Gene modification faces several usability problems that really harm its utility and in particular Bio Ascension that relies on it.
as you can see in this Screenshot by using bio ascension i have created several different Variations of my species for every habitat preferance, however modifying them is complicated if i want to apply a new template its often easier to change them all to the same template as you can see one variation has 1000+ creating individual variations for each habitability type would be prohibitively time consuming and difficult.
this is further complicated when it comes to having multiple species in your empire which is easily built up through migration pacts and conquest. migration pacts arent self contained either if empire A has a migration pact with Empire B which has a Migration Pact with Empires C which has pops conquered from Empire D, Empire A even though only having a migration Pact with Empire B will have pops from species of all of the empires as they spread to each empire and then to Empire A, this invariably means for many empires (the ones that arent gennocidal or gestalts that cannot integrate other species) diversity is a thing that happens even in an empire that consumes pops to reproduce or is very founder species Centric as the Goa'uld (all non gould are slaves)
the Issue is further compounded by a screen for applying templates that doesn't give a lot of information, i don't know what each planet is doing when i have 20+, i barely have an idea when im up to 10, i can't sort by the planets so i have to go by subspecies then planet, its too much work and effort to try to split up the templates by habitat preferance and then specialize.
when im finally done with the template i have a special project that ties up my research for years, and i can only do them one at a time, without queuing.
Furthermore as the Screen gets filled with more and more species and subspecies it creates terrible lag that further contributes to a intolerance to deal with the system, in acquiring these screenshots i found several seconds were often necessary to progress a template or even scroll through my species list.
The vision i have for Genetic Ascension is one where you have pops perfectly adapted to each habitat, specialized to each Planets needs, using the custom traits to maximize the productivity of your planets, seamlessly converting your pops to fill the needs of your planets, ideally converting your pops to fill the needs of their jobs, so that my technicians are always ingenious and my Entertainers Always Charismatic, like "A Brave New World".
What we've got makes that dream a distant prospect, its no wonder its considered inferior to Synthetic Ascension, Synthetic Ascension's strength is in its simplicity, the Complexity of Gene Ascension's potential can't be realized resulting in generic species that aren't any more specialized or maybe even less specialized than its competition, Synth Ascended can modify their template as much as they want without worry about habitability or multiple species that further complicate the process.
Suggestion:
First i think Climate Preference must be addressed as in the first screenshot you can see it entirely plagues the Species Screen with something that ultimately isn't very relevant, to what i want to do in this Screen. So first part is that Glandular Acclimation (the tech that gives habitability modification) should be locked behind engineered evolution as long as you have the Utopia DLC, and otherwise should be weighted and marked as a "rare" tech. I'm doing this for 2 reasons, the first is that it is too easy of an alternative to Terraforming, by locking it thus terraforming should be more relevant (im sure some of you have seen the terraforming megathread in the main forums), while Gene Ascension will still get it as their preferred tool for solving the problem of mismatched Habitability. the Second is that i would buff the Glandular Acclimation technology to provide a "Universal" Habitability Preference, it certainly shouldn't be cluttering up your species screen. this Habitability Preference, should also provide a Bonus to Habitability Traits from genetics, I would like to see that combined it will provide the only path to over 100% Habitability, so that picking Traits like Robust and Adaptive are still a positive and thing you want to do with gene ascension.
Second is for converting the Genetic modification Special Project into a expansion of the Assimilation Mechanic, Assimilation will cause pops to be targeted for assimilation, rather than pulling them out of work it should simply apply a modifier that disables their output while they are being assimilated (notably this just means the pops that will be Assimilated Next and not every pop in line to be ascended), this should prevent major economic disruptions from the assimilation process (its why they use a special project now). Furthermore with Genetic Modification you will have the ability to either Assimilate a Species empire wide or by Planet. empire wide modification occurs through the species Screen, and can also be used for updates to particular Subspecies. Planetary Assimilation occurs through the planet population Screen allowing the player to apply custom templates to specific planets, taking advantage of the specialization that can be achieved through Gene Traits to improve productivity through specialization. ultimately the biggest thing that comes out of this change is the seamless modification progress that doesn't require active repeated input from the player.
