Bio-Ascension is unplayable, Machine Age makes it more obvious

[secretagentguy]

Bio-Ascension is a micro-nightmare with no ability to clean up the mess on its own. Other paths have solutions. Synthetic lets you turn any organic into your single species, amazing. Its worth taking just for that. Necrophage is worth taking just to reduce the micro for Bio, but it really hurts the game to be forced into an origin just to be able to make Bio usable.

I think the most obvious solution, with plenty of precedent, is to give Bio Ascension "Assimilation" species rights that allows you to take any organic species and turn it into another organic species and any Lithoid species into another Lithoid species. Why wouldn't the masters of biology be able to completely reprogram one organic form into another instead of just adding/removing traits. Its important that this allow for the removal of cybernetic/psionic traits. The other benefit is that since this would not be a completely new mechanic, it could be implemented quickly.

Thoughts?

EDIT:
Lots of good ideas mentioned in this thread here is my updated proposal -

• Species & Subspecies management is insane, especially by late game. The AI drives most of this issue but there needs to be a better way to keep it in check. Think of it like Xeno-Compatibility with no off switch.
• There needs to be a way to consolidate portrait types via assimilation (credit HFY). This wouldn't be a buff like being able to consolidate down into main species, but it would let you bring all Xeno's into a preferred template based on portrait type (Lithoid, Fungoid, etc.) and this could massively simplify management
• Leviathan traits need to be buffed, its just not worth it right now.
• Species Modification shouldn't be done via research any longer, especially with the new research scaling, it should be done by situation or some other method.
• Other Ascension traits need to be removable via Assimilation or Template moddification
• The Plasmic Relic should affect an entire template instead of a planet since it is not removable or able to be added currently. It is adding to subspecies management hell. Imagine a Xeno loving empire using this relic on a planet with 50 species on it and all of a sudden having 50 new templates to deal with. It seems like there would be a performance impact from an atrocity like that.

 

[HFY]

Previously, Bio could turn any species into another species of the same portrait class.

Not sure why this was removed, it was a major convenience feature to have 8 species instead of 800.

I'd like to see that returned, and improved: let me have a favored template for each portrait class and let me assimilate new immigrants into whichever one is appropriate to its category.

 

[GreyJack]

It seems to me like this would make biological ascension a bit too similar to Synthetic ascension. Also, why the focus on bio in this question? Doesn't cybernetic have the exact same problem?

Previously, Bio could turn any species into another species of the same portrait class.

Not sure why this was removed, it was a major convenience feature to have 8 species instead of 800.

When was this the case? I have no memory of this at all. Bio ascension lets you change the portrait of a species to another in the same species class. But I've never seen it allow you to turn a species into a different unrelated species in the same class.

 

[the_unnamed]

I would prefer seeing bio buffed to become competitive with synth yet without becoming a second synth. Psi and bio are (or should be) great picks if you want to stick to your original species and maybe robots or limited assimilation.

 

[Nevars]

Necrophage is worth taking just to reduce the micro for Bio

Spoke like a person who never try necrophage.

No, necrophage is never worth anything unless you are into RP or being masochistic and into micro.

Until dev fix job weight, necrophage will always remains an RP pick.

 

[secretagentguy]

It seems to me like this would make biological ascension a bit too similar to Synthetic ascension. Also, why the focus on bio in this question? Doesn't cybernetic have the exact same problem?


When was this the case? I have no memory of this at all. Bio ascension lets you change the portrait of a species to another in the same species class. But I've never seen it allow you to turn a species into a different unrelated species in the same class.

Cybernetic currently has the same problem, but machine age is changing Cybernetic and I wanted to reserve judgement until those changes are in place. The main issue is the micromanagement required in late game to have a manageable species list. Assimilating doesn't make Bio the same as Synth, it takes the chore out of playing it. You get different traits and a different experience.

