4.0 has completely broken Hive Mind empires

[Phoenix]

So I like to run Hive mind or Machine Consciousness empires because it is kinda like I myself am the one controlling the empire.

Maintenance drones now function like they are unemployed, meaning if a job opens up, they get moved away. If there is open jobs on other planets, they migrate away. You also can't prioritise them, so you have no real way to make them stay maintenance drones.

Anyway, this isn't really a problem for the first decade or two, but once your economy gets running, everything breaks because on your planets all your maintenance drones have been moved to other jobs or planets, and buildings cannot keep up with the required number of amenities. This only really solves itself if you micro your planets to build things only when you can do without the amenities the jobs will take away from maintenance, or if you have stagnated and are no longer colonising new planets or building more districts/buildings. This completely ruins my play-style, which is to build everything the planet will need for a few years, then forget about it until I need more of what the planet produces.

The only benefit is there is now ways to profit massively off these using a few civics/buildings to make them produce other resources.

[corisai]

Machines are pretty fine.
a) early game is all around Drone Storage.
b) later - just stop overbuilding districts & buildings and you will get your maintenance drones. Plus Galaxy Archive should fulfill most of your needs in amenities.

Yes, your playstyle is no longer playable by any kind of empire in Stellaris.

[戦士]

I mean just throwing in a few years of buildings in a planet without the means to support it and without micromanaging your population is just asking for it to fail, and I'm okay with that not being a viable way to play...

[corisai]

Still you can make it work since a mid-game : do a run through all your planets once per year or few like before, but order only amount of jobs that planet already can sustain with current population.

In that case you will have some excess population for colonizing new planets or developing your super-worlds.

[✠ Sigmar ✠]

I actually find it funny that unemployed drones provide amenities for a planet. It's like our own current society, where unemployed alcoholics are presented in daytime reality shows for the middle class to enjoy as entertainment - just with robots...

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

This completely ruins my play-style, which is to build everything the planet will need for a few years, then forget about it until I need more of what the planet produces.

Worth noting that this is a rather questionable playstyle decisions even without the maintenance drone change. Since it means you end up paying upkeep for some districts/buildings that won't be used for years. Its better to build stuff when you have the workers.

That said, assuming you wan't to continue playing like that, can't you balance it out by simply building some more amenity buildings on your worlds and getting other sources of amenity? (You don't really need maintenance workers unless its very heavily populated world).

[Light0234]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

Originally posted by Phoenix:

This completely ruins my play-style, which is to build everything the planet will need for a few years, then forget about it until I need more of what the planet produces.

Worth noting that this is a rather questionable playstyle decisions even without the maintenance drone change. Since it means you end up paying upkeep for some districts/buildings that won't be used for years. Its better to build stuff when you have the workers.

That said, assuming you wan't to continue playing like that, can't you balance it out by simply building some more amenity buildings on your worlds and getting other sources of amenity? (You don't really need maintenance workers unless its very heavily populated world).

funny enough no even taking syncrony and the buffed hive warrens are not enough to counteract this.. hive minds just needs there maintanance drones back and not just be a unemployed spot (especually as a DS i cant loose time to that)

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Light0234:

funny enough no even taking syncrony and the buffed hive warrens are not enough to counteract this..

I'd argue that they are... I have played several gestalt play through's. Unless you have huge planets you don't really need maintenance drones.

Off course assuming you aren't using something like lubrication basins that makes your pops require more amenities (amenities are supposed to be a issue with that civic).

[Speed Malus]

Amenity generation is rather ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at time ngl. The jobs that make em are 100% useless, when compared to just building something like Hive Warren that generates more than 10x without needing any workers.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Speed Malus:

The jobs that make em are 100% useless

They aren't.

Originally posted by Speed Malus:

compared to just building something like Hive Warren that generates more than 10x without needing any workers.

And consuming a precious slot. So cheap solution early but eventually you will want to get rid of them.

Actually it's a quite good mechanic for Gestalts - while they're intended to play ultra-wide, you need to not over-expand and keep an eye on your current population.

[Light0234]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

Originally posted by Light0234:

funny enough no even taking syncrony and the buffed hive warrens are not enough to counteract this..