*Templates are still created in the Species Screen even if applied on the planet level*
Third there should be 2 methods of dealing with Diversity for Genetic ascended Empires, the first method, Uniform Genetic Standards, is to assimilate them all into your main species similar to Synth Ascension this technique eliminates diversity making it easier to control the genetics of your Empire, this method cannot be used by Xenophile Empires as the process innately destroys the diversity that xenophiles celebrate. the Second Method, Diverse Genetic Benefits, is the Method Favored By Xenophiles, while retaining diverse Species Representation, it allows the traits of templates to be shared among all species, Xenophobes cannot Use this method while including their main species. Thirdly, Slaver Empires gain the option to apply different Methods based on whether pops are Enslaved or Free allowing them to better control their slave populations and not treat them as the same as Free Genetically.
Picking Uniform Genetic Standards Will significantly improve the rate at which Modification Projects occur, and provides an additional Trait Point.
Picking Diverse Genetic Benefits will cause the modification projects to remain slow, but will provide each species a Free Trait that no longer consumes a trait pick this trait can only come from their original genetic Template,
Fourth Medical Workers provide +1 Assimilating pops at a time, this should apply with any form of assimilation not just Gene Modification, although Gene Modification may occur more frequently. Medical workers may additionally be a requirement for above 100% habitation (coinciding with its innate habitation bonus) so that their usefulness is not reduced as the game continues, Engineered Evolution may be set up to raise the limit on Gene clinics to 2. allowing 8 pops to be modified at a time and a maximum of 120% Habitability bonus or 130% while also buffing the base habitability buff given by medical workers.
Conclusion: by fixing up Genetic Modification to be more simple and user friendly it can be more usable by players, and used for specialized roles. while this may not solve all of Genetic Ascensions Problems it should go a long way.
as you can see in this Screenshot by using bio ascension i have created several different Variations of my species for every habitat preferance, however modifying them is complicated if i want to apply a new template its often easier to change them all to the same template as you can see one variation has 1000+ creating individual variations for each habitability type would be prohibitively time consuming and difficult.
this is further complicated when it comes to having multiple species in your empire which is easily built up through migration pacts and conquest. migration pacts arent self contained either if empire A has a migration pact with Empire B which has a Migration Pact with Empires C which has pops conquered from Empire D, Empire A even though only having a migration Pact with Empire B will have pops from species of all of the empires as they spread to each empire and then to Empire A, this invariably means for many empires (the ones that arent gennocidal or gestalts that cannot integrate other species) diversity is a thing that happens even in an empire that consumes pops to reproduce or is very founder species Centric as the Goa'uld (all non gould are slaves)
the Issue is further compounded by a screen for applying templates that doesn't give a lot of information, i don't know what each planet is doing when i have 20+, i barely have an idea when im up to 10, i can't sort by the planets so i have to go by subspecies then planet, its too much work and effort to try to split up the templates by habitat preferance and then specialize.
when im finally done with the template i have a special project that ties up my research for years, and i can only do them one at a time, without queuing.
Furthermore as the Screen gets filled with more and more species and subspecies it creates terrible lag that further contributes to a intolerance to deal with the system, in acquiring these screenshots i found several seconds were often necessary to progress a template or even scroll through my species list.
The vision i have for Genetic Ascension is one where you have pops perfectly adapted to each habitat, specialized to each Planets needs, using the custom traits to maximize the productivity of your planets, seamlessly converting your pops to fill the needs of your planets, ideally converting your pops to fill the needs of their jobs, so that my technicians are always ingenious and my Entertainers Always Charismatic, like "A Brave New World".