If you want to make it really bad, go for a KoTG build with barbaric despoiler and start kidnapping half the galaxy. You end up with 6 or 7 templates for each species and you can't do anything with them, because some are cybernetically ascended, some are latent psionic, some are full psionic and your aren't able to remove those traits. Plasmic Relic only makes all this worse.

 

[secretagentguy]

Spoke like a person who never try necrophage.

No, necrophage is never worth anything unless you are into RP or being masochistic and into micro.

Until dev fix job weight, necrophage will always remains an RP pick.

It sounds like you've never played Necrophage. You can necropurge any species template you don't want into your main species, and if done right, your leaders can live 250 years when stacked with Lithoid.

 

[Caeric]

It sounds like you've never played Necrophage. You can necropurge any species template you don't want into your main species, and if done right, your leaders can live 250 years when stacked with Lithoid.

I personally find Lithoid necro a bit too cheese and gamey, but you're absolutely right, just be xenophobic and necropurge any you don't want.

Only micro is moving one of your regular pops so newly colonised or conquered planets can grow although a sustainable rate of necrophytes can be fiddly at times on new planets

 

[Nevars]

It sounds like you've never played Necrophage. You can necropurge any species template you don't want into your main species, and if done right, your leaders can live 250 years when stacked with Lithoid.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the fact the necrophage trait have no job weight at all.

Meaning that indenture servitude pop will always steal CG and Alloys job from necrophage pops thus make necrophage pops stucked at worker job, wasting their bonus entirely (and got penalty on worker job too).

Even researcher isn't safe too in some circumstance, only priest seem to be the most reliable job (outside of ruler job ofc) that will displaced those slave with necrophage pops.

Sure you can necrophaging all other species away but at that point why even play necrophage to begin with anyway if you are just gonna stripped everything out of them.

Or like I previously said, it's micro heavy.

 

[secretagentguy]

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the fact the necrophage trait have no job weight at all.

Meaning that indenture servitude pop will always steal CG and Alloys job from necrophage pops thus make necrophage pops stucked at worker job, wasting their bonus entirely (and got penalty on worker job too).

Even researcher isn't safe too in some circumstance, only priest seem to be the most reliable job (outside of ruler job ofc) that will displaced those slave with necrophage pops.

Sure you can necrophaging all other species away but at that point why even play necrophage to begin with anyway if you are just gonna stripped everything out of them.

Or like I previously said, micro it heavily.

The job weighting is annoying, but you can get around that by not having any indentured servitude pops and just necrophaging up to the level of main species pops you need to work those jobs.

 

[Nevars]

The job weighting is annoying, but you can get around that by not having any indentured servitude pops and just necrophaging up to the level of main species pops you need to work those jobs.

Sure you can necrophaging all other species away but at that point why even play necrophage to begin with anyway if you are just gonna stripped everything out of them.

At that point why gimping yourself with inferior synth (read pure necrophage)? Why not just play synth (or ME)?

So it's circled back to what I said, playing necrophage is purely for RP.

 

[HFY]

When was this the case? I have no memory of this at all. Bio ascension lets you change the portrait of a species to another in the same species class. But I've never seen it allow you to turn a species into a different unrelated species in the same class.

It used to be that if you set the name & portrait to the same thing, then the new template was part of that other species.

And when you were Bio Ascended, you got access to all templates in the same portrait-group when gene-modding.


Maybe it was around Necrophage that the mechanic broke because IIRC people were using same-name / same-portrait to do funny things with their Prepatent species. But whatever the reason, I want the mechanic back, and improved with some automation ("assimilate to favored portrait-group template").

 

[Incompetent]

Meaning that indenture servitude pop will always steal CG and Alloys job from necrophage pops thus make necrophage pops stucked at worker job, wasting their bonus entirely (and got penalty on worker job too).

