Robot Civ Pop Growth Traits

[RSOG]

Now that Robot cost is paid over time, traits that affect robot pop growth speed now also affect the total cost to build a pop. I did some math about how the various modifiers interact.

Mineral prices are based on beta-patch. To get the live numbers, multiply by 1.6.

    Growth Trait | Cost Trait | Growth Civic    | Months/Pop | Mins/Pop | Trait Points
 a. None         | None       | None            |  100.0     |  300.0   | +0
 b. None         | Recycled   | None            |  100.0     |  240.0   | -2
 c. None         | Luxurious  | None            |  100.0     |  360.0   | +2
 d. MassProduced | None       | None            |  86.95     |  260.8   | -1
 e. MassProduced | Recycled   | None            |  86.95     |  208.6   | -3
 f. MassProduced | Luxurious  | None            |  86.95     |  313.0   | +1
 g. CustomMade   | None       | None            |  117.6     |  352.9   | +1
 h. CustomMade   | Recycled   | None            |  117.6     |  282.3   | -1
 i. CustomMade   | Luxurious  | None            |  117.6     |  423.5   | +3
 j. None         | None       | RapidReplicator |  83.33     |  250.0   | +0
 k. None         | Recycled   | RapidReplicator |  83.33     |  200.0   | -2
 l. None         | Luxurious  | RapidReplicator |  83.33     |  300.0   | +2
 m. MassProduced | None       | RapidReplicator |  74.07     |  222.2   | -1
 n. MassProduced | Recycled   | RapidReplicator |  74.07     |  177.7   | -3
 o. MassProduced | Luxurious  | RapidReplicator |  74.07     |  266.6   | +1
 p. CustomMade   | None       | RapidReplicator |  95.23     |  285.7   | +1
 q. CustomMade   | Recycled   | RapidReplicator |  95.23     |  228.5   | -1
 r. CustomMade   | Luxurious  | RapidReplicator |  95.23     |  342.8   | +3

My takeaways from this.

1. Custom Made is just awful. It's a 1 trait point flaw that increases your cost/pop by almost as much as a 2-trait point flaw and also slows down pop growth.
2. Recycled is also awful. Take Mass Produced instead.
   
3. Rapid Replicator is worth like 3 trait points. I haven't done comparisons for other civics, but I think it's a must-buy now.
   
4. If you are taking Rapid Replicator, the penalty from Luxurious (2 trait point flaw) is almost entirely negated by Mass Produced (1 trait point bonus). Taking both is better than taking neither - your pops will grow faster and you can spend that trait point on something else.

Taking Mass Produced or Luxurious on their own might be okay, so this leaves options L, M, and O as the only sets of these three traits that are likely to be optimal, depending on how many trait points you need to do the other things you want.

Thoughts?

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

yup, Luxurious, Mass Produced, Durable + [resource specialization] as soon as Robomodding is unlocked.
It's a no-brainer for making early Robots slightly less bad.

I think they need to rethinking Luxurious, with the current mechanics it shouldn't be worth +2 trait points.

 

[Promethian]

Its good to see the hard numbers. I knew growth was best because its the greatest limiting factor. Both my current machine empires have Mass Produced and Rapid Replicator.

 

[devil]

So enhanced memory is not worth it anymore? I was thinking to take, Mass produced, rapid replicator, luxurious and enhanced memory. Not sure about Durable, but with two trait points, I can't make up my mind on what to pick.

 

[Commissar Obvius]

I found this while searching for something about the Luxurious trait not to create double post... so I'll just add my own (in a way a bit unrelated) thought here.

What I was looking at is how the negative cost traits compare to each other - in particular Luxurious (2 TP) vs. High Maintenance (1 TP):

Luxurious - scales with robot growth jobs and translates to +0.6 minerals per 1 growth before any growth multipliers (= 1 Replicator or 0.5 Roboticist). On the other hand, the Power Drills (-2 TP) add exactly +0.6 Minerals production (4 * 0.15), meaning "for free" you can create L+PD combo that pays for itself as long as you have at least as much of these robots working Minerals as you have unmodified growth points. That's hardly a problem, given how limited the pop growth jobs currently are.

High Maintenance - Increases upkeep by 0.1 for each POP. To "offset" it by traits, you would take Superconductive (+0.6 Energy). Now, there are two issues with it:
- it scales with number of POPs instead of number of growth jobs, so if all your robots are HM, you need to have 1SC robot working generators for each 6 POPs to at least break even which is probably still doable, but the net gain on this is rather obviously way lower than the previous case
- it's only worth -1 TP, meaning unlike the L+PD combo this isn't even free in terms of TPs

So, in short, yes, I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion that with the current mechanics, Luxurious isn't worth 2 TPs. I'd even argue that if you don't want to micro manage multiple robot templates too heavily (then again, if someone doesn't want to, maybe they shouldn't play with robots), it is the least detrimental negative trait you can take.

 

[The Boz]

It's really silly how they have cost, and build time, which also affects cost. Really very silly.

 

[EvilTom]

It's really silly how they have cost, and build time, which also affects cost. Really very silly.

I agree. I bet it just got by them and they didn't think about it or notice it.. I'm not sure how it can be resolved maybe consider:

Making the build speed traits increase cost to build, so costs remains the same.
Going back to the old model where you have to pay an initial sum for robots, rather than a monthly cost.
Introduce a slider to alter mineral / energy expenditure to speed up or slow down robot build speed, similar to the food one for organic populations.