My livestock are leaving. Who said they could do that?

[Secret Master]

I have a weird problem on my worlds.

I recently conquered some POPs as a hive mind, and I am using them as livestock. I have run biological ascension, so I have nerve stapled them, made them delicious, agrarian, and so on. Pretty standard stuff.

But the POPs are declining, even on worlds where they get 100% habitability. They are set to livestock, not purge. What's going on?

 

[Acheron]

I see Population Controls are enabled, could you check if these are the problem? Sorry, mostly play egalitarian, so I have little experience with these.

 

[Derp]

overharvesting

 

[Secret Master]

I see Population Controls are enabled, could you check if these are the problem? Sorry, mostly play egalitarian, so I have little experience with these.

No, they are livestock for a hive mind. You have no other choice but to run population controls.

overharvesting

I don't really think the hive mind can do that, either, even if the livestock are delicious.


What's weird is that I lost 40 POPs that way before the POP decline stopped. Nothing changed in between the screenshot I posted and the population decline stopping.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

Is it possible that the "declining" is just a sign that they are being eaten?

 

[FLESH HUNTER]

They might be migrating away(There was a blue flag for the Livestock that tells you a bit more)

 

[evilcat]

Make some experiments with other speciments.
Maybe you have no migration control so they run away
Maybe you have population control on, so you invite some for dinner, but there will be no newborns.

It is also possible that hiveminds just kill themselves in normal empires from sadness. At least for me they never reproduce. But that could changed in some patch.

 

[VerKer]

What do you expect, you eat them up

 

[HorizonTheory]

They are being eaten. You're a hive mind. You devour other organic lifeforms for your nourishment. This is as expected.

 

[Playwars]

A lot of people said that this should be expected, as they are being eaten. However I'd like to point out that the whole point of livestock is to have a long term source of food, not a fleeting, temporary one. After all, if livestock kills the pops, then what's the point of using it over processing?

Also, for the OP, pop growth mechanic are still wanky as hell, did pop decline stop when your pops arrived at parity ? (50% livestock 50 % hive mind main specie. Assuming you haven't assimilated anyone of course).

 

[pkunk]

What does 'Base decline' mean?

 

[Ryika]

The decline doesn't originate from the livestock slavery type, it originates from the fact that you're a hive mind and they're non-hive mind pops on a hive mind world. Nothing you can do to prevent it, except for integrating them into your hive, at which point I think you can no longer use slavery on them.

So having fully self-sustaining livestock without having to refuel it is not possible as a Hive Mind. Luckily, -5 on ONE pop is really mild, and can easily be countered by just conquering a few planets every now and then. It's very easy to add more pops than you lose for an ever-growing supply of food.

 

[WkoD]

The decline doesn't originate from the livestock slavery type, it originates from the fact that you're a hive mind and they're non-hive mind pops on a hive mind world. Nothing you can do to prevent it, except for integrating them into your hive, at which point I think you can no longer use slavery on them.

So having fully self-sustaining livestock without having to refuel it is not possible as a Hive Mind. Luckily, -5 on ONE pop is really mild, and can easily be countered by just conquering a few planets every now and then. It's very easy to add more pops than you lose for an ever-growing supply of food.

Actually Hive Minds (not Devouring Swarms) COULD use none Hive pops as livestock in the past, so this seems to be a bug or wonkieness in the new pop mechanics. Livestock meaning no pop growth and no decline for affected pops if I remember correctly.

 

[Tea Wolf]

I've (rarely) seen enslaved pops with migration controls enabled emigrate on low-habitability planets as well in my current slaver game, so something is certainly buggy.

 

[Flame13223]

Don't livestock decline automatically? I thought you eat them all over time and you have to keep refreshing your stock...

 

[morangias]

Don't livestock decline automatically? I thought you eat them all over time and you have to keep refreshing your stock...

No, you got it mixed up with Processing, which is a Purge type. Livestock slavery is supposed to be sustainable.

 

[wisecat]

No, you got it mixed up with Processing, which is a Purge type. Livestock slavery is supposed to be sustainable.

"Vote Lrrr - for sustainable human livestock slavery!"

 

[Secret Master]

Folks, I'm not talking about processing. I am using them as livestock (which I've done before as a hive mind). I'm not eating them up. If that is what is happening, then it's a bug. But I don't think that's what happening, as they stopped declining at some point.

They might be migrating away(There was a blue flag for the Livestock that tells you a bit more)

The blue flag is the -20% happiness for being conquered. I did conquer them fairly recently, although I resettled most of them to new planets to dilute their anger until I nerve stapled them.

Also, for the OP, pop growth mechanic are still wanky as hell, did pop decline stop when your pops arrived at parity ? (50% livestock 50 % hive mind main specie. Assuming you haven't assimilated anyone of course).

They did stop declining, but it couldn't have been parity since they were in the minority on all planets after a massive resettlement program.

What does 'Base decline' mean?

Yeah, I have no idea. If I knew what it meant, I could at least know what is causing the decline, and why it stopped.

I've (rarely) seen enslaved pops with migration controls enabled emigrate on low-habitability planets as well in my current slaver game, so something is certainly buggy.

I did wonder if it was habitability at first, but they have 100% habitability.

The decline doesn't originate from the livestock slavery type, it originates from the fact that you're a hive mind and they're non-hive mind pops on a hive mind world. Nothing you can do to prevent it, except for integrating them into your hive, at which point I think you can no longer use slavery on them.

No, it's not that either. None of my worlds are terraformed to a hive world. I've done that before (accidentally) and wiped out my livestock via hive world terraforming. (I forgot to resettle the livestock to my habitats.) If you have a normal world, the livestock for a hive mind are treated like any kind of livestock in a normal empire, except they have stricter restrictions on migration and reproduction.

Again, what's weird is that the decline just magically stopped at some point. I have stable livestock populations again.

I guess I should bug it, but I don't even know what to tell QA.

 

[ciurra]

I have the same problem!

 

[Astax]

There used to be "underground railroad" type mechanic where the slaves escaped. I wonder if that is still around, and working for livestock....