Hello!

After playing a lot of Vodyani, Cravers, Horatio trio (some Unfallen too) i've decided to try playing Riftborn. They're unique and fun to play, but somehow their power level seemed below the rest (already listed) races i've played.

Riftborn have powerfull population bonuses, powerfull FIDS bonuses from singularity, strong strategic resource generation, fast expansion (till you're hitting cap), but early game you're building population + colony ships, byt midgame you're colonizing planets in systems you've grabed and... again building population. I've a feeling that activity i'm most engaged at is building population. And the problem is that population cost is increasing with every new population unit, so it's easy to reach a point where you're choosing between building a tier 3 ship, building, or... a single unit of population.

In other words Riftborn growth is linear, whille most food based races and even vodyani can easilly get to exponential growth (1 pop / turn and for Vodyani this single pop can be working 5 planets at a time). You can reach impressive Riftborn growth only on stupidly farmed system, but that production again is better to be directed towards navy (if you're at war) or simply clearing victory objective. Of course you can keep playing indefinetly (well, till pending turn bug says his ugly "hello" ^.^) and then it's all fine, but most victory objectives can be finished by turn 120-130 (mb even faster if you're rushing them).

So all in all you're spending insane amount of industry to build up population and it's still true at turn 100, meanwhille by turn 100 for example:

- Cravers are building fleets (actually since probably turn 10) to expand at the cost of their neighbors (probably already wiped one or two);

- Vodyani are turning into a lategame monster capable ot spawning arc every turn or increasing their population in most systems during a single turn (and their population power lvl is much higher then Riftborn with the way Vodyani exploit all system planets at the same time);

- Horatio population (with proper gene splicing) is way stronger then Riftborns.

The saving grace should be Riftborns quest reducing population build time by 50%, but... it requires 4 lvl 3 systems. By turn 75 i can already build lvl 3 upgrade, but... i don't want to add there tier 1-2 recourses, becouse of how powerfull tier 3 are (and finding them require last expendition power upgrade, so tier 5 scinence tech needed). 

Besides, when you start slaping +FIDS/population system improvements or upgrades, Riftborn population becomes not THAT much better then other races. 

So atm i can't think of Riftborn as a headstart race (like cravers) or lategame powerhouse (like Vodyani). They are completly playable, have their share of fun tricks and engaging mechanics, but population scaling hinders them a lot. Vodyani too have scaling population, but resource used on buying it is farmed globably and can reach stupid numbers with right Arc modules and outright retarded numbers with few leeching fleets flying around, so two cases are incomparable.  

Anyway i haven't been playing Riftborn for long so would be much appreciated to hear other's opinion on this race or some nifty tricks to make them better.

I think the trick with the riftborn is pop managment. When you get a minor pop, for example by assimilation, let it grow and distribute it across your systems. Soon you will have a normal population growth in addition to the creation of riftborn hulls.

HundredBears wrote:

Crizis wrote

Riftborn have powerfull population bonuses, powerfull FIDS bonuses from singularity, strong strategic resource generation, fast expansion (till you're hitting cap), but early game you're building population + colony ships, byt midgame you're colonizing planets in systems you've grabed and... again building population. I've a feeling that activity i'm most engaged at is building population. 

This right here is your problem. You're building population. The trick with the Riftborn is to not build population. Really. Oh, by all means build a second and eventually a third riftborn in every system, maybe a fourth in your home system, consider shipping a few out of your home system and rebuilding them (though this is less effective than it seems, since you're capped at building one population/turn, no matter how much Industry you have), but don't invest any more than that in building riftborn until you get the cost reduction. Instead, grow your population just like everyone else does. Grab Sustainable Farms to get the ball rolling, and throw in more Food buildings when you can. Once you have a few organics in your home system and your first few colonies have multiple pop and some infrastructure (say turn 30, though this will vary a good bit from game to game), build Sustainable Farms there and ship out an organic to each one so they can start growing, too.

The strengths of the Riftborn are many, but as you're right to point out, their population bonus is a minor one at best t. The biggest strength is an amazing home system.. Between having a very strong hero, a whopping +100% to hero experience from Singularity, not needing to ship off food to growing colonies, the Singularity FIDSI bonus and the ability to cheaply colonize many productive planet types and come out ahead or even on Approval, you can get a very powerful home system very quickly. You're dependant on having decent planets in the system, but the odds are in your favor with so many types that work out (lava/ash/desert/arid/snow/tundra/barren/toxic are all solid, with the first few being amazing and some other types tolerable). It's actually a lot like the Vodyani. Riftborn care more about anomalies and are looking for different planet types, but both benefit from a strong home system even more than the other factions.

