Pop modding as Situations: Cooler and also more realistic

[AC1632]

TL;DR: Pop modding via Special Project requires a ton of science and happens all at once, modding via Situation would let pops change over time and prevent micromanagers from completely stalling their research

Currently, pop modding, as well as big ascension projects such as turning your people into cyborgs, are a Special Project that taps an entire branch of science for a period of time, at the end of which all eligible pops are instantly transformed.
This is a pretty sudden process, and anyone that's gotten the big vaccine in the past year or so probably understands the absurdity of everyone on every planet in an empire undergoing the same medical procedure in a single day.
This abstraction made more sense in the past, when Special Projects were all we had, but we have Situations now: Events that can take place over time, with lots of mini events inside of them. Through a Situation, smaller amounts of pops could be subjected to the modding over time at various intervals, with all remaining pops being modded at the very end of the Situation. This would have a much more fluid feel to it.

This would also solve the problem of sacrificing a ton of research in an attempt to create more specialized pops, which requires a lot of different pop modding projects. After the up-front cost of a Special Project to get the ball rolling, the Situation could merely reduce the output of the relevant science by a percentage instead of consuming 100 percent of science output towards the intended goal, allowing the empire's engineers to multitask between inventing variants of their droids, and literally anything else.

All in all, this would make pop modding feel way more realistic, and also be way less punishing to players who want to really micromanage their pops, and allows pop modding to be balanced by, for instance, changing the size of the science penalty, or the number of points needed to advance the Situation, rather than simply adjusting the number of research points needed before the empire can go back to participating in the tech race again.

 

[nat.hol]

It would also be a good opportunity to make it so that pop moddings can fail (completely or partially).
Typically poorly integrated alien species would make the process harder, and projects that involve reducing total gene points or removing emotions should generate backlash (oh sure, I'll gladly take that gene therapy that would make me an obedient little alien... or not!). That could be handled in Situations.

 

[The5lacker]

You could also have your Approach determined how much Research (and possibly Unity) you want the Modding process to consume. You could set it to Passive, Active, or Extreme, which would each consume a % of appropriate Research to add to the situation progression.

 

[Xyre255]

I would also add a resource requirement into pop-modding. Synthetic Ascention doesn't make sense when it is just using engineering research. Like all of those synthetic bodies need to come from somwhere afterall.

 

[mammonmachine]

I think this is a nice idea, especially when it comes to modifications like 'nerve-stapled' which we would expect pops to try to resist.

I do wonder if gene-modding was already quite intensive in terms of micro, and whether this suggestion might make the situation worse? It might be that we would need some quality-of-life improvements to make gene modding a little easier to execute, especially in multispecies empires.

 

[Shaeliss]

Plus, this would also give another function to Gene Clinics. If you already have genetic health workers, you could expect them to help distribute gene therapy.

And it would also deal with the problems of "every single citizen is just taking the gene clinicians at face value when they offer a "therapy" that will turn them into obedient drones (nerve stappling)? Really? There is not a single leaking of internal memos by some sympathetic Egalitarian rabble rousers or filthy Xenophile perverts within my ranks, and even if there were, there is no one willing to lend them an ear that this "therapy" might not be all it's cranked up to be? Hey, even if the therapy is 100% what it's advertised, making them smarter, stronger, healthier and all that with no drawbacks whatsoever, all those Deviant pops that distrust the gov't on principle suddenly go along with the Gov't deciding to "make them better citizens" with no grumbling whatsoever? On the other hand, those more trusting in the gov't what's with their high Governing Ethics Attraction shouldn't be that hard to get on board with the project!".

 

[AC1632]

Plus, this would also give another function to Gene Clinics. If you already have genetic health workers, you could expect them to help distribute gene therapy.

And it would also deal with the problems of "every single citizen is just taking the gene clinicians at face value when they offer a "therapy" that will turn them into obedient drones (nerve stappling)? Really? There is not a single leaking of internal memos by some sympathetic Egalitarian rabble rousers or filthy Xenophile perverts within my ranks, and even if there were, there is no one willing to lend them an ear that this "therapy" might not be all it's cranked up to be? Hey, even if the therapy is 100% what it's advertised, making them smarter, stronger, healthier and all that with no drawbacks whatsoever, all those Deviant pops that distrust the gov't on principle suddenly go along with the Gov't deciding to "make them better citizens" with no grumbling whatsoever? On the other hand, those more trusting in the gov't what's with their high Governing Ethics Attraction shouldn't be that hard to get on board with the project!".

I do like the idea of Situation progress, or the odds of negative events, being influenced by things like pop happiness or gene clinics. There's a lot you could do with this that just wouldn't work with Special Projects.