dragontyron wrote:

Maybe it was a balancing thing because the Riftborn are already great, but now that the Hissho have a similar mechanic that's more intuitive, I don't see why the Riftborn shouldn't.

I'd post an Idea concerning this, but there were already two and I don't think a third would be super necessary. I'd rather this mechanic have attention brought to it, because it's rather counterintuitive and it bugs me as someone who enjoys min-maxing my system output.

I would assume balance played a role in that. The Riftborn pop is much better than Hisso and they get a bonus approval for being on sterile.

There do is 2 tech to increase pop on sterile (moon tech has a +1 slot improvement, and another one has a +1 slot on fertile and sterile), not sure if Riftborn players use those much ?

Dragar wrote:

Riftborn pops don't; pops in Riftborn empires do. This is a really weird quirk.

True that the bonus apply to all pops, not only the riftborns. You end up having more incentive to put the Epistis on sterile for their bonus, and the Riftborns on the other planets, that feels very counter intuitive roleplay wise.

Ideally I'd like the IDS bonus from riftborn pops to be on Sterile only (or at least a part of it).

Dragar wrote:

Idea for that is here.

Ah, I missed that one. There's three already, then.

I didn't want to just post a redundant idea when people have already suggested it. ^^'

Hi,

About adding population slots on sterile planets, we're going to test it out in the next balance mod for Riftborn. So far internal tests have shown this should be viable.

WeaponizedCaffeine looked into this back in the day but it wasn't an easy change (especially feedback-wise). If we ever get some more time we'll look into it because it's definitely something we'd like to do.

Jhell, thanks for chiming in on the topic.

How about this as a workaround: 

change the empire trait so that its approval modifiers affect only the main/starting empire population (which I know the game keeps track of), rather than being a blanket modifier to all populations?

jhell wrote: WeaponizedCaffeine looked into this back in the day but it wasn't an easy change (especially feedback-wise). If we ever get some more time we'll look into it because it's definitely something we'd like to do.

I’ve even tired to make such a change myself in a mod and it was quite hard to do, perhaps have the effect on the Biophobic trait which then gives +X slots on sterile when either there are Riftborn present on the planet or when there are no Non-Riftborn present (well technically Main empire population instead of Riftborn)

For the effect feedback perhaps have something similar to the overpopulation mark on the pop slots but different colour and perhaps on the first X slots when in effect (so it does not conflict with the overpopulation)

When you designed the number of slots rule, you had in mind biological entities who prefert to live in biologic planet.

But the number of slot is not this,

For me, the number of slot should only depend on planet size.

So, why not simple do "number of slot = f (Planet size) + bonus by some technologies" ?

Now, if you want to limit number of biological entities on some planet, use the food...

Food production = f (planet type) x g (race factor) + bonus by some technologies

With :

f (planet type) = 0 for lava, ash, barren, ice to a good value for fertiles planets.

g (race factor) = 0 for race like riftborn, to 2 or 3... (2.5 ?) for race like unfallen (it is the ? i don't play in english i'm not sure)

With some parameters tunning, you could give lot of slot for lava/barren/ash, but you could limit the number of slot a biological race could use by some starvation...

CyRob wrote:

I don’t believe that they should at all.I see Pop slots as a representation of suitable are for habitation, which would be much greater on a terrain planet than say a lava planet where many areas a likely to be unstable and prone to being submerged in liquid magma or barren where the lack of atmosphere making building much more costly even space-wise. etc.

Case in point is the shipbound affinity. Every planet is equally habitable becaus eyou're not on the planet. Man do I love the Vodyani XD

jhell wrote:

Hi,

About adding population slots on sterile planets, we're going to test it out in the next balance mod for Riftborn. So far internal tests have shown this should be viable.

Thank you for considering!! I'll look forward to trying it out.

As simple human, i do not have a form of telepathy; but i have good intuition... and : i know i can be wrong.

Anyway, my apologies if my words sound like "i know the truth"... english is not my native langage and sometime i simplifying what i want to tell because writing a message is a long task for me... (4 or 5 google translate just to write this...)

You can add "I thinks that..." on my speech.

... Of course, i speak about this group when i used "you"... not jhell...

Well... what i want to tell, is that if "we" (not me...) add some slot for sterile planets,

... why not add slot for neutral too ?

... and then... why not simplify all this rule and put the same number for every planet ?

pop size already depends on planet size (that make sense, and is good),

So with this simplification, pop size will only depends on this parameter.

This should give good reasons for riftborn to terrafom.

OF COURSE, this need serious gameplay test, and it is ONLY an idea... you can take/adapt/reject it !... so don't attack me if i come here in order to write some idea... forum is made for this, i think.

Note that I'm agree with you about pop slot representation for lava; and it make sense to reduce slot for these kind of planet,

I suppose there are good reasons to reduce slot for game balance too.

The subject is not simple.

This is true that when i play riftborn, i rarely use terraform technologies (that i do with all other races, just to increase my pop).

I don't know if i should terraform or not with this race... my reason is only because when i have technologies to terraform to steriles planets; even in endless; the game agains AI is over and i don't need to do this.

Mourioche wrote: [...] Anyway, my apologies if my words sound like "i know the truth"... english is not my native langage and sometime i simplifying what i want to tell because writing a message is a long task for me... (4 or 5 google translate just to write this...) [...]

If your language is supported I suggest using DeepL as for the few languages it does support it is great at translating.

My previous post was not meant to come across as a personal attack (sorry if it came across that way) but as an attempt at constructive criticism So that your future posts can be improved and as such you get your point across better. I would suggest adding the “I think that…” etc. to your posts as it limits the amount of misinterpretation that can be done which is otherwise quite high due to being text-only communication.

[...] The subject is not simple. [...]

That is for sure, I was even thinking about going further with my Idea and wanted to have planets like Ocean also have reduced pop slots for the same reason but the idea is probably too complicated for it to be accepted.

While I personally don’t agree with planet size being the single factor for pop slot numbers, I’m happy that more ideas are being discussed as such can lead to either me & others changing their mind or brand-new better ideas being created.

To think about: the pop a planet can sustain, lore-wise is related to species characterisrics. An ocean should be able to sustain lots of lumeris, but what about riftborns???

I like the idea of linking slots to planet size more than any other characteristic. This someway levels the isdue of different species <-> different ability of planets to sustain them.

Of course this is my op and as always gameplay > lore.

Also since we can't degrade special planets can they start out on the lowest possible cold planet?