What we've got makes that dream a distant prospect, its no wonder its considered inferior to Synthetic Ascension, Synthetic Ascension's strength is in its simplicity, the Complexity of Gene Ascension's potential can't be realized resulting in generic species that aren't any more specialized or maybe even less specialized than its competition, Synth Ascended can modify their template as much as they want without worry about habitability or multiple species that further complicate the process.
Suggestion:
First i think Climate Preference must be addressed as in the first screenshot you can see it entirely plagues the Species Screen with something that ultimately isn't very relevant, to what i want to do in this Screen. So first part is that Glandular Acclimation (the tech that gives habitability modification) should be locked behind engineered evolution as long as you have the Utopia DLC, and otherwise should be weighted and marked as a "rare" tech. I'm doing this for 2 reasons, the first is that it is too easy of an alternative to Terraforming, by locking it thus terraforming should be more relevant (im sure some of you have seen the terraforming megathread in the main forums), while Gene Ascension will still get it as their preferred tool for solving the problem of mismatched Habitability. the Second is that i would buff the Glandular Acclimation technology to provide a "Universal" Habitability Preference, it certainly shouldn't be cluttering up your species screen. this Habitability Preference, should also provide a Bonus to Habitability Traits from genetics, I would like to see that combined it will provide the only path to over 100% Habitability, so that picking Traits like Robust and Adaptive are still a positive and thing you want to do with gene ascension.
Second is for converting the Genetic modification Special Project into a expansion of the Assimilation Mechanic, Assimilation will cause pops to be targeted for assimilation, rather than pulling them out of work it should simply apply a modifier that disables their output while they are being assimilated (notably this just means the pops that will be Assimilated Next and not every pop in line to be ascended), this should prevent major economic disruptions from the assimilation process (its why they use a special project now). Furthermore with Genetic Modification you will have the ability to either Assimilate a Species empire wide or by Planet. empire wide modification occurs through the species Screen, and can also be used for updates to particular Subspecies. Planetary Assimilation occurs through the planet population Screen allowing the player to apply custom templates to specific planets, taking advantage of the specialization that can be achieved through Gene Traits to improve productivity through specialization. ultimately the biggest thing that comes out of this change is the seamless modification progress that doesn't require active repeated input from the player.
*Templates are still created in the Species Screen even if applied on the planet level*
Third there should be 2 methods of dealing with Diversity for Genetic ascended Empires, the first method, Uniform Genetic Standards, is to assimilate them all into your main species similar to Synth Ascension this technique eliminates diversity making it easier to control the genetics of your Empire, this method cannot be used by Xenophile Empires as the process innately destroys the diversity that xenophiles celebrate. the Second Method, Diverse Genetic Benefits, is the Method Favored By Xenophiles, while retaining diverse Species Representation, it allows the traits of templates to be shared among all species, Xenophobes cannot Use this method while including their main species. Thirdly, Slaver Empires gain the option to apply different Methods based on whether pops are Enslaved or Free allowing them to better control their slave populations and not treat them as the same as Free Genetically.
Picking Uniform Genetic Standards Will significantly improve the rate at which Modification Projects occur, and provides an additional Trait Point.
Picking Diverse Genetic Benefits will cause the modification projects to remain slow, but will provide each species a Free Trait that no longer consumes a trait pick this trait can only come from their original genetic Template,
Fourth Medical Workers provide +1 Assimilating pops at a time, this should apply with any form of assimilation not just Gene Modification, although Gene Modification may occur more frequently. Medical workers may additionally be a requirement for above 100% habitation (coinciding with its innate habitation bonus) so that their usefulness is not reduced as the game continues, Engineered Evolution may be set up to raise the limit on Gene clinics to 2. allowing 8 pops to be modified at a time and a maximum of 120% Habitability bonus or 130% while also buffing the base habitability buff given by medical workers.
Conclusion: by fixing up Genetic Modification to be more simple and user friendly it can be more usable by players, and used for specialized roles. while this may not solve all of Genetic Ascensions Problems it should go a long way.
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