So Horatio can convert minor pops to Major ones with the right tech.  Okay, cool.


Problem 1: it's prohibitively expensive on the industry front, leaving it almost always a suboptimal choice compared to almost anything your systems could be producing, unless you have a TON of splices...and even then it's debatable.


Problem 2: Chain ganging your unfortunates, leaving them in the starport with no destination or sending them to die on transport ships are also very unproductive choices, because then you're either tying up your starports or possibly chain ganging the wrong population type, all while just throwing away population that took time to grow.


While Horatio don't necessarily need to get to their endgame faster, it's still irksome that there simply is no "good" solution to removing unwanted pops.  furthermore it's not even that there are suboptimal choices; there are practically metagamey ones that are counterproductive beyond purposely throwing away population (which is usually not a good idea for most factions to begin with.)  It feels like the only thing keeping the conversion option balanced is that it's a bad idea and its alternatives are also bad ideas.  Not a very satisfying mechanic, I'd say.


This old idea thread suggests one approach to this problem that has potential, but I think Horatio--the faction that is literally all about population control--should have a unique answer that's actually worth using.  It needs checks and balances to keep it from being used to instantly convert dozens of population various systems without penalty, but it also needs to be something that can be done with a more reasonable amount of industry.


What if their genetic recoding had a reduced industry cost, reducing the time needed to complete each conversion, that scaled with some variable?  Some obvious candidates include influence costs, luxury costs, or approval penalties.  There may be other factors to which this could be tied, but I'll start with those.


Influence would be a simple one to implement and it could scale with the number of minor pops, so that as your empire grows less diverse, there would be less political resistance to the conversion (after all, more Horatios means less people opposed to the idea of more Horatios, right?)


Luxury costs feels like an interesting one because of the dance between population boosters and the rush to rid yourself of the excess after splicing.  Would it be tied to your major pop booster, forcing you to conserve enough to clean out your systems instead of boosting your Horatios?  Would it be the minor pop's booster instead?  Something to toss around here.


Approval penalties would probably be simplest to implement, though I'm not sure how much of a deterrent they would be in the lategame, which is where a lot of population cleanup would happen anyway.  Would it be a severe but system specific penalty?  Or would it be a less severe but long-lasting empire wide one?


Regardless of which option is used, a stacking penalty for using the conversion too often would probably keep it in check, but who knows?  It might not even be needed if the price is right.  Only playtesting can reveal the answer here.


Are there any other ways we might make genetic recoding worthwhile without rocketing Horatio to #1 on the OP list?