More Negative Species Traits

[corsairmarks]

Each expansion brings a few new interesting, positive species traits. However, there are many more positive traits than negative traits - and it is a little boring to have the same small few negative traits built-in to the game.

I would like to see more negative traits that cause interesting side effects. I want to differentiate my custom species based on their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

A few "opposite" traits are potentially low-hanging fruit: opposite of Thrifty, opposite of research bonus traits, opposite of resource production traits. However, even these aren't very interesting - they just add more options.

Instead, perhaps traits that add additional upkeep (% or a different resource), or causes Pops of the species to less likely to migrate, or perhaps happiness penalties based on the amount of Pops of other species present.

 

[XCodes]

Decadent is the best trait in the game because it gives your pops an Authoritarian attraction, which gives you an incentive to use it even though it's just a straight negative.

 

[GhostDanny]

Absent minded, this species finds it difficult to focuss on a single task for a prolonged time and often lets their mind wander.
-10% to all job output, -2 traitpoints.
Possible additional effect, slightly higher chance leaders get an additional trait (both good and bad) upon levelling.

Glutinous: This species has a very healthy appetite.
+50% food/mineral/energy upkeep, -1 traitpoint.

Voracious: Some say this species has a bottomless stomach as they can eat far more than the average species.
+200% food/mineral/energy upkeep, -3 traitpoints

 

[Abdulijubjub]

With the exception of research and unity, the traits that reduce resource output would have to be large in effect and weak in points given.

The inverse of Thrifty and Ingenious, for example: take inverse Thrifty, never employ merchants, and it's literally free points. Or run a trade build, and never employ a single technician.

Minerals and food can be less restrictive (with the exception of food reduction on lithoids, which should be blocked). Every biological empire uses both, and Catalytic is weak enough that that synergy is probably fine.

Honestly, I'd rather see "Industrious" repurposed as "reduced upkeep from industrial jobs", Agrarian as "reduced food upkeep on non-artificial worlds" (personal gardens), etc. Then their inverses would be obvious (Sloppy, Gluttonous), and less exploitable.

But I agree, we need more negative traits. Though I'd argue that they did add some (Noxious, Inorganic Breath) they just made them cost points instead of giving them for some reason, despite them being actively detrimental to your empire (not just in opportunity cost). Inorganic Breath, in particular, is just awful. 50 food and 15 CG -> 2 gas is an awful exchange rate. Even for slaves or drones with no CG, you have to be ultra deep into repeatables before the extra farmers make more sense than plopping down a single refiner (and half a miner) and getting gas equal to 200 IB pops with the extra farmers need to support them. Alternatively: 1 extra trait point and -.5 food per pop for .01 extra gas compared to Gaseous Byproducts. /rant

But yeah, there are tons of extra negative traits that would fit right in. -research, -research of a type (inverse to Natural Sociologists), extra consumption of either food or e.g. energy (but actually giving trait points of a negligible benefit for 3 points), extra amenities required, -20% habitability on non-matching climate types (aquatic lite), etc.

 

[HFY]

With the exception of research and unity, the traits that reduce resource output would have to be large in effect and weak in points given.

The inverse of Thrifty and Ingenious, for example: take inverse Thrifty, never employ merchants, and it's literally free points. Or run a trade build, and never employ a single technician.

Sure but that's just normal good play.

Like if you take the Anti-Thrifty you may still get Merchants from Branch Offices -- not your decision, but very likely to happen if you're not genocidal. So you lose out a little on that expected result.

I don't really have a problem with "free points" as long as it has some kind of playstyle impact. Trade can be strong early, when marginal strength differences matter most, so losing out on that seems legit -- even if it falls off later in the game.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

It's fine to have them, they'd just have to be e.g. -25% trade, but only -1 point used, instead of 2 like Thrifty.

Most negative traits are mirrors of their positive. But it's so easy to dodge the drawbacks of these (unlike, say, Repugnant), that they shouldn't give equal payoff. The way you can dodge them is presumably why they haven't been implemented so far.

 

[tanny]

Absent minded, this species finds it difficult to focuss on a single task for a prolonged time and often lets their mind wander.
-10% to all job output, -2 traitpoints.
Possible additional effect, slightly higher chance leaders get an additional trait (both good and bad) upon levelling.

Glutinous: This species has a very healthy appetite.
+50% food/mineral/energy upkeep, -1 traitpoint.

Voracious: Some say this species has a bottomless stomach as they can eat far more than the average species.
+200% food/mineral/energy upkeep, -3 traitpoints

Possibly voracious is the best traits late game. Just put 1-2 agri-world and problem solved. Now, time to reap some juicy benefit of 3 trait points.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Possibly voracious is the best traits late game. Just put 1-2 agri-world and problem solved. Now, time to reap some juicy benefit of 3 trait points.

