Any Accumulators Robots players out there?

[Invictus5966]

Every game I play with them I only have 3 food districts no matter the planet size. My Exterminators have tons of food and I was wondering if others see that as well. I tried to change my planet type and it always remained three. It was causing food issues rather quickly in the game as that is the first thing I had to build as you start with 0.


Thoughts and inputs are welcome.

 

[Chthon]

One thing that may help with your bad luck (which really seems bad, I have seen many planets with 10+) is that your food buildings should now add extra available districts to build. Plus hydroponic farms which transform a building slot into a agricultural district.

So with the farm bonus building, you can get 2/4 extra districts per planet, and hydroponic the rest that you need.

 

[Dan_Daniel2000]

Every game I play with them I only have 3 food districts no matter the planet size. My Exterminators have tons of food and I was wondering if others see that as well. I tried to change my planet type and it always remained three. It was causing food issues rather quickly in the game as that is the first thing I had to build as you start with 0.


Thoughts and inputs are welcome.

Why do you even need Food as an exterminator?

 

[Invictus5966]

Why do you even need Food as an exterminator?

That was my point. In every game with my Accumulators, that need food, I always have only 3 food districts and no surplus at start. My exterminators who don't need food has lots.

 

[Dan_Daniel2000]

That was my point. In every game with my Accumulators, that need food, I always have only 3 food districts and no surplus at start. My exterminators who don't need food has lots.

Oh, you mean assimilators. Yeah, you start with really low Food Surplus, but I never had Problems with that. Your first Colony should be running long before you get enough Cyborgs on your homeworld to run out of Food.

 

[The Founder]

what is a "Accumulator"?
I know of Normal, Exterminator, Servitor and Assimilator. But no accumulators in Vanilla.
The consensus appears to be that you mean Assimilators?

If you really lack Districts, you can always build Hydroponic Farms.
At latest a second colony is an option. As you got robots, you can even use those districts from any planet - not just the onews you Cyborgs can live on.

I am unsure if Machine Worlds have uncapped districts.

 

[Defiler99]

Machine Worlds have un-capped districts, but they also remove all the Farm districts.

 

[Chthon]

what is a "Accumulator"?
I know of Normal, Exterminator, Servitor and Assimilator. But no accumulators in Vanilla.
The consensus appears to be that you mean Assimilators?

If you really lack Districts, you can always build Hydroponic Farms.
At latest a second colony is an option. As you got robots, you can even use those districts from any planet - not just the onews you Cyborgs can live on.

I am unsure if Machine Worlds have uncapped districts.

If you want food, you need a Gaia planet or Ringworld. Machine Worlds have no food.

 

[The Founder]

If you want food, you need a Gaia planet or Ringworld. Machine Worlds have no food.

What about Habitats? I mean they used to support food, no idea if they still do.

 

[LeanneKaos]

What about Habitats? I mean they used to support food, no idea if they still do.

Only by hydroponics buildings now.

 

[LeanneKaos]

Every game I play with them I only have 3 food districts no matter the planet size. My Exterminators have tons of food and I was wondering if others see that as well. I tried to change my planet type and it always remained three. It was causing food issues rather quickly in the game as that is the first thing I had to build as you start with 0.

Thoughts and inputs are welcome.

Starting planet on my Assimilators does seem to consistently have only 3 possible food districts. I do always start with 1 pre-built though, so I have enough food to get me started; if you don't have that then something is wrong.

 

[The Founder]

As for building it someplace else:
There will a few Planet whose Planetary Features (like Strategic Resource Mine allowers) would be removed if you turned them into Machine Worlds. So those at least would be save from your Terraforming.
Of course as Assimilator you do not want those anyway, because you Cyborgs have a hard time living on them.

 

[Invictus5966]

Starting planet on my Assimilators does seem to consistently have only 3 possible food districts. I do always start with 1 pre-built though, so I have enough food to get me started; if you don't have that then something is wrong.

