Gene clinic worth it? Number crunching ...

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aroddo

needs more ponies
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Jan 3, 2013
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I recently watched a couple of Stellaris videos and the youtuber - I think it was Stefan Anon - repeatedly expressed how bad Gene Clinics are, which was strange since I build them nearly every time on every planet, because more pops = good, right?

So I got curious and whipped up a google spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ElSU-anLR-Hg_jTlTX9c7zOgiP2evq_McbbFNqJr9Bk/edit?usp=sharing

Long story short:
A gene clinic takes 2 jobs to operate at 10% growth rate, a cyto-revitalization-clinic 5 jobs.
Those jobs could produce something else instead, so I wanted to find out when free workers, work/month and accumulated work break even.

Result:
With just a Gene Clinic it takes 56 years to break even on available workers, 44 years to break even on work/month and 112 years to break even on accumulated work.
With the Cyto-Center it also takes 56 years to break even on available workers, 50 years to break even on work/month and 112 years to break even on accumulated work.

So, in the looooong run, Clinics are worth it.
But if you decide against them, you'll have 112 years before you regret it.

Also, clinic jobs produce amenities at half the rate of an entertainer, which might make it more worthwhile than the numbers suggest.

But given that there are several other sources for pop growth that don't require jobs - and that you probably want to manually remove the clinics once the colony is full, adding micromanagement - I have to agree with Stefan that clinics are not worth it.

chart.jpg

Chart notes: The areas relate to the right axis (Work/Year). The curves relate to the left axis (Cumulative Work)

To elaborate and to help the discussion a bit:

After about 56 years, both Gene Clinic and Cyto Centers have generated enough extra growth to offset the worker deficit caused by GC and CC. I.e. GC produced 2 extra pops, CC produced 5.
That means, after 56 years the planet can produce other resources on the same level as a planet on year 1 if you never bothered to build those buildings.
After that, however, production due to extra pops over time will outperform the non-clinic planets.

The whole accumulated work the clinic planets didn't do in other areas will take another 56 years - 112 years in total - before you get your investment back.

Population growth

YearBase Planet PopsGene Clinic Planet PopsCyto Center Planet Pops
1555
10 8.60 8.96 9.50
3015.8016.8818.50
5625.1627.1830.20
11245.3249.3555.40
20077.0084.2095.00

Each worker produces 12 units of work per year, every year. This results in

Accumulated Work after X Years

YearBase Planet Accumulated WorkGene Clinic Planet Accumulated WorkCyto Center Planet Accumulated Work
160360
10762540215
303,5723,0452,258
569,8119,1448,146
11233,17133,19033,229
20097,246101,083106,849

As you can clearly see, the big difference lies in the accumulated work in the early years.
The work deficit noticably declines over the years and by year 56 GC has ~90% and CC has ~80% of the accumulated work of the base planet.

I'd say it is a very situational decision if you invest in gene clinics.
In the early game you need resources way more than anything else, so don't build a GC.
If you need rare resources, then you can colonize any planet and instantly pop a Synthetic Crystal Plant for 12 Crystals per year.
By the time, GC and CC planets can afford another building slot (if you just consider natural growth), 12-13 years have passed, during which you didn't produce 144-156 crystals plus all the food/enery/minerals.

However, if things have settled down and you expect decades of peaceful expansion, then by all means, plop a Clinic. You'll probably easily manage to stomach the temporary loss in productivity.
 
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To be honest i dont care if clinics are useful or not. They add a bit of variation to jobs on my planets. Same thing with precint. I can not remember last time i had a rebellion on a planet but i still build precint as my third building.
 
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Gene clinics not only cost jobs that could be doing something useful, but also a building slot. If you are taking about what pays off in the looooong run, that's also relevant.
 
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If you only look at the growth, then yes it is bad. However, it does produce a bit more then just growth. It also produces 5 amenities for 1 Consumer good.
Entertainers produce 10 Amenities and 2 Unity for 1 Consumer good.
Soon after colonisation you will need some source for Amenities, or start going negative. And at that Moment, a T1 Gene Clinic compares favorable to a T1 Theatre. The next time you will need amenities will be 10 pops later.

I never build the T2 Gene Clinic however. By the time I got it, usually I have an issue handling pop growth already.
 
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you can usually get enough amenities by simply build a building district right after a resource district as that gives you one clerk job. I would prefer to see gene clinics offer pure population growth an no amenities.
1 Clerk job gives you 2 Amenities. Of wich 1 is used by the Clerk itself. You just moved the spot 1 pop down the road, but still need a serious source of Amenities.
 
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Yeah if I need Amenities on a planet then I'll usually plop down a Gene Clinic.

Entertainment building is better on a Unity-centric planet but usually the Gene Clinic is first.
 
People get angry because it takes X time for the gene clinic to have produced a whole pop.

Wrong.
It gets you to each pop you would have gotten *a little bit sooner.* And THAT is what can add up.
 
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The +10% pop growth is increased through Specialist multipliers, right?

So Meritocracy would mean +11% pop growth, and so on?


(Heh, now I'm thinking about Very Strong indentured servants with extended shifts ... another +% bonus, somehow through physical prowess and lack of sleep.)
 
