1. What's wrong with genemodding?
Pop Modification, or genemodding (as I will be referring to it for the remainder of this post), is an important part of Stellaris that has been around since the very early days. Unfortunately, however, it has seen next-to-no updates since it's initial implementation, all the while the amount and complexity of pops continues to skyrocket with every passing DLC. Once upon a time, a planet could only hold up to 25 pops, meaning that any one empire would find it difficult-to-impossible to reach quad digits, while it is a common occurrence in modern games as we continue to be provided avenues to boost our pop growth without having any real avenue of managing them.
This pop numbers issue is the crux of a lot of modern Stellaris' problems (namely, the LAG), but there are also several other glaring issues with the current iteration of genemodding:
Because genemodding has become such a black hole of micromanagement in a game where you're already expected to keep up with 5 other things happening alongside it, many players (including myself) have flipped off the entire system, save for a single mod upon adopting Bio/Cyber/Synth Ascension where you put Erudite/Efficient Processors on all of your pops and call it a day. And honestly, you can't really blame them. If people wanted to spend hours wiring together the perfect efficient system of units and bonuses, they wouldn't be playing Stellaris, they'd be playing Factorio or Cities: Skylines.
To simplify, these are the glaring problems with genemodding that need to be fixed:
Job Templates is pretty self explanatory. When creating a template, you can also assign a preferred job to that template. Pops of a certain assigned job will have higher weight to take that job compared to other pops on that planet. This might also be nice on a species-by-species basis, so you could manage your xenos better as well without even needing to delve into genemodding.
"But Quinzal," you type, "there are 71 jobs available to player empires! You expect us to make templates for every single job?"
No.
One thing I appreciate about Stellaris is that it put jobs into categories. This is mainly (read: solely) for applying modifiers to the jobs (e.g. A bonus to Miner output will also boost Strategic Resource extractor jobs), but it's the perfect framework for my system.
Suddenly, 71 templates becomes 22.
Still too much? For the purposes of Job Templates, we can narrow things down a little more.
All trait-level bonuses for Artisans and Metallurgists give the same bonuses to both, so we can combine them into, say, "Industrialists". There don't exist trait-level modifiers for the three refinery categories, so these can be included as well.
Soldiers and Enforcers benefit from similar bonuses, so they can be stuck together as "Militia" or something.
Medical Workers, Entertainers, Politicians, Administrators, and Merchants all become "Public Servants", as they all mainly produce Stability, Unity, and Trade Value. Medical Workers are an outlier, but who cares?
Now 22 is 13. That's honestly a perfectly workable number, without even considering that a handful of these categories, Bath Attendants, Bio-Trophies, Knights and Squires, Livestock are unavailable outside of specific circumstances. Now you're down to 8 (9) for normal play:
Well, maybe don't relax yet. We've solved some of the micro, but not all of it, and we still have to do everything manually. This is where the second solution comes in!
3. My second proposed solution: Automodding
I'm on the fence on whether this would manifest as a species right or some planet-level toggle, but this is the crux of the idea:
A technology that you could find right after Gene Tailoring (for biological pops, machines' alternative would be after Machine Template System) would unlock Automodding for your pops. When enabled, the game will check if a pop's job has any Job Templates applied to it. If it does, then the pop will consume 0.5 Society Research per month over the course of a year to automatically change to that template, no fussing required!
To prevent weird flip-flopping issues, a pop can only automod themselves once per decade. Additionally, if for some reason the pop gets kicked out of the job they are modding to, they immediately stop automodding without incurring the cooldown, and can immediately start over if their new job has a template assigned to it.
Once this is in place, all you have to do is set up your templates and turn on automodding, and the game will do all the micromanagement for you! The option will still exist to blanket mod planets if you want, but who likes doing that anyway?
We've now solved issues 1 and 3 from the beginning, no more micro and a whole lot more automation. But there is one more thing I want to touch on...
4. One more small issue: Core Species
With all of this genemodding going on, it might be possible that your 'core template' or 'primary species' or whatever you might call it becomes lost in the web of new, optimized pops. Sure it is nice to have all these Industrious miners, but what if you demolish a district and they get kicked into a job with no template?
