Just thinking of it more and more. I truly believe that the main issue robots suffer in comparison to hive minds is the difference between technicians and farmers - especially because one of the best ways to overcome the weakness of robots is to not use generator districts and build farms to either sell or convert through their building.
Someone else on the page did the base math to show that at the start of the game the 6 base food produced from a farm gives more energy through trade than a generator district does - before factoring in civic/pop bonuses, technology increases, building support. You can skip technician techs and the energy building and only grab the food ones to go through psychics research faster, and save a building slot by building twice as many food districts with your food processing building on the planet and save a building slot. Heck, you can use that second building slot for a hydroponics farm to get more food to sell/convert (or to put your machine empire converter).
And I think this all extends from the fact that there's a dissonance between food, minerals, and energy in their relative worth in the market, and the production in the jobs. These 'tier one' materials all have the same relative worth before market fee, yet one is 50% better at production, and the rest of the game falls out the way it does because of this fundamental difference. And robots suffer the most because they have higher energy demands, and most people assume that the best way to address it should be building generator districts when its mathematically the wrong course of action.
Personally, I can also speak that as a frequent dry planet player, the time it takes for my (more frequent) generator worlds to begin paying off and boosting my empire rather than draining it in the colonial stage is much longer than it takes for me to get a food world up and going, as well. And despite trying I've never managed to get my energy production to neutral without the use of the market selling food and minerals. And while I do usually use consumer benefits trade policy (which always seems to be worth it for the consumer goods/energy price difference), I've never once thought of producing energy to trade for other goods I've needed... Which should be a way to play the game's economy as well, shouldn't it?
The only problem here is miner jobs. Even without trying I usually find myself swimming in mineral production (unless I over invest into consumer good/alloy production, but by then I have numerous worlds that have bought their 1000+ mineral building upgrades). Minerals also usually sell and buy at high amounts because of demand for investing into the economy, so giving the same treatment to minerals seems like its less needed. But if technicians produce 6 energy and miners 4, I think we'd be looking at the same issue where people would build generators only and not mining districts, because even if the supply/demand curve increases the price, it still might be worth it over making worlds more efficient building/specialization/technology wise. My only thought is that perhaps that buildings/districts might have a mineral cost as well as an energy cost (to reflect the resources required to maintain their structures as well as labor costs). But on the other hand, I'm already flooding in minerals anyway, so it won't exactly be changing much in how I play - and the mid to late game economy is dominated by consumer goods/alloy/technology production buildings anyway.
TL;DR: Technicians and Miners should produce 6 each rather than 4, like farmers, because as is generators are pointless in compared to investing into more farms to sell/convert food 99% of the time. And if technicians are changed, miners might suffer the same treatment because now you won't get double pinged by the trade fee like you would going from food > energy > minerals. And maybe planetary economic buildings should have a mineral upkeep to balance out the larger glut in minerals, if at all.
Someone else on the page did the base math to show that at the start of the game the 6 base food produced from a farm gives more energy through trade than a generator district does - before factoring in civic/pop bonuses, technology increases, building support. You can skip technician techs and the energy building and only grab the food ones to go through psychics research faster, and save a building slot by building twice as many food districts with your food processing building on the planet and save a building slot. Heck, you can use that second building slot for a hydroponics farm to get more food to sell/convert (or to put your machine empire converter).
And I think this all extends from the fact that there's a dissonance between food, minerals, and energy in their relative worth in the market, and the production in the jobs. These 'tier one' materials all have the same relative worth before market fee, yet one is 50% better at production, and the rest of the game falls out the way it does because of this fundamental difference. And robots suffer the most because they have higher energy demands, and most people assume that the best way to address it should be building generator districts when its mathematically the wrong course of action.
Personally, I can also speak that as a frequent dry planet player, the time it takes for my (more frequent) generator worlds to begin paying off and boosting my empire rather than draining it in the colonial stage is much longer than it takes for me to get a food world up and going, as well. And despite trying I've never managed to get my energy production to neutral without the use of the market selling food and minerals. And while I do usually use consumer benefits trade policy (which always seems to be worth it for the consumer goods/energy price difference), I've never once thought of producing energy to trade for other goods I've needed... Which should be a way to play the game's economy as well, shouldn't it?
The only problem here is miner jobs. Even without trying I usually find myself swimming in mineral production (unless I over invest into consumer good/alloy production, but by then I have numerous worlds that have bought their 1000+ mineral building upgrades). Minerals also usually sell and buy at high amounts because of demand for investing into the economy, so giving the same treatment to minerals seems like its less needed. But if technicians produce 6 energy and miners 4, I think we'd be looking at the same issue where people would build generators only and not mining districts, because even if the supply/demand curve increases the price, it still might be worth it over making worlds more efficient building/specialization/technology wise. My only thought is that perhaps that buildings/districts might have a mineral cost as well as an energy cost (to reflect the resources required to maintain their structures as well as labor costs). But on the other hand, I'm already flooding in minerals anyway, so it won't exactly be changing much in how I play - and the mid to late game economy is dominated by consumer goods/alloy/technology production buildings anyway.
TL;DR: Technicians and Miners should produce 6 each rather than 4, like farmers, because as is generators are pointless in compared to investing into more farms to sell/convert food 99% of the time. And if technicians are changed, miners might suffer the same treatment because now you won't get double pinged by the trade fee like you would going from food > energy > minerals. And maybe planetary economic buildings should have a mineral upkeep to balance out the larger glut in minerals, if at all.
