is it just me or are aquatic a bit op?

[Witch ~]

Toghter with the angler trait, ocean paradice, hydro ascension and nature mastery you can get an extremly oversized planet. Plus because of the passive trade value gain and huge consumer goods from farm jobs you're basically constantly swimming in money.

The only issue I found was minerals but I'm basically just buying them at this point

[Elhazzared]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Oh, you mean the synchronicity tree, which if your actually playing the game smart, will be on you list of things to pick up anyway, for the robot upkeep reduction, pop sprawl reduction, stability boost and leader death chance reduction?

Taking the synchronicity tree is not something you do just for the amenities perk, it’s a tree that gives a lot of benefits. I wouldn’t treat that one perk as a must have perk for just machines. I treat the whole harmony/synchronicity tree as a must have tree.

No, I mean you are forced to grab emotion emulators as a trait or you just won't cut it. On top of it you hurt quite a bit for unity as a mechanical so you maintenance protocols civic just to keep up with the other races. On top of that you also need every little thing that help pop growth and even then your planet development falls behind other races simple due to how many maintenance drones you are forced to have ever since they removed the building that give amenities. I am not talking about the synchronicity tree which yes, it's always manadatory for many reasons.

Originally posted by Half Phased:

You’re right. Wrong terminology. But it’s still the wrong thing to say that the solution to machines being so powerful is to buff everything in the game up to machines. Machines need nerfs particularly to their pop growth, which can easily be faster than hiveminds, and their 100% habitability, everywhere.

I didn't say everything needs to be as powerful, though granted it would be more balanced. I for one don't advocate for a perfect balance. What I said was that things need to be at least at a point where they are worth taking and aquatic is not. I would never, under no circunstaces take aquatic, not even for a meme run because it is just that bad. Losing 1 trait point and 1 trait slot for something that should have a 0 cost (it is essencially already being paid elsewhere with wither a civic or a origin, it doesn't needs to cost even more on top of that) is just ridiculous.

Also they don't need pop growth bonus. Having played both machines and organics, although I prefer machines and consider them stronger, organics develop planets much, much faster because they have no wasted pops on meager levels of amenities. A organic planet develops at least 40% faster than a machine planet and that is the organic having no pop growth bonus and the machine having a 35% assembly speed bonus. If you nerf their pop assembly they will be unplayable.

Originally posted by Half Phased:

I don’t think it’s broken, given that you can take the aquatic trait without the angler civic.

If aquatic was to be a 0 cost trait, it should be tied to the species portraits, or an origin. Not a civic.

But it’s still a very good trait for 1 point.

You can only take the aquatic trait in 2 ways. As a civic which you are limited to 3 and they give a really strong (if you pick them right) bonus. In some cases an even stronger boon than traits and these are empire wide, no matter what species you have, they benefict from it. Second from an origin.

Whether you pick one or the other or even both, you already paying quite dearly for that aquatic trait, making you pay extra with traits is just ridiculous, especially when you take into account that the bonus you get from it isn't that good. If you compare the bonus from aquatic traits alone to having gaia worlds. Gaia worlds are plain better.

No matter how you look at this. There is no way you can justify aquatic traits to have a trait cost.

[mss73055]

I like the ship models.

Pearl divers are annoying. It's a silly job but ranked "Specialist" so your pops flock to it. And then you have to beat them with a stick to get schooled for a proper worker job.

Deluge beam is alright, I guess. Beats a neutron sweep, but I'm not building a Colossus.

Unlike Life Seeded you can convert the starter ocean world into an Ecumenopolis. If you pick Acrology instead of Hydromancer you end up with a size 30 Ecumenopolis. Or pick both, do Mastery of Nature as well and lol about your size 35 Ecumenopolis :D

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by Elhazzared:

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Aquatic trait is incredibly strong. 10% worker production for one point is a huge boost.

Yes, which you get on every single planet once you get to terraforming into gaia planets. On top of a 10% happyness boost and a pop cap boost which directly translates to increased growth speed. All things you are losing by going with ocean worlds.