In my opinion, this might be best done by simply assigning a 'Core Species' Job Template. This defaults to the species you initially created during empire creation, though it, too, can be changed and genemodded.
'Core Species' will have priority over genemodded species when a pop grows naturally, and will also have priority to appear as Leaders. Their name, plural, and affix will apply to all template variations (unless specified), and will be the name to show up in events.
If Automodding is unlocked and enabled, a pop with a job that doesn't have a Job Template will slowly Automod themselves back to being the Core Species, without any Research upkeep.
Pop Modification, or genemodding (as I will be referring to it for the remainder of this post), is an important part of Stellaris that has been around since the very early days. Unfortunately, however, it has seen next-to-no updates since it's initial implementation, all the while the amount and complexity of pops continues to skyrocket with every passing DLC. Once upon a time, a planet could only hold up to 25 pops, meaning that any one empire would find it difficult-to-impossible to reach quad digits, while it is a common occurrence in modern games as we continue to be provided avenues to boost our pop growth without having any real avenue of managing them.
This pop numbers issue is the crux of a lot of modern Stellaris' problems (namely, the LAG), but there are also several other glaring issues with the current iteration of genemodding:
- There currently exists no way to automate genemodding. Once you have a template built it can be used however many times you want, which is nice, but eventually you get to a point where you have to contend with scrolling through a long list of planets every time you wish to modify pops. Which, depending on your playstyle, can be anywhere as often as once over the course of a game to several times a decade. Bio ascension is the most egregious with this, as while the other 3 ascension types have some sort of automatic assimilation available to them, Bios are just expected to do it all manually.
- Despite there existing mechanics to suggest that genemodding could be used to specialize specific jobs (e.g. pops having a higher weight to take a job if they have a trait that would improve output), you can only modify pops on the scale of entire planets, which, depending on what traits get switched around, can lead to awkward situations as you might be losing out on important bonuses (e.g. You blanket-mod your slave world with a resource output template, causing your Amenities producers to suddenly not be able to keep your stability out of red)
- There does exist some solution to the above issue... if you desire to waste all your unity, energy, and time on resettlement micromanagement (which isn't always an option). Pops don't resettle on their own if they are employed, no matter the nature of the job and their traits. Therefore, your Unity planet full of Industrious pops and your Minerals planet full of Traditional pops will be stuck like that unless you micro the hell out of switching them around, or genemod the planets (looping back into the second problem)
Because genemodding has become such a black hole of micromanagement in a game where you're already expected to keep up with 5 other things happening alongside it, many players (including myself) have flipped off the entire system, save for a single mod upon adopting Bio/Cyber/Synth Ascension where you put Erudite/Efficient Processors on all of your pops and call it a day. And honestly, you can't really blame them. If people wanted to spend hours wiring together the perfect efficient system of units and bonuses, they wouldn't be playing Stellaris, they'd be playing Factorio or Cities: Skylines.
To simplify, these are the glaring problems with genemodding that need to be fixed:
- Lack of automation when dealing with more than one template
- Lack of precision when attempting to modify pops for specific jobs
- Excess of micromanagement needed to make full use out of the system
Job Templates is pretty self explanatory. When creating a template, you can also assign a preferred job to that template. Pops of a certain assigned job will have higher weight to take that job compared to other pops on that planet. This might also be nice on a species-by-species basis, so you could manage your xenos better as well without even needing to delve into genemodding.
"But Quinzal," you type, "there are 71 jobs available to player empires! You expect us to make templates for every single job?"
No.
One thing I appreciate about Stellaris is that it put jobs into categories. This is mainly (read: solely) for applying modifiers to the jobs (e.g. A bonus to Miner output will also boost Strategic Resource extractor jobs), but it's the perfect framework for my system.
