Are livestock supposed to be so incredibly good?

[morangias]

If livestock is inferior to farming, even in the hands of the most ruthlessly optimizing empire, then every empire who employs livestock does so purely 'for teh evulz'. If it offers superior yields, my ruthless technocracy can tout it as the pragmatic option

 

[Secret Master]

My assumption has always been that livestock was supposed to be superior to farming at lower tech levels.

In some previous versions of the game, due to livestock taking up one tile just like a farmer, there were incentives to move past livestock at certain points when stacking modifiers. But now that we don't have tiles, the efficiency of livestock is partially a product of housing versus food output.

I wonder if there are other messed up things you can do with livestock. Thrall worlds? Ecumenpolis? Hmm...

 

[westamastaflash]

I like the old devouring swarm method of turning pops into food, where they decline as they are converted into food for the growing zerg brood.

Livestock as slaves are a fun mechanic thematically, but never really made sense logically, unless your species are like Space Ithillids or something and need sentient brains for sustenance... And logically all livestock produce less output calories than input calories. If your Space-Cats can only eat meat...

 

[morangias]

Like pretty much every other option we have in Stellaris, it's a sci-fi trope. It's not supposed to make sense

 

[Vanhal]

You know you can also eat pops before you make them docile and delicious, right? And it isn't drastically worse.

Yes, but the point was "yet another OP thing in 2.2", while mine is that if you need this much preparations to make it supposedly OP it isn't really different from any other specialised setup and thus not actually OP. When one take your comment under consideration, it's even more visible. Not to mention by this point it's incredibly easy to be neck deep in food by other means.

 

[dostillevi]

-50 if they are Xenophile.

The modifier isn't that bad, just throw some food at the problem. My neighbor got a nice positive modifier from the food I gave him. Easily large enough to overcome the penalty.

This is hilarious. They dislike you because you prepare sentient species for food, but then they're happy when you give them the chopped up sentients in a nice au jus.

 

[Kinkness]

And now consider you can sell this food in unlimited amounts on the market for energy credits... Why even build energy districts?

Yea I find it funny how everyone is like "OMG you're eating other beings?! How DARE you!" but then you sell presumably their meat on the market and other empires are buying it up... besides the eww factor, it has so many "so incredibly wrong" factors to it..

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

Hmm... Can you put livestock on a resort world? I like to know that my sentient fungus flesh is free-range and organic.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

I like to imagine part of this at higher levels is because you have made a species that self prepares themselves. Not just is treated like none-sentient livestock. But that are like an entire society built to feed itself to you.

Populations of entire cities dedicating themselves to how to be more tasty and nutritious.

 

[Kahldris]

You also need bio ascension for that. So, as in almost every other issue here, specialized late game build. Not really OP.

But Jeezus i wish there was something like that for minerals. For me, the motto of 2.2 is "WE REQUIRE MORE MINERALS!"

What you need is someone who will mine minerals forever. Maybe someone... immortal....

WE WILL SERVE.. FOREVER!!!!

 

[Gyrvendal]

I think this will synergise extremely well with thrall worlds, due to the insanely high growth rate and dirt cheap housing. As others have said, no need for bio ascention, any slaver build can do this very fast. It might no be as efficient, but since you don't need farms it's still pretty great.

 

[westamastaflash]

Proles will provide even more nutrition than higher life forms.

 

[FleetingRain]

Yeahhhh there's something wrong here.

 

[Derp]

im fine with livestock being a very powerful option but the diplomatic repercussions should be more severe: larger negative opinion modifier plus being barred from selling food on the market or trading food to non xenophage empires

 

[Razzlie]

Dump your livestock all on a Lush or Ecumenopolis World, you get another +20%. Gaia adds 10% as well. Works especially well with Ecumenopolis since it has so much housing you barely even see the livestock. But you do need to reserve a spot for the slave processing facility. And you can have them double as slave soldiers for your slave armies!
View attachment 431243

I just wish said slave soldiers would double up as rations on the march.

 

[westamastaflash]

I mean, if I eat them all via 'processing', I get a very large genocidal modifier. But if I just eat them on a regular basis, i get a itty bitty malus.

Also, I get the same food production from puring a pop with or without the 'livestock' modifier.

Purging a pop with the same traits as my livestock (NS, VS, AG, Delicious) yields nearly the same amount of food as if I were to use them as livestock!

Only major benefit is the reduction in housing usage and elimination of unwanted pops.

 

[Less2]

Syncretic Evolution's Servile adds another +10%. Apparently you can taste the subservience.

Very Strong/Agrarian/Repugnant/Nonadaptive produces ~5.5 food per slave on year 1 at a cost of only .25 housing and .75 amenities each. So you can absolutely pack them into any small world with a +food bonus like sardines to feed your whole empire. Does lopside your initial base resources, might want to wait a decade before springing your little "surprise" on them.

 

[Xaos]

If you put your livestock on chemical bliss, do you have to say tell the market that it may contain certain chemicals?

 

[theweepingman]

To serve xenos.

Still, it's a nice bit of information. I'm not entirely certain what I'll make with this, but I'm sure it'll be useful and productive~

 

[Riftwalker]

And now consider you can sell this food in unlimited amounts on the market for energy credits... Why even build energy districts?

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