Which requires terraforming and hordes of energy.

In contrast you get 10% production at the very beginning of the game, costing the same as "Strong" trait.

It's a one point trait that's equivalent to a 4 point trait (strong x 4).

Also, your facts are wrong. Aquatic trait is not a civic. It is a 1 point species trait. You must be confused. There is an angler civic, and a Ocean World Origin, but these are separate from the "Aquatic" trait.

[Drax]

They're strong but not as OP as something like a machine empire in my opinion.

[Mob]

Originally posted by Witch ~:

Toghter with the angler trait, ocean paradice, hydro ascension and nature mastery you can get an extremly oversized planet. Plus because of the passive trade value gain and huge consumer goods from farm jobs you're basically constantly swimming in money.

The only issue I found was minerals but I'm basically just buying them at this point

I can build megacorp and necrophage empires that are better.

Even necrophage plus pompous is amazing. I dont think angler is the best min maxer in this DLC but just imo

[lugerluver]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Originally posted by lugerluver:

you will always be short on food.

What? That's the one thing you will never be short on with the origin. Add angler and catalytic processing and the empire runs pretty much entirely on all that food.

The planet size is meh though. Takes too long to fill up, and not having two extra planets to grow pops on early game makes that even worse. It's not terrible though.

What makes it kind of OP, in a way, is that it's essentially a better version life seeded. Functionally similar bonuses on ocean worlds, same size planet, can be upgraded, and it's much easier to get more ocean worlds.

As others have pointed out, every agriculture district now produces less food. Vanilla farmer job would be replaced by a pearl diver and angler. Only the angler produces food while the pearl diver consumes more food in consumer goods production. That is why the devs made agriculture districts unlimited but that is only because u need more of them to support the same population.

[Witch ~]

Originally posted by lugerluver:

Originally posted by Astasia:

What? That's the one thing you will never be short on with the origin. Add angler and catalytic processing and the empire runs pretty much entirely on all that food.

The planet size is meh though. Takes too long to fill up, and not having two extra planets to grow pops on early game makes that even worse. It's not terrible though.

What makes it kind of OP, in a way, is that it's essentially a better version life seeded. Functionally similar bonuses on ocean worlds, same size planet, can be upgraded, and it's much easier to get more ocean worlds.

As others have pointed out, every agriculture district now produces less food. Vanilla farmer job would be replaced by a pearl diver and angler. Only the angler produces food while the pearl diver consumes more food in consumer goods production. That is why the devs made agriculture districts unlimited but that is only because u need more of them to support the same population.

Just deactivate the job???

[lugerluver]

Originally posted by Witch ~:

Originally posted by lugerluver:

As others have pointed out, every agriculture district now produces less food. Vanilla farmer job would be replaced by a pearl diver and angler. Only the angler produces food while the pearl diver consumes more food in consumer goods production. That is why the devs made agriculture districts unlimited but that is only because u need more of them to support the same population.

Just deactivate the job???

Why would you want one job per agri district instead of two?

[Elhazzared]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Which requires terraforming and hordes of energy.

In contrast you get 10% production at the very beginning of the game, costing the same as "Strong" trait.

It's a one point trait that's equivalent to a 4 point trait (strong x 4).

Also, your facts are wrong. Aquatic trait is not a civic. It is a 1 point species trait. You must be confused. There is an angler civic, and a Ocean World Origin, but these are separate from the "Aquatic" trait.

Terraforming requires hordes or energy. You mean, it requires 5k or 10k out of the 70k+ you have burning a hole in your pocket because you make thousands of each resource every turn and everything is maxed? Yeah, what a shame that cost is.

10% production from the begining... Worthless. Do you know when the 10% starts to matter? It's when you are producing in the thousands, not in the low hundreds or even sub-hundred. In other words, it starts paying off by the time you already have access to gaia worlds anyway. Also the strong trait is garbage, there is a reason no one takes it and the reason is it doesn't comes anywhere near to every being worth it's cost.