I think you're overestimating how much farmers make in the late game.

Early game, Voracious would annihilate your economy. A farmer makes 6-7 food. If they eat 3 food each, a full half your population would have to be farmers.

But even late game... 10 base food output and around 3x in multipliers means a farmer will be making around 30 each. Taking Voracious would bring you from less than 3.3% of your population being farmers (probably around 2-2.5, because hydroponics bays offset some of the food) to 10%.

No traits that you buy with 3 points will be worth losing 6.6% of your economy. To put that in perspective, that's basically a trait that says -13% alloys from jobs, -20% research from jobs, and -20% unity from jobs (assuming all your end-economy resources dropped by ~6.6% of the total, with end game modifiers).

-3 points is too weak. To start with it would be insanity, but even late game, it would have to be -5 or -6 points to be worth it. And that's approaching the point of farce ("add Voracious and you can afford whatever traits you want, but good luck").

Even the lesser +50% upkeep one is painful at the start. Going from 10.7% of pops being farmers (3/28, making ~31 food including the base) to 17.8% (5/28) means losing 7% of your pops at the start and a similar percentage going forward. It's basically a stealthy Slow Breeders.

 

[HFY]

However, erven there aren't interesting - they just add more options.

For me, interesting would be a set of trait which impact more than one thing at once.

Overtuned is cool because all the traits have a + and - baked in.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

For me, interesting would be a set of trait which impact more than one thing at once.

Overtuned is cool because all the traits have a + and - baked in.

Tightly coupling a positive and a negative lets them give a powerful positive effect without it being too unbalanced. But other than overtuned and cybernetics (which are just regular, already balanced traits, with a minor penalty), all the current instances of this are kinda... terrible.

Aquatic is currently too weak to be 2 points. Noxious is just an awful trap unless you're going for a meme slavery build. Cave Dweller is just... bad, but like Lithoid, is fixed by allowing xenos into your empire, so it doesn't hurt that much. Inorganic Breath is godawful (it's functionally a negative trait, but costs 3 points for some reason). Exotic Metabolism can be useful, but I mainly use it to have a breeder species that gets converted (painfully, and micro-intensively) to a template without gas upkeep.

The core of the problem is that if you have a positive trait that's supposed to be worth two points with pure positive effects, but the effect is too weak (say, it's half as good as it's supposed to be), then it's overpriced by 1. But suppose you have a trait that's supposed to be worth 2 points, with a positive effect that's supposed to be worth 4 points being canceled out by a negative effect that's supposed to be worth -2. If the positive effect is also overestimated by double, and the negative is underestimated by half, then you can end up with a trait that's costs 2, but is actually worth -2.

Ex. Inorganic Breath. They took a 2 cost trait (+.01 gas per pop) and doubled its effect. "It's worth 4 points, or possibly even more, because you're getting two traits in one; so let's call it 5 points". And they added a negative: "Wasteful seems decent with +10% CG upkeep and -1 points. Let's add 5x Wasteful, and also add food upkeep that costs 1.5x as much as Wasteful, times 5, again. That's like, -2 points, right?" (I have no idea how any thought process produced +50% being reasonable). Then they did some very strange math, and concluded that the two stapled together should cost 3 points.

But it's 12x wasteful (should be maybe -5, since you're only giving up 1 trait pick) combined with a trait that's massively overvalued. People take the motes and crystals ones to cheese edicts at the very start of the game (Volatile Land Clearance for blockers and Crystalline Sensors for corvette exploring), but they're objectively non-effects, past that point. With 1000 pops in your empire, working in research labs that cost .33 gas/crystal/mote per specialist in the relevant building, that 2 cost trait gets you.... 10 of a resources, or enough for 30 researchers/bureaucrats. .01 gas is just totally useless, since you don't even have cheesable edicts at the start. So you end up with a trait that costs 3 points, which is realistically worth -3 or even -4.

The other way: Aquatic was originally envisioned as 0 cost trait ("extra habitability on a single world type, negative habitability on 6 types, and triple the housing penalty on those 6 ought to make it net 0, right?). It then got nerfed to 1 cost, and was still overpowered. So it got nerfed again to 2, and now it's too weak.

 

[HFY]

Tightly coupling a positive and a negative lets them give a powerful positive effect without it being too unbalanced. But other than overtuned and cybernetics (which are just regular, already balanced traits, with a minor penalty), all the current instances of this are kinda... terrible.