In my current game, I'm sitting on 1.4k Industry and 1.3k Science in my home system on turn 55, having hit my pop cap of 22 quite a few turns back and having picked up the outer ring hero skills more recently. Unlocking the extra law slot around your first election helps to get there: the Mineral Misers Act is a questionable use of Influence for the United Empire, but between having two guaranteed strategic resource deposits and being a republic, the Riftborn get a lot of mileage out of it even though they do struggle to come up with the Influence to pay for it.

Beyond that, it really is just a matter of prioritizing high-Industry worlds to let your outposts turn into colonies quickly, spending the Titanium to speed things up when you're forced to colonize a system without any such worlds, and making all the moves that are smart for non-Riftborn too, like delaying military tech as much as possible and using your considerable Dust reserves to buy ships if you need to deal with pirates. Between the quick growth of outposts into colonies, the ability to colonize all sorts of planet types without paying the tech, Industry or Approval costs that most other factions face and the way Singularity helps out two of those colonies and their heroes, you end up with a respectable empire to support that home system.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting just the right resource for level 3 systems, either. By all means, try to get your hands on Jadonyx, Bluecap Mold or the better mid-game luxuries, but as long as you have luxuries that do something useful, far better to start upgrading to level 3 around turn 50 and have a mediocre bonus for the remaining half or so of the game than to wait until the game is almost over to get a stronger bonus. I suspect this is true even before you consider the Riftborn quest bonus.

To conclude, the Riftborn might spend a lot more of their first few turns building colony ships than the Cravers and they lack the lategame staying power of the pacifists, but they're the kings of the early/mid-game transition. Their home system should be pulling in a lot of Science and Industry by about turn 25. Turn those into Food improvements and whatever else you need instead of pouring your resources into the nigh-bottomless pit of ever-more-expensive population, and you'll very quickly have a powerhouse economy that can carry you through the rest of the game.

Edit: And Luctius beat me to the key obesrvation while I was I was in-game looking up specific numbers. It really is that simple. Build those first few cheap, powerful riftborn in every system, then get out of the game of sublinear population growth and let your systems fill up with Remnant or whatever better minor you're lucky enough to get. The rest is just micromanagement.

Yeh will try to incorporate "organics" and get my level 3 system imrpovement faster. Still think relying on minor civs is counterintuitive to wholle theme. About expansion - yeh by turn 50 i've settled all 10 core worlds and they're all online so spread power is even ahead of Unfallen. But then again by mid-game you'll be heavilly outpaced by other races becouse of their mechanics (just look at cravers +150% FIDS compared to them Riftborn bonus + the way they build population is completly underpowered, and even when planet's depleted cravers get +1% to naval and infantry bonuses and that stacks up heavily towards endgame). 

One thing to mention is Riftborn reliability, that's extremly high compared to Vodyani and Horatio, but both of them become runaway with a good start (well Vodyani more so) whille Riftborn is alway average. 

Alright, reporting in:

1. Building food improvements and utilizing minor civs completly fixed early game (population actually grow);

2. For 50% population build time requirements you actually ONLY need 4 system with tier 2 upgrade - they're considered lvl 3 so you don't need to fill last improvement with inferior luxuries.

3. Hero leveling is insane indeed, it's extremly easy to farm heroes to top tier simply spamming ships with your core colony under effect of singularity. For a matter of a fact by turn 80 my first hero is level 27 and i've farmed all his traits that matter long ago. So you can easilly level up marketplace heroes too, just slap them on high production system with singularity effect.

4. Another fun discovery i made is that for republic religious law that forces happines to content instead makes everyone happy (pretty glad i've supported religious faction from the start). So by the turn 90 i'm owning ~20 systems (feasting on nearby soffons with my enormous fleet) and don't have to bother with approval at all. 

5. Last but not least, even at turn 90 your outposts grow in mere 6 turns (with proper resource support) not hindering growth at all, whille for rest factions (Vodyani excluded) outposts grow much longer (at this stage of the game) meanwhille hindering growth of supporting colonies (unless ofc they're full on population).

All in all with minor strategy shift Riftborn went from underdogs to really powerfull race, so thnx for tips!