If you go ocean paradise are Baol and Gaia worlds worthless?

[klopkr]

Me and my friend were playing with the new ocean lover origin and perk and she got the boal. I only got a cursory understanding but do ocean focused empires benefit from Gaia worlds? We were hoping to make cheaper terraforming by using the boal to make gaia worlds then into ocean worlds but you can't terraform a gaia so that doesn't work.

What is the ideal play?

 

[annulen]

Use https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1780597499

 

[Rakonat]

For Ocean Paradise itself, Gaia worlds and enhanced worlds are fine, your Homeworld is just a Size 30 world with benefits.

HOWEVER If you took the Aquatic Trait any world that is not Wet (Ocean, Continental and Tropical) you get -20% Habitability, and the Hydrocentric Ascencion perk (which you get after you acquire terraforming) raises that to -30% habitabilty.

The Anglers Civic also doesn't do anything on non-wet worlds.

So to test it out, my founder species had 48% habitability on the habitat my founder species built above their homeworld. Habitats have a default 70% Hab for everyone, so the trait knocked it down to 40% and I'm not entirely sure where the +8% came from but it's like one of my techs.

TL;DR keep your founder species on Ocean Worlds and use Robots or Migrants to fill out non-ocean worlds you can't terraform into ocean worlds. This makes pretty much makes Habitats, Ring Worlds, Gaia Worlds and Ecumenopolis useless to you if you have the Aquatic Trait as any species with the trait will be using somewhere between 30 to 50% more ameneties and upkeep, while producing 15-25% less until you get enough repeatable techs to improve their habitability and you still have to deal with each Aquatic pop using 30-45% more housing depending if you took the Hydrocentric perk.

 

[Millbot]

The active ability of the artifact from this chain isn't completely worthless for aquatic builds, if you have the influence to spare. From what I understand, you don't get any benefits or negatives for the aquatics trait on Gaia worlds. Also unless you get really lucky on terraforming techs (like you luck into an event that gives you the tech). You're looking at likely have a few decades where you can pop the artifact (for 1 world a decade) and that's the only terraforming ability you have. So in theory, given that you'll eat negatives on habitats unless you go with bots or non-aquatic species, it would be handy to to turn tomb worlds, dry worlds and cold worlds into Gaia world because even if you don't get bonus, you also don't get negatives. This is also accounting for the idea that you'll turn that Gaia world into an Ocean world later.

The one wrinkle is that the secrets of the Baol special project will give you the terraforming tech, if you've already research the tech for uplifting.. Now granted, you might still be better off turning the tomb world into a Gaia because it's going to take time to finish the project and you might not have the energy needed to terraform many worlds. Though only if you're in a spot where there are other worlds that haven't be colonized to terraformed. If the tomb world is the one left to colonize and you have decent research speed, you might be better off waiting for the project complete. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for the tech to terraform inhabited worlds to show up.

Regardless, the Boal chain does guarantee that the project will cut your terraforming costs by 15%. So even if the active on the artifact ends up being useless and it's the only artifact you get. That has some decent value in itself given how good Ocean worlds are for aquatic builds.

 

[Deshiba]

Me and my friend were playing with the new ocean lover origin and perk and she got the boal. I only got a cursory understanding but do ocean focused empires benefit from Gaia worlds? We were hoping to make cheaper terraforming by using the boal to make gaia worlds then into ocean worlds but you can't terraform a gaia so that doesn't work.

What is the ideal play?

So breaking that down into parts there's several things to take note here.

• Do ocean focused empires benefit from Gaia worlds?
  • It depends. The Baol don't only give you gaia worlds, but also pops of a different species. Though your main species might not do particularily well on gaia world, other species will still prefer them. So if you've got other species in your empire trough migration treaties, slavery or other means putting them on a gaia world is still better. Reserve your homeworld for your main species only.
• We were hoping to make cheaper terraforming by using the boal...
  • You don't have to use the boal gaia world feature. The "Secrets of the Baol" artifact action gives you a research, that once completed gives you -15% Terraforming Cost. With the Hydrocentric ascension perk that's another −25% Ocean Terraforming Cost. So that way terraforming will only cost 60% of what it normally would.
• What is the ideal play?
  • Not sure yet. The origin seemed to be bugged so I've not incurred any frozen planets and asteroids yet. it'll depend on that interaction.

 

[Ryika]

TL;DR keep your founder species on Ocean Worlds and use Robots or Migrants to fill out non-ocean worlds you can't terraform into ocean worlds. This makes pretty much makes Habitats, Ring Worlds, Gaia Worlds and Ecumenopolis useless to you if you have the Aquatic Trait as any species with the trait will be using somewhere between 30 to 50% more ameneties and upkeep, while producing 15-25% less until you get enough repeatable techs to improve their habitability and you still have to deal with each Aquatic pop using 30-45% more housing depending if you took the Hydrocentric perk.

