New DLC

[Arioch]

Juveniles and Adults have entirely different purposes, so you will want to manually control the conversion; having it happen automatically would not be desirable. It would be like having factories automatically transform into labs.

[zolobolo]

It would be like having factories automatically transform into labs.

Hence my proposal to have fix percentage the pop stratas are heading towards: This way there would never be a case where food or labor production would decrease (in the above example, a factory would never be covnerted but a free lab generated each time 2 factories are built). It would constantly Increase across all types of pops and head towards the target distribution. It would in fact always keep thee percentages unless thrown off by other events like bombing in which case the underrepresented pop type would simply gwo faster.

For the player this does not require any interaction, and there is no downside (no dip in any of the production values)

The drawback of such an automated mechanics would obviously be that the player cannot influence how much percentage of the pop should be "specialised" on coin and research production. The question is if this functionality is worth the micro. If players are expected to create a new Adult pop every time a planets Juvenile pop increases by 2-3 units, then the manual control does not bring much to the table (the process is predictable and cna be fully automatised to concentrate on relevant decisions like research path sleection or fleet positioning)

If manual control is implemented, it woudl likely make sense to have this as a pop action (like forced labor) and not as a production activity (like producing Andorids) as that would ease up the micro of bindingthis mechanic to the planetary production queue MGMT.

[gaerzi]

With automatic system (let's say juveniles have a chance of becoming adults, in the same way as refugees have a chance to assimilate, and populations have a chance of becoming rebels/joining back into the fold depending on their morale; but adults only generate juvenile population) you'd get to a point where eventually the population cap is reached, so no new juveniles are generated, and then the planet will inevitably become fully adult. Since they're sessile, this planet becomes unable of launching colony ships. Your gardener empire could get locked in and fully depend on foreign races for fueling further expansion. The only way out of this would be to have a chance for adult populations to spontaneously decrease (dying off) so as to leave room for more juveniles; or preventing further conversion once a given % of the planet's slots are filled with adults.

So yeah, manual control is much better gameplay even if it's one more thing to handle with that faction.

[zolobolo]

you'd get to a point where eventually the population cap is reached, so no new juveniles are generated

This scenario cannot occur when there is a cap of percentage of pop types within the race

Example:
1. Planet has 2 Juvenile pops no Adults - no Adult pop produced
2. Planet reaches 3 Juvenile pops - Production of one Adult pop is started and will finish when the fourth Juvenile pops will be created
4. Planet reaches 4 J and 1 A - J is prodiced, A not
5. When planet reaches 6J, "growth" of a second A is started. Untill then, thre is only a single A on the planet

You can also image this as having tow different types of pop all growinh bythemves (and one is not covnerted form another) and the only new elemnt is that growth of the second type of pop has a prerequirement towards available pop of the Juvenile sort

If one wants actual covnersion with this system: the productio of J can be paused untill production of A has finished at step 2: Since +1J -1J and + 1A is the same as +1J + converting 1J to 1A.

There is no loss of existing prodiction ever, and A can never fully populate the whole planet only uptill the specified percentrage (this is defined based on how many J you want ot have supporting 1 A)

[akkamaddi]

A while back (over a year), one of you mentioned about a race that was the typical 4x game's "unfriendly", with minimal diplomacy and other races driven out of their system.

I'm guessing that the polymorphism within the Zubelengen, and that their description fragment in the current files indicating communication has failed, imply that the Zubelengen are the "driven exterminators" of SiS? (Tinkers would be the "assimilators". )

Juveniles and Adults have entirely different purposes, so you will want to manually control the conversion; having it happen automatically would not be desirable. It would be like having factories automatically transform into labs.

Arioch, I suggest you put a pin in that. When the game eventually fleshes out random events, and if they can be race-specific, then "A weird prion on Planet 123 affected part of the population's metabolism before a treatment could be found. One unit of population was forced into early maturation." would be an excellent event. Rare, obviously, but realistic for a society that undergoes metamorphosis.

[Arioch]

With automatic system (let's say juveniles have a chance of becoming adults, in the same way as refugees have a chance to assimilate, and populations have a chance of becoming rebels/joining back into the fold depending on their morale; but adults only generate juvenile population) you'd get to a point where eventually the population cap is reached, so no new juveniles are generated, and then the planet will inevitably become fully adult. Since they're sessile, this planet becomes unable of launching colony ships. Your gardener empire could get locked in and fully depend on foreign races for fueling further expansion.

It would be worse than that; adults produce science and coin, but no labor or food, so every planet would eventually become unproductive and starve.

