I've been enjoying my current hive mind game, although performance drops are going to kill it in a few game years.
But one thing I don't have a handle on is what targets to shoot for when it comes to optimizing housing, amenities, and stability. Since hive minds don't have happiness or clerks, you pretty much have to track stability to amenities alone. You can't use a resort world to boost amenities, you can't distribute luxury goods, and you can't really enslave POPs or raise their living standards to boost happiness.
So, if you want to really shoot for high stability, you end up having to run a number of maintenance depots. But the more maintenance depots you run, the fewer of other buildings (alloys, research) you can use. This means running high stability is difficult if you actually want a planet to be a forge world, tech world, or a refinery world. (The exception is the First League home world, if you get it. That's a free ecumenopolis for hive minds who can't even normally make one.)
For resource worlds, it's not a big deal. You can put more effort into maintenance depots if that's what you want.
I'm struggling with how to skew my construction. On the one hand, higher stability is basically free stuff. Getting another 5% increase in alloy output is gold. On the other hand, it's opportunity cost. Every maintenance depot on a planet is one less lab or alloy factory. And hive minds don't have holo-theaters and hyper-entertainment forums to boost amenities at the cost of consumer goods. And I can't spam clerks to grab a combination of trade, consumer goods, and amenities.
Should I even be pursuing high stability at all? Does that even make sense in most cases for a hive mind? Would it be better to run just enough amenities on each planet to stay at zero to remain efficient?
Related question: In the old days, I ran my hive mind (non-devouring swarm) as extremely adaptable and rapid breeders. But in the current mechanics, I'm thinking that maybe amenities and housing gene perks are better overall. Or maybe I should run habitability, amenities, and housing traits, and let rapid breeders go. I get so much POP growth from everything else, maybe rapid breeders is obsolete if you focus on edicts, food policy, and cloning.
But one thing I don't have a handle on is what targets to shoot for when it comes to optimizing housing, amenities, and stability. Since hive minds don't have happiness or clerks, you pretty much have to track stability to amenities alone. You can't use a resort world to boost amenities, you can't distribute luxury goods, and you can't really enslave POPs or raise their living standards to boost happiness.
So, if you want to really shoot for high stability, you end up having to run a number of maintenance depots. But the more maintenance depots you run, the fewer of other buildings (alloys, research) you can use. This means running high stability is difficult if you actually want a planet to be a forge world, tech world, or a refinery world. (The exception is the First League home world, if you get it. That's a free ecumenopolis for hive minds who can't even normally make one.)
For resource worlds, it's not a big deal. You can put more effort into maintenance depots if that's what you want.
I'm struggling with how to skew my construction. On the one hand, higher stability is basically free stuff. Getting another 5% increase in alloy output is gold. On the other hand, it's opportunity cost. Every maintenance depot on a planet is one less lab or alloy factory. And hive minds don't have holo-theaters and hyper-entertainment forums to boost amenities at the cost of consumer goods. And I can't spam clerks to grab a combination of trade, consumer goods, and amenities.
Should I even be pursuing high stability at all? Does that even make sense in most cases for a hive mind? Would it be better to run just enough amenities on each planet to stay at zero to remain efficient?
Related question: In the old days, I ran my hive mind (non-devouring swarm) as extremely adaptable and rapid breeders. But in the current mechanics, I'm thinking that maybe amenities and housing gene perks are better overall. Or maybe I should run habitability, amenities, and housing traits, and let rapid breeders go. I get so much POP growth from everything else, maybe rapid breeders is obsolete if you focus on edicts, food policy, and cloning.