- Administrators:
- Bureaucrats
- Mortal Initiates
- Coordinators
- Synapse Drones
- Robot Caretakers
- Managers
- Priests
- High Priests
- Priests
- Death Priests
- Prosperity Preachers
- Telepaths
- Culture Workers
- Culture Workers
- Death Chroniclers
- Rangers
- Evaluators
- Evaluators
- Chronicle Drones
- Synapse Drones
- Artisans:
- Artisans
- Artificers
- Pearl Divers
- Artisan Drones
- Bath Attendants
- Bio Trophies
- Bio-Trophies
- Bio-Assistants
- Chemists
- Medical Workers
- Enforcers:
- Slave Overseers
- Enforcers
- Entertainers:
- Entertainers
- Duelists
- Farmers:
- Farmers
- Anglers
- Titan Hunters
- Knights:
- Knights
- Lord Commanders
- Merchants:
- Merchants
- Clerks (wasn't in the list I took this from but I'm adding it anyway)
- Metallurgists:
- Transmuters
- Metallurgists
- Cata Technicians
- Fabricators
- Odd Factory Workers
- Miners:
- Miners
- Scrap Miners
- Cave Cleaners
- Nemma Miners
- Strategic Resource Miners:
- Crystal Miners
- Gas Extractors
- Mote Harvesters
- Livestock
- Politicians:
- Politicians
- Executives
- Nobles
- Pop Assemblers:
- Roboticists
- Replicators
- Necrophytes
- Spawning Drones (wasn't in the list I took this from but I'm adding it anyway)
- Refiners:
- Gas Refiners
- Gas Plant Engineers
- Researchers:
- Science Directors
- Researchers
- Necromancers
- Brain Drones
- Calculators
- Dimensional Portal Researchers
- Space-Time Anomaly Researchers
- Soldiers
- Squires
- Technicians
- Translucers
Suddenly, 71 templates becomes 22.
Still too much? For the purposes of Job Templates, we can narrow things down a little more.
All trait-level bonuses for Artisans and Metallurgists give the same bonuses to both, so we can combine them into, say, "Industrialists". There don't exist trait-level modifiers for the three refinery categories, so these can be included as well.
Soldiers and Enforcers benefit from similar bonuses, so they can be stuck together as "Militia" or something.
Medical Workers, Entertainers, Politicians, Administrators, and Merchants all become "Public Servants", as they all mainly produce Stability, Unity, and Trade Value. Medical Workers are an outlier, but who cares?
Now 22 is 13. That's honestly a perfectly workable number, without even considering that a handful of these categories, Bath Attendants, Bio-Trophies, Knights and Squires, Livestock are unavailable outside of specific circumstances. Now you're down to 8 (9) for normal play:
- Core Species (I'll explain later)
- Public Servants
- Industrialists
- Militia
- Farmers
- Miners
- Assemblers
- Researchers
- Technicians
Well, maybe don't relax yet. We've solved some of the micro, but not all of it, and we still have to do everything manually. This is where the second solution comes in!
3. My second proposed solution: Automodding
I'm on the fence on whether this would manifest as a species right or some planet-level toggle, but this is the crux of the idea:
A technology that you could find right after Gene Tailoring (for biological pops, machines' alternative would be after Machine Template System) would unlock Automodding for your pops. When enabled, the game will check if a pop's job has any Job Templates applied to it. If it does, then the pop will consume 0.5 Society Research per month over the course of a year to automatically change to that template, no fussing required!
To prevent weird flip-flopping issues, a pop can only automod themselves once per decade. Additionally, if for some reason the pop gets kicked out of the job they are modding to, they immediately stop automodding without incurring the cooldown, and can immediately start over if their new job has a template assigned to it.
Once this is in place, all you have to do is set up your templates and turn on automodding, and the game will do all the micromanagement for you! The option will still exist to blanket mod planets if you want, but who likes doing that anyway?
We've now solved issues 1 and 3 from the beginning, no more micro and a whole lot more automation. But there is one more thing I want to touch on...
4. One more small issue: Core Species
With all of this genemodding going on, it might be possible that your 'core template' or 'primary species' or whatever you might call it becomes lost in the web of new, optimized pops. Sure it is nice to have all these Industrious miners, but what if you demolish a district and they get kicked into a job with no template?
In my opinion, this might be best done by simply assigning a 'Core Species' Job Template. This defaults to the species you initially created during empire creation, though it, too, can be changed and genemodded.
'Core Species' will have priority over genemodded species when a pop grows naturally, and will also have priority to appear as Leaders. Their name, plural, and affix will apply to all template variations (unless specified), and will be the name to show up in events.
If Automodding is unlocked and enabled, a pop with a job that doesn't have a Job Template will slowly Automod themselves back to being the Core Species, without any Research upkeep.
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