I have 0 built at the start of the game but I get +1 food per month somehow

 

[LeanneKaos]

I have 0 built at the start of the game but I get +1 food per month somehow

That sounds like you do have one farming district built already: 1 district provides 2 jobs, which would provide 10 food. The planet starts with enough Stability to get a 10% bonus, elevating that to 11 food. You start with 10 cyborg pops, who will eat 10 food, leaving you with a net of +1

Maybe it's just a graphical glitch not showing the built district. Don't suppose you have a screenshot?

Edit: the other thing I'd mention is that the downsides of starvation aren't all that bad with Assimilators anyway. You're a gestalt so the unhappiness penalty is irrelevant, and you're still building machine pops in parallel so losing the pop-growth on the organic half isn't nearly as devestating as it would be for a regular empire.

 

[LeanneKaos]

As for building it someplace else:
There will a few Planet whose Planetary Features (like Strategic Resource Mine allowers) would be removed if you turned them into Machine Worlds. So those at least would be save from your Terraforming.
Of course as Assimilator you do not want those anyway, because you Cyborgs have a hard time living on them.

Ascension Perks in general are something I struggle with on my Assimilators.

I *could* take Machine Worlds, and move the organics off a couple planets (or even colonize them as pure-machine in the first place) to transform into Machine World resource planets, but this involves either spending the credits resettling pops or losing the parallel pop-growth by not colonizing with cyborgs. And I'm not getting full utility out of the perk the way a pure machine empire would. Or I could go with Gaia worlds, and not have to worry about moving the pops. But Gaia worlds don't seem all that impressive for Assimilators either, since we don't actually care about the habitability much (or the happiness at all.) Or I could go neither, and save the perk for... something else.

(Or, y'know, just not care because it seems like Assimilators are at least on the edge of if not completely OP by 2.2.5 anyway so losing a bit of utility on the AP hardly matters...)

 

[The Founder]

But Gaia worlds don't seem all that impressive for Assimilators either, since we don't actually care about the habitability much (or the happiness at all.)

2.2 made habitaibiltiy a lot more important. As it affects Food, Housing and Amenity upkeep it is very relevant.
it used to be a non-issue for Hiveminds prior to 2.2. But the rework realy limited the abuse potential here.

involves either spending the credits resettling pops

Energy is not as much of an issue to begin with for Assimilators. It is easy to overlook that while having to manage food is a bit of a hassle, it also means you need a whole lot less Energy Maintenance.

And then 2.2.5 massively buffed the energy income for machine and Robot Empires: 6 Yield from Techdrones, +2/+4 Energy or Mineral districts from Hub Building. And apparently City Districts also grant you a techdrone.

 

[LeanneKaos]

2.2 made habitaibiltiy a lot more important. As it affects Food, Housing and Amenity upkeep it is very relevant.
it used to be a non-issue for Hiveminds prior to 2.2. But the rework realy limited the abuse potential here.

As far as I can see it doesn't affect Housing; just food and amenity upkeep. An old pre-release teaser from Martin mentioned it affecting housing, but it looks like that got scrapped somewhere along the way.

I was more thinking of how the inherent +20% habiltability bonus from cybernetic offsets it already though. Anything of the same type as my homeworld is already 100%, and anything in the same general class is 80% before I start stacking habitability techs. By the time I can open up an Advanced terraforming option, the habitability part is only making a difference on a handful of planets anyway.

But even if I consider habitability I'm back to the same dilemna: do I go Gaia to make those handful of planets friendlier to my cyborgs, keep (or move) my organics off them and turn them into Machine worlds for my bots, or forgo a different perk to do both?

Energy is not as much of an issue to begin with for Assimilators. It is easy to overlook that while having to manage food is a bit of a hassle, it also means you need a whole lot less Energy Maintenance.

And then 2.2.5 massively buffed the energy income for machine and Robot Empires: 6 Yield from Techdrones, +2/+4 Energy or Mineral districts from Hub Building. And apparently City Districts also grant you a techdrone.

True, the energy maintenance is less; but mass resettlement costs still add up and there's always something else I could be doing with that energy instead.

The Nexus Techdrone has been around since 2.2.3. The buff to their output does make them bit more noticeable though.