Selecting Species for Colony Ship Bug

[Wrath of Westchester]

I used the red serum to give my species +5% housing bonus. When I look at my species, it shows two Human species; one male, one female. In the species tab, my female species displays the bonus.

However, when I select a species for the colony ship, it shows that the male species with the bonus. I selected the male species, but my new colonies do not have the bonus for their pops.

Quite infuriating. It's also ridiculous that I cannot tag species to not show up in colony ship lists without settings policies to something I do not want. The entire species list is conflated as hell.

[SkiRich]

The fact you have the ability to select either male or female species sounds like you have two distinct species.
I've never been able to select m/f for a colony ship. Only distinct species.
You may want to check your species side tab and verify the traits for these two.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

You don't have a male species and a female species. The gender of the image used to represent a species is randomly selected and irrelevant. It also isn't necessarily the same every place you look, so for example a species that is represented by a male image in the species list may be represented by a female image when building a colony ship.

You just have two species, or more precisely you have a species and a sub-species related to that species.

When you selected the red serum, it should have modified all of the members of your main species. Unfortunately, there is a bug that prevents such changes from affecting colony ships that have been built but not used and colonies that have been started but are still developing. The result is that if a scripted change to a species, like the event that modified your species, or planned genetic engineering occurs while you have unused colony ships belonging to that species or planets in the process of being colonized by that species, then you will end up with two versions of your species: one modified as it should be and the other unmodified.

When you get hit with this bug the only fix is to genetically modify your species to apply the proper template to the pops that were not modified. If it happens before you have the ability to perform genetic modification you will need to wait until you have researched the necessary technology before you can correct the problem.

In theory, when you are selecting a species while building a colony ship you should be able to see the traits of each option and so distinguish between two variants of the same species and pick the variant that you desire. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that the gender of the image displayed will match up with the species list. If you are pick one subspecies when you build a colony ship and then another subspecies is actually colonizes the planet you drop the colony ship on, then that is a bug and one that I have not seen.

Note that when you have two versions of your main species (or any species, really), the game can potentially select either one to grow new pops on your planets. Usually it correctly picks the "better" one, but sometimes it does not. So even if you colonize a planet with "red serum" humans the game may grow pops of normal humans on that planet, resulting in both being present. This is particularly annoying when your main species is involved, because with other species a planet can only grow pops that are already on the planet but any planet in your empire can grow versions of your original species even if that version is not present on the planet already.

The only way to prevent this is to force the growth on all of your planets of the variant you want to grow (to prevent the other from growing), at the cost of growth rate - assuming your government type permits this measure. Alternatively, you can accept whatever choice the game makes with the plan to fix it all later through genetic engineering, which has the advantage of not decreasing your growth rate but does cost you society research when you apply the fix.

[CrUsHeR]

Ultimately it doesn't matter because the game will still randomly grow species on every planet, and your original species will also re-immigrate from other empires.

What you can always do is to simply override the unwanted subspecies with gene modding.


Also, not sure if you ever played something like a xenophile federation builder in a medium+ size galaxy. You will end up with literally hundreds of different species, with the AI designing new and completely useless variants every week. You might still try to properly mod and consolidate individual species for a while, but sooner or later you will give up on that idea.

At that point you realize that the optimized species are only relevant for getting a headstart during the early game; afterwards it all only depends on how optimized your colonies are built, and your choices for tech, traditions, policies and such.

[RawCode]

game do not grow "random" it try to balance to have equal number of every pop, especially noticable with syncretic origin.

as result, getting single litoid or in worst case single necroid with necrofage perk, can cripple your population growth if you not noticed it in time and not took measures

playing some type of empires prevent you from taking actions and you stuck with garbage pops forever

if you want to minmax you absolutely must play auth empire, probably ever xenophobe, you can make all useless pops into livestock.

[Seaghauwn]

Originally posted by RawCode:

in worst case single necroid with necrofage perk, can cripple your population growth

Pops with the necrophage trait Cannot Grow that's how the trait is designed
you will always grow the slave pops with the necrophage origin.

Originally posted by RawCode:

playing some type of empires prevent you from taking actions and you stuck with garbage pops forever

Not true you can do it with any empire but certain political faction just wont like it.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Glue Eater:

Pops with the necrophage trait Cannot Grow that's how the trait is designed
you will always grow the slave pops with the necrophage origin.

Necrophage pops can grow. You can see necrophage pops attempt to grow for yourself by either selecting them for forced growth, or by moving all other species off a planet so that only necrophages remain.

The reason the slave pops always grow when a planet has both species is that the game knows that trying to grow a necrophage pop is always the wrong decision when there is any other option. Automation in the game is pretty bad, but in some situations it does make the right choice consistently.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by RawCode:

game do not grow "random" it try to balance to have equal number of every pop, especially noticable with syncretic origin.

Which pop a planet grows isn't completely random, so you are right there, but it is also a little more complicated than just trying to balance the numbers of each species. I didn't want to get into too much of the complication because it didn't matter to this topic. For example, when you are talking about variations of the same species then the game definitely does not attempt to balance out the numbers and does generally attempt to build the "best" variation... with the potential complication being that you may not agree with it about which option is the better choice.

[Buyung Kilat]

That's just random portrait my friend. All humans don't look alike you know.