Gaia and Ringworlds are locked at 100% habitability, so the penalty doesn't actually apply to them, and neither does the extra housing requirement.
You do lose out on the 10% basic resource production though.

 

[Dragatus]

Gaia worlds have built in +10% happiness and +10% production of all pops and are locked at 100% habitability, which beats +10% worker production and -10% housing usage, so they're still better than generic Ocean worlds, just less so than for other empires. The Ocean Paradise itself though is probably better left as an Ocean world.

 

[Ludaire]

You do lose out on the 10% basic resource production though.

Gaia planets give you a +10% production for all jobs, though, not just basic. Plus a happiness modifier and better carrying capacity for undeveloped districts. The housing usage bonus you lose barely matters, especially since it doesn't affect carrying capacity. So you're still gaining benefits; it's just not as much of a benefit as other species.

If you take the hydrocentric ascension perk, you trade away +15%, so it's less clear cut, though that depends on what you use the world for.

The big thing is that being aquatic doesn't give you any extra benefits in a Gaia world so you essentially have a wasted trait now. Which you could argue means it's a way to reclaim that trait slot and point by ditching the aquatic trait after you start converting things to Gaia.

Anglers is just worse, though, as I imagine you don't get pearl divers, and you definitely don't get unlimited agriculture districts. I haven't tested this yet myself, though.

 

[Dragatus]

Anglers is just worse, though, as I imagine you don't get pearl divers, and you definitely don't get unlimited agriculture districts. I haven't tested this yet myself, though.

The Angler civic benefits only your capital early on and agri worlds later, so turning your forge and tech worlds into ecus or gaias is still beneficial.

So to test it out, my founder species had 48% habitability on the habitat my founder species built above their homeworld. Habitats have a default 70% Hab for everyone, so the trait knocked it down to 40% and I'm not entirely sure where the +8% came from but it's like one of my techs.

You're probably getting -2% from a galactic community resolution. 10% might be from techs though or from Adaptability tradition.

 

[Deshiba]

Not sure yet. The origin seemed to be bugged so I've not incurred any frozen planets and asteroids yet. it'll depend on that interaction.

After playing a bit, since you can only expand every planet 3 times. Best play would be:

• Gaia world decision on small planets
  • Use for mining/generators
  • possibly put your external species here (slaves, migrants, robots)
• Terraform to ocean world on large planets
  • main species go on these

Determine for yourself what your cutoff point would be. 14 and lower, 17 and lower 21 and lower. Play around with what works for you. (or do the math)

 

[GloatingSwine]

After playing a bit, since you can only expand every planet 3 times. Best play would be:

• Gaia world decision on small planets
  • Use for mining/generators
  • possibly put your external species here (slaves, migrants, robots)
• Terraform to ocean world on large planets
  • main species go on these

Determine for yourself what your cutoff point would be. 14 and lower, 17 and lower 21 and lower. Play around with what works for you. (or do the math)

I would rather say that do gaia worlds on specialist worlds and ocean worlds on primary resource worlds.

Aquatic gives you a bonus to primary resources on ocean worlds, so you want to do the gaia decision anywhere you're going to be filling with (non-bureaucrat) specialists to get the production bonuses to those which ocean worlds won't give you.

So gaia/habitat/ecumenopolis for science and industry, ocean for mining, food, and energy. (Bureaucrats and Trade don't care where they go because their outputs don't scale except in as much as you want pops to grow to fill them).

That means yes, the Baol is good for Ocean Paradise because it means you can make very good specialist worlds to go with your very good primary resource production.

 

[Ffc]

Honestly, Aquatic trait should work on Gaia World's, that's the definition of Gaia

 

[Ryika]

Gaia planets give you a +10% production for all jobs, though, not just basic. Plus a happiness modifier and better carrying capacity for undeveloped districts. The housing usage bonus you lose barely matters, especially since it doesn't affect carrying capacity. So you're still gaining benefits; it's just not as much of a benefit as other species.

Yes, but the bonuses you get from your trait no longer apply. So compared to a species without the angler trait, you lose in relative value, because only the species with the Aquatic trait loses those 10% for basic resources if you go from non-Gaia to Gaia world, while everybody gains the Gaia bonuses.

Which is a really weird trade-off, and imho quite inconsistent. There are two penalties to the trait for non-wet worlds, reduced habitability and increased housing. Habitability cannot apply, since ideal worlds are locked at 100%, but housing could apply, yet it has a manual exception for ideal planets coded into the trait. The beneficial effect on the other hand don't have an exception, and as a result do not apply. There's no way you could look at the tooltip and come to the conclusion that this is how the trait works.

Imho, the bonuses should apply to ideal worlds, both for consistency, and because it would feel a lot better.

 

[Quinzal]

Having a few Gaia worlds is a good thing if you're not a xenophobe, since refugees will be heavily weighted toward settling on those Gaia worlds.

I'm playing Ocean Paradise Hydrocentric with 10 Ocean and 1 Gaia world, and every refugee I get gets sent to the Gaia World. Good for big pop growth if there's a genocidal eating the galaxy.

