I know that origins are not meant to be 'balanced', but void dweller in particular seems broken.

[Mikoshi]

I'll preface by saying that I like the origin, especially how it plays. However it seems even more 'out of line' than the original driven assimilator cheese was, and I've only found a few very specific, reliant on RNG, things that would even compete in the short run. In the long run, absolutely nothing can compete with void dweller.

A lot of their outsized strength is tied to the still not addressed problems with how pop growth works. Particularly base pop growth. This is compounded by what I'd suspect is an oversight, maybe a bug, where new habitats get their full base pop growth, unlike planets which are slashed by 50% until they hit 10 pops. So a new habitat is actually twice as good as a planet for the purpose of population growth, and even if you micro to move pops to new planets in an effort to mitigate that, you now have 9 pops tied up with accomplishing that.

Once a void dweller is able to dedicate 3 influence per month and ~31 alloys per month to the task, they can generate a new colony every 5.5 years. Only speeding up if they can generate MORE influence, and more alloys.

Assuming they do nothing BUT this, and are able to start by 2205(entirely doable with how passive AI that you envoy tend to behave), you will rapidly snow ball far fast than any other strategy.

2260 and you've got 13 colonies.

2315 and you have 23.

2370 and it's 33.

All making the full base 3 pop growth from the moment they are colonized, versus a planet, which would typically require many many years to lose it's 50% malus on pop growth for being under 10 pops. (22 years if the planet grows at 3 per month)

And you can probably fit them all in a handful of systems.

It's a GOOD game that I'm able to grab even 8 planets without being forced to deal with many many choke points, necessitating a significant fleet/starbase investment.

[Mansen]

Try Ringworlds on for size.

[Mikoshi]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Try Ringworlds on for size.

I have, and I'd argue they're second place in terms of strength. But they kind of pale in comparison. I know the 20 scientist thing is very appealing on paper, but it's not the districts or buildings that matter. It's the pop growth. Even if ring worlds gave you 500 scientist jobs right out the gate, you wouldn't be able to use them.

[Botji]

Originally posted by Mikoshi:

Originally posted by Mansen:

Try Ringworlds on for size.

I have, and I'd argue they're second place in terms of strength. But they kind of pale in comparison. I know the 20 scientist thing is very appealing on paper, but it's not the districts or buildings that matter. It's the pop growth. Even if ring worlds gave you 500 scientist jobs right out the gate, you wouldn't be able to use them.

This is my question with the Void Dwellers as well, I know playing a ME it can be hard to keep even their basic economy going if you expand too fast, all resources and even more than that goes to just providing 'food' and such to all the new pops.

Wont a Void Dweller start really suffer from food and consumer goods shortage if they expand that much?

[Mikoshi]

Originally posted by Botji:

Originally posted by Mikoshi:

I have, and I'd argue they're second place in terms of strength. But they kind of pale in comparison. I know the 20 scientist thing is very appealing on paper, but it's not the districts or buildings that matter. It's the pop growth. Even if ring worlds gave you 500 scientist jobs right out the gate, you wouldn't be able to use them.

This is my question with the Void Dwellers as well, I know playing a ME it can be hard to keep even their basic economy going if you expand too fast, all resources and even more than that goes to just providing 'food' and such to all the new pops.

Wont a Void Dweller start really suffer from food and consumer goods shortage if they expand that much?

Yes, and no. It IS possible to tank your economy as void dweller, but there's a very repeatable pattern that isn't at all reliant on RNG (outside of not starting next to a genocidal race, that all non-genocide starts sort of rely on). Resist the urge to try and turn on the +10% growth for +25% food costs, and you'll probably be fine.

Step 1: Focus on alloys in your first three habs.

Step 2: Build a fourth hab, dedicate it to food production. Maintain at least a 9 food surplus per hab if you want to maintain the +25% growth buff on all of them. Any excess pops on this hab can be immediately redirected to other habs as needed. Getting +3 food jobs from each hydro building is plenty, and you shouldn't have too much problems with feeding multiple habs from a single dedicated food habitat.

Step 3: Build a 5th hab, make it a sprawl hab. This one I tend to like making it a few trade districts and a housing hab to unlock slots. This should take care of your sprawl issues for a very long time. Like the food hab, you will use this to funnel excess pop into future 'focus habs'.

Step 4: From here, I'd either make a consumer goods dedicated hab if I'm not some trade favored type of empire (megacorp, or merchant guilds), or another alloy focused hab to really get the snowball rolling.


I think the repeatability of it is what strikes me as overtuned. Most other 'wow, so OP' setups in this are heavily reliant on RNG. IE: robot empire with a cybrex start are ridiculous. Just like a life-seeded start is a joke unless they get grunur.

Having a recipe you can follow for guaranteed success probably shouldn't also be the most powerful origin at the same time.