Thoughts about advanced planet classes (Gaia, Ecumenopolis, etc)

[permeakra]

I don't understand why people are so adverse to making and using rare resources. Sure, use the non-resource intensive stuff first, but if you want to maximize a planet, rare resources are worth using.

Up until very late game you don't want to optimize use of planet, but optimize use of pops.
I do use some rare resources on my regular planets... mostly to run advanced boosters for basic resource production. Anything else isn't worth it, because I hit empire-wide pop deficit much earlier than empire-wide slot deficit and it stays this way for the most of the game. This period is further prolonged by my use of habitats.

 

[Typee]

Not to mention, in the late game minerals become the most critical resource as you're trying to churn out as much alloy as you can. Even the matter decompressor isn't enough at that point, and most of my non-ecu planets are full of mineral districts. So spending a bunch of minerals on rare resource generation isn't really appealing.

 

[Foefaller]

I don't understand why people are so adverse to making and using rare resources. Sure, use the non-resource intensive stuff first, but if you want to maximize a planet, rare resources are worth using.

Maybe they never played a game with the AI mod that makes the AI actually upgrade their buildings?

2.2.4 might be a shock to some of these players

 

[LeanneKaos]

Gestalts have much better basic districts

Hives do. Machines are close to being on par (maybe a slight edge on the Nexus vs city, but not by much; the rest our districts are exactly the same as standard/corp districts.)

and have shorter production chain (they don't use CG and this means a lot).

This is actually a bad thing if minerals are a bottleneck, which your posts imply is commonly the case for you - the longer production chain allows for more bonuses to stack along the way, creating a much more efficient mineral conversion rate by the end (albeit at the cost of pop efficiency.) On top of that, the gestalt base rate on the jobs themselves are relatively bad (our researcher burns 3 minerals for what costs you 1 CG, which is *at most* 1 mineral if you have no bonuses in play.)

So if the issue with advanced buildings lies with mineral efficiency, it should be hitting gestalts even harder. Though I suppose the Hives can power through it with their better districts.

 

[permeakra]

the longer production chain allows for more bonuses to stack along the way

The longer production chain also requires more resources spent along the way, since pops have upkeep.

On top of that, the gestalt base rate on the jobs themselves are relatively bad (our researcher burns 3 minerals for what costs you 1 CG, which is *at most* 1 mineral if you have no bonuses in play.)

Factor in pop CG upkeep. Yes, brain drone burns 3 minerals, but in regular empire researcher himself consumes 0.5 or maybe even 1.0 CG and same for artisan. Also artisans themselves have CG upkeep and non-slave workers have CG upkeep too. Plus most jobs creating amenities for regular empires use CG. Slavers are in a better spot, but they have more problems with crime (albeit crime could use some love)

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Hm. Hiveminds still have working migration mechanics, so apparently everything about overcrowding/unemployment applies to them too. Given that unemployed hive drones produce minerals, things look even better.

 

[LeanneKaos]

The longer production chain also requires more resources spent along the way, since pops have upkeep.


Factor in pop CG upkeep. Yes, brain drone burns 3 minerals, but in regular empire researcher himself consumes 0.5 or maybe even 1.0 CG and same for artisan.

6 minerals, actually. It's 6:2 which 'reduces' down to a 3:1
Adding in general pop upkeep makes it a little better (and a lot more complicated to work out thanks to habitability modifiers) but it still looks like a net loss mineral wise. Unless you're spamming your production on <20% habitability planets and never improving that.

Also artisans themselves have CG upkeep and non-slave workers have CG upkeep too. Plus most jobs creating amenities for regular empires use CG.

Looking through the job list, there are only 3 jobs that create amenities and cost CG (pop upkeep notwithstanding); and all three are giving you something on top of the amenities.
Entertainer: 2 unity + 10 amenities for 1CG. So... 0.1 CG per amenity if we call the unity a token freebie. This is practically free.
Medical Worker: +5 Pop Growth speed, +5 Amenities for 1CG. You're probably running that one for the pop growth boost more than the amenities, so we might as well call them a freebie.
Priest: +2 SocResearch, +3 Unity, +5 amenities for 2 CG. This one's hard to evaluate; worst rate if you're running them primarily for amenities, but I presume one would actually be running them for the whole combination.

Everything else is free, other than the pop upkeep itself. Hell, with the Consumer Benefits policy Clerks actually net you CGs on anything other than Utopian or Chemical Bliss living standards (habitability multipliers notwithstanding.)

That said, I don't really know what proportions of any of those jobs a well-tuned standard or megacorp empire is going to be running. You seem to be taking Temples for granted even more heavily than you do ecus, though, so I imagine you're running a lot of the priests.