probably cripple them even more. Or you are forced to take a trait to offset a nerf.

 

[Spectra Twilight]

More importantly why does the AI obsessively prioritize maintenance drone jobs??? You can literally be in the red in everything and it would still put drones in maintenance jobs before being forced to put them elsewhere by using job priorities which is a micromanagement nightmare because remembering what you disabled where is really rather bothersome.

From common\pop_jobs\04_gestalt_jobs.txt:

maintenance_drone = {
    ...
    weight = {
        weight = @synapse_drone_job_weight
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            has_trait = trait_charismatic
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.5
            OR = {
                has_trait = trait_robot_uncanny
                has_trait = trait_repugnant
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.1
            exists = owner
            years_passed < 1
            owner = { has_valid_civic = civic_machine_assimilator }
            has_trait = trait_cybernetic
        }     
    }
}

From common\scripted_variables\01_scripted_variables_megacorp.txt:

@spawner_drone_job_weight = 10000
@synapse_drone_job_weight = 1000
@warrior_drone_job_weight = 100
@complex_drone_job_weight = 10
@simple_drone_job_weight = 1

Higher weighted jobs will be filled by the job management system before lower weighted jobs. As you can see from the code, maintenance drones are given a base weight of 1000 (which they share with Synapse Drones/Coordinators), which means that this job is prioritized above everything that's not a Synapse Drone/Coordinator job or Spawner Drone/Replicator job.

 

[mcolder]

From common\pop_jobs\04_gestalt_jobs.txt:

maintenance_drone = {
    ...
    weight = {
        weight = @synapse_drone_job_weight
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            has_trait = trait_charismatic
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 0.5
            OR = {
                has_trait = trait_robot_uncanny
                has_trait = trait_repugnant
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.1
            exists = owner
            years_passed < 1
            owner = { has_valid_civic = civic_machine_assimilator }
            has_trait = trait_cybernetic
        }    
    }
}

From common\scripted_variables\01_scripted_variables_megacorp.txt:

@spawner_drone_job_weight = 10000
@synapse_drone_job_weight = 1000
@warrior_drone_job_weight = 100
@complex_drone_job_weight = 10
@simple_drone_job_weight = 1

Higher weighted jobs will be filled by the job management system before lower weighted jobs. As you can see from the code, maintenance drones are given a base weight of 1000 (which they share with Synapse Drones/Coordinators), which means that this job is prioritized above everything that's not a Synapse Drone/Coordinator job or Spawner Drone/Replicator job.

That’s unfortunate as maintenance drones should be the last thing to prioritize or at least no heavier than a regular worker