You can also prioritise Hot worlds for colonisation. 

I'm not sure we talk about the same thing. I talk about rushing, when all I see is slowmo Sophons. I will present this better later, I'm on the phone now.

SingularitysMarauder wrote:
I wrote an entire guide on sophons and here are two sentences explaining it all. Sophons have slow early game. Use high science gain to get stronger cheap to build system upradges like solar exploitation. Oh and git gud. Sophons have bigger issues like paralyzed goverment at late game and imbalanced scientific victory.

what do you mean by imbalanced science victory ? (i dont play science at all in ES2 for the moment)

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

Research both T1 industry buildings.

There is no buildings that takes 20 turns to build if you don't ignore the industry tree.

Indeed, you climb the same tree everyone else does: T1 industrial buildings, which you use to build T2 industrial buildings, and so on.

I'm also baffled why the OP is arguing that others have benefits to industry.  He admits that the Lumeris don't really, but they (eventually) have tons of dust and (eventually) the technology to buy out industry.  What about the Vodyani?  They're a bit better industrially than everyone, but it takes forever to get a second pop or a third, etc.  And what about the Horatio? 

I don't get the sense that Sophons are especially singled out as bad at industry.  It might just be more noticeable if you go and research T3 industrial buildings and try to build them right off the bat, which would be a problem for any race, not just the Sophons, it's just only the Sophons can actually do this.

Research both T1 industry buildings.

There is no buildings that takes 20 turns to build if you don't ignore the industry tree.

Mailanka wrote:

I don't really see how the "other factions have solutions;" Science is, itself, a solution to the problem because you can research the best industrial elements of the game.  But if you really need extra industry early game, there's a Science law that gives you bonus Industry for a small decrease in science.

Once again, what is the point of researching "the best industrial elements in the game" if it takes 20 turns to build said industry building.

This seems to be the running joke. This is the only faction in the game with no boost to production in any shape or form. Lumeris don't have one too BUT they have so much dust production, they can straight up buy out whatever they need.

It is SOOOO bad that you MUST go the militarist route just to be able to build any ships in less then 10 turns. I have systems with 18 pops that can't break 200 production 50 turns into the game with 4 major production buildings built. 

To put this in perspective, i can break 200 industry with everyone else by turn 30 and with the Vodyani I can break 200 indsutry by turn 15.

They need some form of industry conversion so they can use their science lead. There is literally no point in researching anything late game if you cant build the damn thing!

I don't really see how the "other factions have solutions;" Science is, itself, a solution to the problem because you can research the best industrial elements of the game.  But if you really need extra industry early game, there's a Science law that gives you bonus Industry for a small decrease in science.

TheTakenKing wrote:

Quick solutions would be: give their minor faction populations an industry bonus (they went out to space looking for cheap labor); make some sort of quest-related automated factory (that is what they are trying to do in the quests); give them an 'inspiration' bonus to production (or whatever) upon searching curiosities (like +1% production per curiosity empire wide, decays over time, stacks X times).

I like the ideas. It would help make the starting with Sophons a lot smoother. Just tried to play with them and the first 50 turns are very laborious. The stacking curiosity bonus would feed well into curious nature of Sophon.

You bring up a very interesting point. The Sophon's lack of industrial capacity is certainly noticeable... perhaps there's a fix for that in one of their quests, or maybe they get a unique tech that mitigates the problem. (at least they don't get the horrendous ship+shipbuilding penalty of Horatio)

I believe that a +2 industry bonus was added to Hekim's yields, but that's of course very limited, and I haven't played Sophons since that change was made. What I found effective was the science law that gives a 10% science penalty for a 25% industry bonus. I hate willingly penalizing any yields, but the tradeoff is very worthwhile for the Sophons. (random thought: what if that law converted 10% science yield into industry in systems? Or just gave you an industry bonus equal to 10% science?)

The main difficulty for them is early-game production and not late-game production, right? There are all sorts of things you could suggest for the late game, like an era 5 tech that converts science into production (we're Star Trek-replicating fancy stuff out of base matter using the POWER OF OUR MINDS), but early game is a different picture, especially if you want to fit the Sophon theme. Quick solutions would be: give their minor faction populations an industry bonus (they went out to space looking for cheap labor); make some sort of quest-related automated factory (that is what they are trying to do in the quests); give them an 'inspiration' bonus to production (or whatever) upon searching curiosities (like +1% production per curiosity empire wide, decays over time, stacks X times).

godman85 wrote:

Hagakure wrote:

Is it an issue with pops? 

If it's an issue with pops, I guess it's encouraging players to get as many minor faction planets asap and spread the pops all over the place, it's just really awkward when you want Sophon only on Cold systems and +FIDSI pops on the other systems.

Maybe in future pop growth will be tied to systems, so if you have a 6/6 cold planet and all your Sophon are there, they wont be able to increase their pop count; for a pop to increase, it has to have a free space available on the planet it's on. 

The thing is, there are practically no pops that give industry. Only the mavros give a good bonus to industry but they are usually no where to be found.

The problem with the sophons is everyone else has clear industry buffs that are massive or a way to complete skip industry via dust/influence. Only the sophons have no alternative resource OR buffs to industry. UNLESS you want to be militaristic, which basically goes against their entire lore since the LITERAL SOPHONS who were militaristic WERE MAVROS.

They will add more Industrialist Minor factions to the game in future updates.

Hagakure wrote:

Is it an issue with pops? 

If it's an issue with pops, I guess it's encouraging players to get as many minor faction planets asap and spread the pops all over the place, it's just really awkward when you want Sophon only on Cold systems and +FIDSI pops on the other systems.

Maybe in future pop growth will be tied to systems, so if you have a 6/6 cold planet and all your Sophon are there, they wont be able to increase their pop count; for a pop to increase, it has to have a free space available on the planet it's on. 

The thing is, there are practically no pops that give industry. Only the mavros give a good bonus to industry but they are usually no where to be found.

The problem with the sophons is everyone else has clear industry buffs that are massive or a way to complete skip industry via dust/influence. Only the sophons have no alternative resource OR buffs to industry. UNLESS you want to be militaristic, which basically goes against their entire lore since the LITERAL SOPHONS who were militaristic WERE MAVROS.

Is it an issue with pops? 

If it's an issue with pops, I guess it's encouraging players to get as many minor faction planets asap and spread the pops all over the place, it's just really awkward when you want Sophon only on Cold systems and +FIDSI pops on the other systems.

Maybe in future pop growth will be tied to systems, so if you have a 6/6 cold planet and all your Sophon are there, they wont be able to increase their pop count; for a pop to increase, it has to have a free space available on the planet it's on.