It is a 1 point trait that is not equivalent to anything because strong is worth 0. Heck, if strong was 0 no one would take it anyway unless their build left one slot free (which it normally doesn't because of evolutionary mastery.

When you pick either angles or ocean world origin you GET the aquatic trait. Now yes, you can obtain it just by picking up the trait in which case it's cost is fine. But the big important factor to retain here is, when you grab it from an outside influence, it must be freee, as are things that you get from outside influences. In fact I wouldn't even mind if aquatic was not available at all as trait other than by origin or civic, but the is. When you take it from an outside source, it should be free like it is in every other case. As it is right now there is no point in ever going aquatic.

[Ruri]

So i just started with the Angler / Catalytic Processor combo. And I just found the Grunur event chain. I think I am about to have a very very good game..

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by Elhazzared:

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Which requires terraforming and hordes of energy.

In contrast you get 10% production at the very beginning of the game, costing the same as "Strong" trait.

It's a one point trait that's equivalent to a 4 point trait (strong x 4).

Also, your facts are wrong. Aquatic trait is not a civic. It is a 1 point species trait. You must be confused. There is an angler civic, and a Ocean World Origin, but these are separate from the "Aquatic" trait.

Terraforming requires hordes or energy. You mean, it requires 5k or 10k out of the 70k+ you have burning a hole in your pocket because you make thousands of each resource every turn and everything is maxed? Yeah, what a shame that cost is.

10% production from the begining... Worthless. Do you know when the 10% starts to matter? It's when you are producing in the thousands, not in the low hundreds or even sub-hundred. In other words, it starts paying off by the time you already have access to gaia worlds anyway. Also the strong trait is garbage, there is a reason no one takes it and the reason is it doesn't comes anywhere near to every being worth it's cost.

It is a 1 point trait that is not equivalent to anything because strong is worth 0. Heck, if strong was 0 no one would take it anyway unless their build left one slot free (which it normally doesn't because of evolutionary mastery.

When you pick either angles or ocean world origin you GET the aquatic trait. Now yes, you can obtain it just by picking up the trait in which case it's cost is fine. But the big important factor to retain here is, when you grab it from an outside influence, it must be freee, as are things that you get from outside influences. In fact I wouldn't even mind if aquatic was not available at all as trait other than by origin or civic, but the is. When you take it from an outside source, it should be free like it is in every other case. As it is right now there is no point in ever going aquatic.

Early bonuses matter the most. That 10% is huge because it allows snowballing. Traditional, which provides 10% Unity is considered S-tier. Aquatic is similar. Terraforming is worthless because it comes too late to matter.

Also, the extra habitability means your first two colonies start at 100% habitability.

[RawCode]

10% is joke, it's additive bonuses, not amplification.

if job produces 6 energy, 10% at any stage of the game, means +0.6 energy per job.

you start with 4 tech jobs, this means wooping +2 energy production, you will need 100 months to get energy for single leader from +10% bonus itself.

but if you stack servilles +15% slavery +10% slaver's guild +10% fauth +10%, trait +15%, aquatic +10% and probably waste points on vstrong +5% you can get significant advantage, but ever with all these bonuses, amplification building (like energy grid) and edict you will get less output then merchant spam.

and merchants DO NOT benefit from aquatic.

[mss73055]

The differences between earnings and expenses count.
+10% income , -10% expenses may have a larger effect and its apparent 20%.

-2 habitable planets to start is rough. The extra terraforming options are a gamble, I like that because it adds more variation. On my first playthrough I had a random ocean world in my home sector. Lucky me there.

[Sardorim]

Eh. Robots are better.

Mechanist start is still the best non-robot start.

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by lugerluver:

Looks like a solid C tier origin and civic to me. Good if you are playing stacking for a trade build but lack of guaranteed habitable hurts and you will always be short on food.

Are there any other negatives?

Personally I always turn guaranteed habitable planets off anyway, so... does that make it S tier for me?