I'd argue that they are... I have played several gestalt play through's. Unless you have huge planets you don't really need maintenance drones.

Off course assuming you aren't using something like lubrication basins that makes your pops require more amenities (amenities are supposed to be a issue with that civic).

they 100% arnt even when stacking multiple aminity boosters i never have enough and warrens is 400 minerals wasted instead of going to more production.. time is something you cant waste and this update forces me to waste time *this would simply not have been a issue if we still had maintanance drones*

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Light0234:

they 100% arnt even when stacking multiple aminity boosters i never have enough and warrens is 400 minerals wasted instead of going to more production.. time is something you cant waste and this update forces me to waste time *this would simply not have been a issue if we still had maintanance drones*

How many pops do you have on a average planet when you are having this issue?

[Light0234]

Originally posted by Garatgh Deloi:

Originally posted by Light0234:

they 100% arnt even when stacking multiple aminity boosters i never have enough and warrens is 400 minerals wasted instead of going to more production.. time is something you cant waste and this update forces me to waste time *this would simply not have been a issue if we still had maintanance drones*

How many pops do you have on a average planet when you are having this issue?

all the time even on the early years i already go into -200 aminities (on planets that are developing as well so its clear removing maintanance drones IS the issue)

[Garatgh Deloi]

Originally posted by Light0234:

all the time even on the early years i already go into -200 aminities (on planets that are developing as well so its clear removing maintanance drones IS the issue)

????

In these screenshots i have a planet with almost 7k pops, no amenity buildings, no maintenance drones and i am still in the positive (Admittedly its the capital so it gets some amenities from that, but a single drone storage would give double what the capital designation is giving me)...
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3489875387
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3489875667

Not sure what you are doing to cause your lack of amenities (unless you use a civic like lubrication basins that are meant to make amenities a issue, or a species trait that reduce amenity production).

P.S Edited, accidentally wrote logistics drones, meant maintenance drones.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by Light0234:

all the time even on the early years i already go into -200 aminities (on planets that are developing as well so its clear removing maintanance drones IS the issue)

You are in complete control of job creation (unless you are automating planet management; you may not want to do that until they fix migration controls to actually block migration). That means you are in complete control over whether your planets have maintenance drones. If you create more jobs than you have maintenance drones to fill then you will have no maintenance drones left, guaranteed.

For example, lets say you need 500 maintenance drones on a planet in order to keep amenities on that planet positive. If you have 500 maintenance drones on that planet then you know that if you create any new jobs you will go into negative amenities.

So don't do that.

Wait until you have enough maintenance drones to fill the jobs you will make and leave at least 500 left over to provide amenities.

Alternatively, stop relying on maintenance drones for your amenities. Logistic drones provide amenities and trade, and are complex drones so they won't migrate away. If your planet makes enough amenities to support itself without any maintenance drones then you won't get yourself into amenities issues if you run out of maintenance drones on a planet. (However, you will still want to moderate your job creation so that it does not outpace your population growth, otherwise you'll get into basic resource production issues.)

[Shinzor]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

So I like to run Hive mind or Machine Consciousness empires because it is kinda like I myself am the one controlling the empire.

Maintenance drones now function like they are unemployed, meaning if a job opens up, they get moved away. If there is open jobs on other planets, they migrate away. You also can't prioritise them, so you have no real way to make them stay maintenance drones.

Anyway, this isn't really a problem for the first decade or two, but once your economy gets running, everything breaks because on your planets all your maintenance drones have been moved to other jobs or planets, and buildings cannot keep up with the required number of amenities. This only really solves itself if you micro your planets to build things only when you can do without the amenities the jobs will take away from maintenance, or if you have stagnated and are no longer colonising new planets or building more districts/buildings. This completely ruins my play-style, which is to build everything the planet will need for a few years, then forget about it until I need more of what the planet produces.

The only benefit is there is now ways to profit massively off these using a few civics/buildings to make them produce other resources.

I had a hard time with amenities till i started to build one trade building on each world and it seemed to sort out, i have also only played wilderness hivemind since DLC not regular ones though(so not sure how much of a difference there is between the two in the new system yet), the 3 biomass buildings one avatar and trade building on every worlds main building district thing seems to keep my amenities in the green by a good amount now