 

[klopkr]

Ok so I'm getting the impression the way to go is to focus on ocean worlds and only have one gaia/ring/habitat for other species to live on.

I didn't realize the boal give a terraforming boost so they're not 100% useless but not amazing and obvious like other empires.

I personally still think Gaia/habitats/ringworlds should count as ocean worlds or have a hydro option but what can ya do!

 

[Dragatus]

Gaias are still better than ocean planets for your industrial and research planets, even for an aquatic. What you want is to use ocean planets as production centers for basic resources (energy, minerals, food), but your alloys, CGs, and research should still be produced on gaia worlds if possible.

Aquatics do benefit less from Baol than normal, but they still benefit somewhat.

 

[Millbot]

Eh, really depends on how you develop you worlds and you empire in general.

Do you do pure specialist worlds, where the only worker pops are clerks because you do need some housing districts? If yes, then this world benefits more from being Gaia because nothing on that world will get a production boost from aquatic trait on ocean worlds. I mean, if all the pops are aquatic, it can get a big trickier in the end game because housing reduction is chronically underestimated by many players. A world that is mostly research labs and industrial districts might be better as an ocean world if all the pops are aquatic and one has hydrocentric because the reduce housing needs might mean you can get by with less districts and building slots providing housing. Thus having more building slots and districts that are being used for production and that could be enough to offset the bonuses of a Gaia world. Also hydrocentric means that you can expand an ocean world up to three sizes larger which gives you more districts, if you have the influence. Granted this is end game and you're probably going to have either won the game by this point or have already sorted out your worlds.

As an aside, the nice thing about the Baol artifact is that you can get Gaia worlds, even if it's at a slow rate of once a decade and costs influence because you don't have to get the world shaper perk. I'd argue that world shaper is hard to justify by. I think hydrocentric is easier to justify because even though I don't think 50 influence for the decision is a great deal. The ability to expand your ocean worlds by three sizes (three more districts, not sure if planet size gives more capacity for pop growth than districts) and all aquatic pops having 15% reduced housing (again this is underestimated even if we're pasted the days where it was extremely good. It's still helping with pop growth by keeping housing needs from eating into things), 15% increased base resource output (mineral, food, energy) and 25% reduction to ocean terraforming costs. Finally, you're going to have Ocean worlds lying around, which means you get to instantly reap the rewards on those worlds, where with world shaper, you have to start terraforming. I will say both are kind of hard to justify because there are many better perk options, though I'd say hydrocentric gets helped if colossus project gets picked because then you can build an instant ocean world terraforming ship.

Anyways, if your research labs go on worlds producing base resources, which is a valid strategy (I prefer to throw them on my industrial worlds, but not everyone does that). Then you probably are better off with those worlds being Ocean. One, unless your at end game, you're likely not going to have tons of researchers on those worlds since every city district to get a building slot could be coming at the expense of a resource district. So you're not losing out on much research. Also this is where housing reduction can really shine because those buildings don't give you housing and base resource districts only give you 2 housing, while adding two jobs. I'd argue the real rush is alloy rushing to build fleets and with the right setups, you can get a sickening amount of additional alloys from a large Gaia world

 

[Deshiba]

Yes, but the bonuses you get from your trait no longer apply. So compared to a species without the angler trait, you lose in relative value, because only the species with the Aquatic trait loses those 10% for basic resources if you go from non-Gaia to Gaia world, while everybody gains the Gaia bonuses.

Which is a really weird trade-off, and imho quite inconsistent. There are two penalties to the trait for non-wet worlds, reduced habitability and increased housing. Habitability cannot apply, since ideal worlds are locked at 100%, but housing could apply, yet it has a manual exception for ideal planets coded into the trait. The beneficial effect on the other hand don't have an exception, and as a result do not apply. There's no way you could look at the tooltip and come to the conclusion that this is how the trait works.

Imho, the bonuses should apply to ideal worlds, both for consistency, and because it would feel a lot better.

If you let the bonuses apply to all "ideal worlds" then all ocean worlds will just be terraformed into Gaia's and all the flavor put into the origin, ascension perk, trait and possibly civic is instantly lost. The trade off now is if you care more about housing on a planet, or if you want the extra production boost to industry. It also gives you a distinct difference between worlds you want your main and your guest species on.

Imho , the bonuses shouldn't apply to ideal worth, both for flavour and because it makes the game more challenging/interesting.

 

[annulen]

If you let the bonuses apply to all "ideal worlds" then all ocean worlds will just be terraformed into Gaia's

To be fair, terraforming to Gaia is not something that everyone can easily do.

 

[Deshiba]

To be fair, terraforming to Gaia is not something that everyone can easily do.

If you roll the baol it's trivial.
Aside from that Gaia's could be gotten trough world shaper, but otherwise the usual play is to go arcology project ascension perk which follows the same pattern.