The number of adults you have on a given planet determines your science output (and inversely, your labor output), so it has to be something the player can choose and control precisely; it takes multiple juveniles to make one adult, so you're reducing the population when you perform this action (slightly similar to sacrificing slaves), so it would not be appropriate for it to happen automatically. You aren't going to want to have that many adults on most of your planets, so I don't expect it to be too burdensome in terms of management. Obviously we'll test it to see if it plays well.

The alternative is to have the ratio controlled by the buildings you construct; so for example if you build two labs, then eventually an appropriate number of adults will appear. That doesn't allow the player to make immediate changes, and it's kind of passive and boring and doesn't give the player a sense of the underlying mechanic: maturation for the Gardeners isn't a natural process, it's an external and deliberate one. The adult collective is essentially a single organism, and it only adds nodes when it decides it needs more capacity.

A while back (over a year), one of you mentioned about a race that was the typical 4x game's "unfriendly", with minimal diplomacy and other races driven out of their system.

I'm guessing that the polymorphism within the Zubelengen, and that their description fragment in the current files indicating communication has failed, imply that the Zubelengen are the "driven exterminators" of SiS? (Tinkers would be the "assimilators". )

Yes, the Gardeners have a difficult time communicating with other species, since their internal communication is almost like telepathy, and they never developed formal language. The current idea for how this is represented is that communication with each alien species is an expensive tech that must be researched, and which can be boosted by obtaining live specimens to subsume (which of course is not likely to please the target race), and even then they may have only limited communications options. But while it may be more expedient in some cases for them to destroy a race rather than learn to communicate with them, the Gardeners are not exclusively hostile.

Arioch, I suggest you put a pin in that. When the game eventually fleshes out random events, and if they can be race-specific, then "A weird prion on Planet 123 affected part of the population's metabolism before a treatment could be found. One unit of population was forced into early maturation." would be an excellent event. Rare, obviously, but realistic for a society that undergoes metamorphosis.

I like your thinking, but in this case metamorphosis isn't really something that could happen accidentally; it takes preparation, group action and direction from the hive mind. Multiple juveniles have to join together into a sort of chrysalis, when then has to be attached by other workers to the "cloister" that is the adult collective.

[akkamaddi]

which can be boosted by obtaining live specimens to subsume (snip snip) However, they are not exclusively hostile.

Alien nudibranch using galactic Google translate: Pardon me, would you mind sending diplomats for cultural exchange?

You: Sure!

Alien nudibranch: Thanks! NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!!

Everyone:

Yeah, inviting diplomats over for dinner... Well, the Gremak would find it a delightful joke.

I like your thinking, but in this case metamorphosis isn't really something that could happen accidentally; it takes preparation, group action and direction from the hive mind.

I don't know the mechanics you have planned. I don't think the event would be an "accident". The idea would be a pathogen triggering the biological metamorphosis process, forcing the issue. There are pathogens that cause changes; for nightmare fuel, do some reading on parasites in gastropods and arthropods. But, it's just an idea.

[Arioch]

I don't think the event would be an "accident". The idea would be a pathogen triggering the biological metamorphosis process, forcing the issue. There are pathogens that cause changes; for nightmare fuel, do some reading on parasites in gastropods and arthropods. But, it's just an idea.

I'm not sure how a pathogen could trigger a metamorphosis that requires more than one individual... but lore considerations aside, I think randomly converting population would be a rather pernicious thing to do to the player, since there's no easy way to correct the change; adults can't be converted back and they can't be moved.

[zolobolo]

communication with each alien species is an expensive tech that must be researched, and which can be boosted by obtaining live specimens to subsume (which of course is not likely to please the target race), and even then they may have only limited communications options.

Sounds like an interesting faction trait and new non-combat research for communication seems fitting for a race titled the gardeners

So if Adults do not produce any food themsves and a planet would starve with only adults, does that mean that they cannot staff Farms either?
I am not against havign a totally different building lineup for the race but it would cause some headache when these planets are captured by other races as well as when gardeners capture other planets (though in the latter case they might have a default event of destroying everything already on the planet)

Even if adults cannot staff farms and factories, nor Juveniles markets or labs, at least mines are safe
There is one common denominator across a wast ocean of interstellar races: namely the capacity to toil in deep deep mines

[gaerzi]

Speaking of staffing: if adult cloister replace labs, I don't suppose that the other races can staff these lab replacements. At least not without being subsumed. How would they interface with the cloister?