Doesn't need to be internally balanced, that's apparently too high a bar, but even with just bonuses or just penalties a complex trait would be interesting if it impacted more than one job stratum. Right now we have 'no-brainer for slaves' and 'no-brainer for scientists' but those are uninteresting to me because they're no-brainers.

Definitely agree about the recent design failures like Noxious.

Something like...

- Diligent: +0.5 minerals as miner, +0.5 engineering as researcher, +10% anomaly chance, -25% survey speed

- Empathic: +1 amenity as clerk / priest / medical worker, +0.5 society as researcher, admiral gains +25% disengage chance

- Efficient: +0.5 energy as technician, -20% bureaucrat / priest / culture worker upkeep

- Biophile: -10% CG upkeep, bonus from farmer / ranger / medical worker jobs, +10% happiness if planet has a park*, +0.1 amenities used on artificial planets

*) parks include Environmentalist preserves, alien zoo, and some new Amenities buildings

These would all be expensive buffs, but the point is none of them apply to only a single job or even a single stratum.

The other way: Aquatic was originally envisioned as 0 cost trait ("extra habitability on a single world type, negative habitability on 6 types, and triple the housing penalty on those 6 ought to make it net 0, right?). It then got nerfed to 1 cost, and was still overpowered. So it got nerfed again to 2, and now it's too weak.

Aquatic is strong early, weak late -- I tend to genemod it out if I'm fooling around with Bio Ascension simply because I would otherwise lose unallocated points -- which is unfortunate for a flavorful trait.

IMHO Aquatic might be better balanced by costing 2 points / 0 slots, because points are expensive early and slots are relatively cheap, while late-game that relation inverts and you have a lot more points than slots.

It feels depressingly cynical to stand on the early game boost and then shuck the trait when mid-game rolls around.

 

[XCodes]

Aquatic should really just not cost points or a pick, and should be balanced around that. Adjust down the Habitability stuff, keep the housing usage stuff because that's kind of neat and unique, get rid of the stupid resource bonus, and adjust Hydrocentric so that it has another interesting perk to it instead of the kind of buggy "trait amplification" it does now.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

Hydrocentric could literally just the same net effect ("Aquatic pops get +15% to e/m/f on ocean worlds"), in that case. I'd rather it be something with late game relevance, though.

I'd be down for a "10% habitability and -10% housing usage on ocean worlds, -10% habitability and +30% housing usage on non-wet worlds" 0 cost/pick Aquatic, and a flat +15% to worker output on ocean worlds Hydrocentric (in addition to all its other stuff). It might make Hydrocentric actually worth it (giving Aquatic pops 3x the net worker ouput from the civic pick).

 

[GhostDanny]

Hydrocentric could literally just the same net effect ("Aquatic pops get +15% to e/m/f on ocean worlds"), in that case. I'd rather it be something with late game relevance, though.

I'd be down for a "10% habitability and -10% housing usage on ocean worlds, -10% habitability and +30% housing usage on non-wet worlds" 0 cost/pick Aquatic, and a flat +15% to worker output on ocean worlds Hydrocentric (in addition to all its other stuff). It might make Hydrocentric actually worth it (giving Aquatic pops 3x the net worker ouput from the civic pick).

Aquatics 0 cost, just the +10% hab and housing on Ocean worlds with -20% hab and housing on non wet worlds.
Hydrocentric, then gives the ability to increase size of ocean worlds 3 times and +5% bonus to all job output on ocean worlds and locks in Aquatic on your species.

 

[Wilmfe92]

I very much agree. I also think machines and hive minds have too few traits as they haven't really had many added overtime.

 

[cryptkeeper]

I agree but I would also like if negative trait did not use your trait point limit. That way negative traits would still play a role later in the game.

 

[HFY]

I agree but I would also like if negative trait did not use your trait point limit. That way negative traits would still play a role later in the game.

Unfortunately when you uncap trait slots what happens is that the AI adds every negative trait and then stacks every positive trait and that's boring.

 

[cryptkeeper]

Unfortunately when you uncap trait slots what happens is that the AI adds every negative trait and then stacks every positive trait and that's boring.

interesting didn't know that one. i would still like more negative traits though, especially ones that have some positive but are mostly negative.

 

[HFY]

interesting didn't know that one. i would still like more negative traits though, especially ones that have some positive but are mostly negative.

Me too, and perhaps bigger negative traits could do that job without needing to remove the cap.

 

[corsairmarks]

Yes - I'm mainly looking for a greater variety of built-in point-negative traits. I like the current picks limitation system, and I think it works well with how ascension paths provide ways to increase the number of picks.

HFY's ideas about impacting a variety of thematically-linked (but mechanically separate areas) with a single trait sound compelling as a source of potential positive and negative traits.