If you don't want them stealing Specialist jobs from Necrophages, you can just make them Chattel Slaves (can still become Necrophytes as needed). But I agree, it gets very micro-intensive if you want to ensure that a) Necrophage pops *only* do Specialist and Ruler jobs but b) other species do a mix of Specialist and Worker jobs.

Similarly, if you're trying to keep non-Necrophage species alive but in small numbers, then managing the number of Necrophytes can also get quite tedious. At least with Clone Vats, you can assemble species from template, so you'll never completely run out of non-Necrophage pops.

 

[secretagentguy]

At that point why gimping yourself with inferior synth (read pure necrophage)? Why not just play synth (or ME)?

So it's circled back to what I said, playing necrophage is purely for RP.

Necrophage is the only thing that minimizes micro enough for Bio to make it playable, but I agree with you that it is inferior to synth. A lot of Synth players pick it because Bio is just too much of a hassle. I only mentioned Necrophage as an example of the lengths you have to go through to make Bio decent.

Finally, the issue you described with worker malus doesn't apply to hiveminds. If you want to see necrophage shine, build a Necrophage Terravore. thats a fun and simplified eat everything (including planets) play style. Necrophage Terravore is objectively better than a regular terravore because you don't waste all the pops when capturing a planet.

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

My annoyance is that you can't even consolidate within a species.

This is more of a general problem than with bio-ascension specifically, but there are so many "special traits" that can't be gene-modded to or from that you end up with a silly number of subspecies.

For example:

This isn't too bad, but it's from a live game and will illustrate the point.

At some point, I acquired the uplifted trait. At another point, I acquired members of my main species that are psionic and cybernetic.

This isn't the minimum number of possible subspecies I can have, as some of these can be consolidated, but it's a mini-game to figure out which template can be consolidated into which, as uplifted can't be added while psionic and cybernetic can't be removed.

Problematically, if I continue annexing planets, I'll likely end up with further combinations, such as uplifted psionics, bio-ascended up-lifted psionics, and whatever other possible combinations there are of bio-ascended + uplifted + cybernetic or psionic.

This would be even further complicated if I acquired either bio-habitability or the brain-slugs, which I could have force-spawned from the Shroud enclave.

The game needs to do away with all these random "you can't gene-mod to or from this" trait rule. It creates unnecessary clutter, especially when you end up with combinations of these restricted traits.

 

[Incompetent]

For a typical empire without any strange origins, the benefits of Bio-Ascension come in three levels, in order of priority:
1. Clone Vats (and assimilating to/from Hive-Minded)
2. Making your pops/leaders generically a bit better
3. Specialized traits for specific jobs (including Nerve-Stapled, Delicious, etc)

The main point of the ascension is 1: more pops. If you don't have a neighbour on the wrong side of the Hive/non-Hive distinction, and you don't intend to own many colonies yourself, then don't bother with this ascension. This is a quantity ascension more than a quality one.

Point 2 is a small amount of micro for medium benefit. Yes, if you've already blobbed hard, it can be annoying to run a genemodding project for each species that makes up a major chunk of your population. (Don't worry about 5 pops here and there of some obscure species.) But you can basically make all species the same by deleting all traits and then putting a standard list in place, so once it's done, you don't care any more who is doing which job. Maybe have one Vat-Grown species and only grow that species in your Clone Vats; point is, at this stage you're thinking about broad-brush demographics, not specific job categories and certainly not where individual pops choose to work.

Outside of some niche builds, point 3 is a lot of micro for mostly minor benefit (bearing in mind trait bonuses to jobs are usually just one more % bonus in a giant stack of % bonuses from tech, governors and so on). You can do it if you really want to minmax, but the ascension is fine if you don't.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

As someone who plays genetic ascension more than any other ascension, without necrophage, on GA 25x, playing wide empires... this thread seems a little odd to me.

I'm not aware of it being unplayable. I must have not been playing for the last 1000 hours, then, merely staring at the main menu with the delusion that I was playing. /s

And while it will certainly be weaker than the upcoming machine ascensions (from what we've seen)... "weak" and "unplayable" mean very different things.