[Arioch]

So if Adults do not produce any food themsves and a planet would starve with only adults, does that mean that they cannot staff Farms either?
I am not against havign a totally different building lineup for the race but it would cause some headache when these planets are captured by other races as well as when gardeners capture other planets (though in the latter case they might have a default event of destroying everything already on the planet)

Even if adults cannot staff farms and factories, nor Juveniles markets or labs, at least mines are safe
There is one common denominator across a wast ocean of interstellar races: namely the capacity to toil in deep deep mines

This is yet to be worked out, but the idea is that juvenile workers are the mainstay of the population. They should be able to staff all buildings. The adults are specialists that can only staff the Lab, but you probably won't have many adults. You will need a minimal number to unlock certain features of the colony (like shipbuilding), but beyond that you'll only need to add more if you want to boost science output.

I'm not quite sure what we're going to do with Markets, as a sort of currency-based economy may not make sense for a hive mind species, but I suspect we'll probably just leave it the way it is.

Speaking of staffing: if adult cloister replace labs, I don't suppose that the other races can staff these lab replacements. At least not without being subsumed. How would they interface with the cloister?

As with the Machine Altar/Factory, I think that Cloisters would revert to normal Labs.

How captured Gardeners will behave is still an open question. My feeling is that adults will probably die, and juveniles will revert to a sort of autonomous unplugged state.

[gaerzi]

I was more thinking about a gardener empire integrating other races on its planets (getting a good racial mix to fully take advantage of all of your planets' biomes being, to me, part of the appeal of the game). Landing on Pell, Phidi cultural exchange, annexing some colony, etc.

[Arioch]

I was more thinking about a gardener empire integrating other races on its planets (getting a good racial mix to fully take advantage of all of your planets' biomes being, to me, part of the appeal of the game). Landing on Pell, Phidi cultural exchange, annexing some colony, etc.

Yeah, this is going to be different for the Gardeners player. Alien population on their planets will be permanently Discontent until/if the Gardeners player researches the appropriate communication technology (which can be boosted by Subsuming alien population units), and even with that tech, some diplomatic options will not be available (such as events like the Phidi cultural exchange). So the Gardeners player can choose to remain inscrutable and play mostly a conquest game, or can choose to be friendly but will have to work extra hard at it.

[nweismuller]

Is pops being happy going to have some purpose yet apart from stopping rebels?

Revisiting this: it's not clear that happiness is ever intended to have a purpose beyond a safety buffer. (That said, I end up playing the Phidi partly with an objective to make sure I am creating a happy, prosperous society for my people, so I might overbuild Markets beyond the strategic optimum, heh.) If I were in charge of designing positive happiness mechanics, I think what I'd do is set up an 'inverse' of the current unrest mechanics, which seem to target a certain long-term equilibrium ratio between dissidents and content population at a given morale level- with sufficiently high positive morale, I would set up a chance for content population to transition to 'prosperous' population. I would have prosperous populations support somewhat more baseline economic activity per capita- maybe something on the order of .5 labor, .25 coin, and .1 science or so per million. Small bonus, but a visible display to the player of having built a better life for their populace.

That said, I'm not a dev and don't feel comfortable saying this is how they 'should' do things. (Not that I'd complain if they ended up implenting a version of the idea, but, well.)

[zolobolo]

They should be able to staff all buildings. The adults are specialists that can only staff the Lab, but you probably won't have many adults. You will need a minimal number to unlock certain features of the colony (like shipbuilding), but beyond that you'll only need to add more if you want to boost science output.

Yes, it should be rare that an adult is created (on small planets supporting only 4-5 pop, there should only be 1 viable max) to cut down on busywork
If they are handled like contruction modules 1 needed for small ships, 2 for colony ship, medium and 3 for large hulls, that would be awesome as it would be a 1:1 analogy. Maybe they should consume slightly more food then normal pops as well to decrease the max amount that is viable to have

If this is also all done as a pop action (like slave and harmonisation actions), that should keep the micro on a safe level for sure

I'm not quite sure what we're going to do with Markets, as a sort of currency-based economy may not make sense for a hive mind species, but I suspect we'll probably just leave it the way it is.

Have another faction specific building type for that as well as for lab? One creates more research the other more coin, both working analoque to MAchine Altar with special staffing rule (only accepting Adults).

When planet is captured, they both turn back to their normal counterparts

Having two such buildings also gives the player more control on what to concentrate on unéless you would like for cloisters to do both

Though admittedly, coin would not make sense for such a race, but neither does it make sense for Tinkers, and since hte coin system is baked heavily in the core, no sense taking it out: they are no using markets but lorespecific reason building instead (which technically is a market)

How captured Gardeners will behave is still an open question. My feeling is that adults will probably die, and juveniles will revert to a sort of autonomous unplugged state.

At least some of their pops should be capturable and subject of slavery and harmonisation to tie all the mecanics together
If adults are allowed to be cpatured, they could be very valuable (eve though they do not repopulate) due to their increased income and research - if one can keep them happy