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You also can't assume that a Gene Clinic only pays off after 56 years, it will pay itself allot earlier than that as it will make the next POP grow faster, so it will actually start paying as soon as it makes 30 days worth of extra POP growth, which means a POP grow one month before it otherwise should have. This can happen even the month after it is built if you are lucky.

In addition to this the extra Amenities usually mean you don't need to build a Holo Theatre on the planet.

I also play at usually 2x tech rate sometimes more so the extra POP growth is actually worth more to me in general.
 
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Having a Gene Clinic will result in 2 additional pops after roughly 56 years compared to using no Gene Clinic. Using a Robot Assembly Plant instead of a Gene Clinic will result in 14 additional pops after roughly 58 years. Gene Clinics are just a waste of precious buildings slots.
 
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Having a Gene Clinic will result in 2 additional pops after roughly 56 years compared to using no Gene Clinic. Using a Robot Assembly Plant instead of a Gene Clinic will result in 14 additional pops after roughly 58 years. Gene Clinics are just a waste of precious buildings slots.

The Gene Clinic have nothing to do with a Robotic Assembly plant as they do completely different things. There is nothing stopping you from having both either. You build the clinic to get both extra biological POP and Amenities.

In addition to the amenities that clinics get I also think they could potentially lower the penalties for amenities from habitability by 50% on the planet it is build. That would be a thematic use for clinics as you would definitely want to have them on low habitability planets.
 
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One of my ideas to make them better would be to let them allow pops to self modify, letting a pop convert to a template more suited to their job. That way gene clinics would fit their flavor while also letting you go gene modding without lots of micro and sacrificed research points.

Also, add new empire and/or species policies regarding self modification.
 
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One of my ideas to make them better would be to let them allow pops to self modify, letting a pop convert to a template more suited to their job. That way gene clinics would fit their flavor while also letting you go gene modding without lots of micro and sacrificed research points.

Also, add new empire and/or species policies regarding self modification.
Do you want Xeno-Compatability? Cuz that's how you get Xeno-compatibility. Youd create a virtually identicle problem.
 
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Long story short:
A gene clinic takes 2 jobs to operate at 10% growth rate, a cyto-revitalization-clinic 5 jobs.
Those jobs could produce something else instead, so wanted to find out when free workers, work/month and accumulated work break even.
Just to elaborate on these numbers:
Base growth rate is 3 / month. A doctor has +5% growth; that's 0.05*3=0.15 growth / month (and since growth modifiers are additive not multiplikative, it's always the same extra growth). At that rate it takes 100/0.15 ~ 667 month ~ 56 years to grow a pop.
However, since you could simply fire the doctor and employ him in another job, you only actually come out on top (as in pops that work a job other than doctor) after you've grown 2 extra pops (so 2*56=112 years).

And to all, who are replacing the first holo theatre with a clinic: Nope still a bad idea. Even if you consider doctors as half an entertainer, that still means you're "paying" half a pop.
Consider it like this: instead of 2 doctors you employ 1 entertainer. So to break even on available workers you first need to grow a pop. With 2 doctors (= 10% growth = 0.3 / month) that takes 333 month = 28 years. And to actually have an advantage it takes another 28 years (so 56 in total).
And this is still ignoring the unity from entertainers, as well as the better building slot efficiency. (Both are quite important in the early game).

28 years of 1 fewer pop, and extra pops after 56 years might sound like a fair trade-off. Hower in reality pops are a lot more valuable in the early game than they are in the mid- and late-game.


There's a few mods, that make gene clinics worthwhile.
Most popular is to double the output (and upkeep) of doctors. That way doctors generate the same amenities as an entertainer but instead of unity you get some pop growth (and with doubled pop growth bonus it only takes 28 years to "grow back" a pop, which is a lot more reasonable). With this doctors are a proper alternative (or upgrade even) to entertainers (though they need double CGs, so it's not a no-brainer but a proper decision).
Another interesting idea I've seen is to give 10% / 20% habitability on clinics / hospitals. This gives clinics a whole new and unique use. And considering, that 10% habitability is worth 5% production, this actually makes clinics an extremely strong building.
 
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There's a few mods, that make gene clinics worthwhile.
Most popular is to double the output (and upkeep) of doctors. That way doctors generate the same amenities as an entertainer but instead of unity you get some pop growth (and with doubled pop growth bonus it only takes 28 years to "grow back" a pop, which is a lot more reasonable). With this doctors are a proper alternative (or upgrade even) to entertainers (though they need double CGs, so it's not a no-brainer but a proper decision).
Another interesting idea I've seen is to give 10% / 20% habitability on clinics / hospitals. This gives clinics a whole new and unique use. And considering, that 10% habitability is worth 5% production, this actually makes clinics an extremely strong building.
a link to these mods would be appreciated, i love the idea of gene clinics for rp but the inefficiency means i rarely use them

and as to habitability modding i prefer to keep 3 variants of my main species. one type each for dry wet and cold worlds. if i am planning to go synths i don't usually bother though since the research cost isn't worth it for a temporary benefit.
 
Pop growth is indeed a very powerful tool in the current Stellaris econom, but over all the preaching of it I think many people have ended up valuing it to highly in situations were it is not the best solution.