Pick a template that you want to grow everywhere; give it Fertile and Exotic Metabolism. Pick a template that you want to assemble everywhere; give it Vat Grown. Restrict the growth of everything else (10% happiness is not a high price for what will soon be a minority in your empire, assuming you don't have so many happiness bonuses that it does nothing at all). Or else set growth on every planet and just accept the -10% growth penalty instead of the happiness penalty (though I think this is a worse option). Integrate new conquests by applying a template post-war, if you have substantial enough numbers to care (e.g. 10 pops of a single species is a rounding error that you should ignore). Convert your growth template pops that auto-migrate to your big planets periodically (will require resetting growth on those planets).

It's not micro hell unless you inexplicably try to put the perfect pop in the perfect job on every single planet, and even that is going away in the next patch with the addition of automodding traits.

 

[Alfray Stryke]

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the fact the necrophage trait have no job weight at all.

Meaning that indenture servitude pop will always steal CG and Alloys job from necrophage pops thus make necrophage pops stucked at worker job, wasting their bonus entirely (and got penalty on worker job too).

Even researcher isn't safe too in some circumstance, only priest seem to be the most reliable job (outside of ruler job ofc) that will displaced those slave with necrophage pops.

Sure you can necrophaging all other species away but at that point why even play necrophage to begin with anyway if you are just gonna stripped everything out of them.

Or like I previously said, it's micro heavy.

Have you filed a bug report for this?

 

[secretagentguy]

As someone who plays genetic ascension more than any other ascension, without necrophage, on GA 25x, playing wide empires... this thread seems a little odd to me.

I'm not aware of it being unplayable. I must have not been playing for the last 1000 hours, then, merely staring at the main menu with the delusion that I was playing. /s

And while it will certainly be weaker than the upcoming machine ascensions (from what we've seen)... "weak" and "unplayable" mean very different things.

Pick a template that you want to grow everywhere; give it Fertile and Exotic Metabolism. Pick a template that you want to assemble everywhere; give it Vat Grown. Restrict the growth of everything else (10% happiness is not a high price for what will soon be a minority in your empire, assuming you don't have so many happiness bonuses that it does nothing at all). Or else set growth on every planet and just accept the -10% growth penalty instead of the happiness penalty (though I think this is a worse option). Integrate new conquests by applying a template post-war, if you have substantial enough numbers to care (e.g. 10 pops of a single species is a rounding error that you should ignore). Convert your growth template pops that auto-migrate to your big planets periodically (will require resetting growth on those planets).

It's not micro hell unless you inexplicably try to put the perfect pop in the perfect job on every single planet, and even that is going away in the next patch with the addition of automodding traits.

You are making valid points but also ignoring a few key things:

1. Micro-hell is why I called it unplayable. The purpose of the ascension is genetic modification. You are saying ignore all the species with lower pop counts, that is conceeding my point which is that you can't effectively use this ascension for what it is designed for (modding species) without massive micro-hell. Even with that, you cannot consolidate templates without purging due to other ascension and non-removable traits that have already been listed.
2. I've absolutely won GA games as bio ascension, that isn't the point. I believe you when you say you can win them too. The steps you have described to make it work are tedious and micro managing compared to just being able to assimilate - I don't know how you could disagree with that.
3. it becomes xenocompatibility all over again, it needs to stop and this ascension should give you the way to do that. Stellaris shouldn't be work. I hope that seriously consider more than just the automod traits, which were a nice start.
4. I don't micro pops between jobs, if I did that I think it would be a full time job.
5. you can only apply one species template at a time, why does it have to stop my research and why can I do only one at a time???

 

[secretagentguy]

Have you filed a bug report for this?

@Alfray Stryke I'm glad to see you were reading this thread, is there anything you are working on beyond the "automod" traits that will help make this ascension less micro?