Opinion: Gene Extraction and Management is Tedious

[HunterSilver]

So let me preface this by saying that I love gene engineering so far, but it could use some improvement.

1) The biggest issue is the time and resource investment to gamble for what amounts to almost nothing most of the time. With an average extraction time of 26 days per unit, and an average of ~60 attempts to extract the useful genes from a germline, we're looking at 26 years / subjects worth of extractions to pull everything useful out of a germline. Give or take depending on the number of good/junk genes a germline has.

Even if you're maintaining a huge stock of prisoners for this purpose, this means you won't realistically get much out of most germlines for years.

It's not like genes stop being valuable once you've acquired the useful genes either. You still want to further refine the genes down to just the parts that you want, which ends up taking even more attempts and time, so it's not like it's a one and done for extraction.

I feel like higher tiers of gene engineering tech should allow us to target which genes we want to extract, with higher levels of research skill improving success rates. If I can make power armor, let me target the fluffy tail gene on a Yttakin.

2) At this time the only way to sell genes is to manually drop them from gene banks so that they can be sold to traders. There's also no specific way to control which genes are banked and which aren't. We need some way to be able to mark genes as important and others as junk, so that our colonists can sort them accordingly.

We also need some way to track the genes we collect. You end up with A Lot of them, and sorting through them is a huge timesink.

Thank you!

[Mr. Smiles]

As for 1. I think it was meant to be more of a long play option. I do think the CD should be reduced to benefit people who go for one of the endings and not just a perpetual long play game.

For 2. I agree completely, there should be a new UI for managing the genes in a bank.

Just like with both royalty and ideology, a QOL/rebalance update will likely come that makes things better, just gotta wait a month or so.

[Juicy Beefcake]

The cooldown is meh. I just built 2 extractors in my prison and process my prisoners through as quickly as I can.
I agree on the storage and selling tedium. Waiting for a relevant trader and then finding and ejecting the junk is a real pain.

[Ģ◊иℤ◊⚡ℤ∀муpΛй]

you need to find the immortal gene, literally the best addition so far.

[HunterSilver]

Originally posted by Ģ◊иŽФ⚡∀mηЯΛ¥:

you need to find the immortal gene, literally the best addition so far.

Still farming vampires for it. They have A Lot of genes and most of them seem to be more common than ageless and deathless. I've only got 3 vampires I'm farming for it too, so it'll be awhile.

[Sirjames101]

you cant extract the archite gene you need to find traders that sell them i set up my base near am empire base for this reason. yeah something isnt right with the gene banks if you set to to the not allow all mode you cant even load in new ones you want to put into the banks.

[dot]

for the 2), yeah, the genepacks management possibly lack options in the vein you said to set to sell, like I expected to be able to sell them from the banks, in the end those are theirs "shelves".

for 1). Idk man, reduce the grind and you end up producing perfect pawns in no time, and I don`t think the game has much more challenge after that, already getting a mixed of the default strains you can make a damn good team easily, and then with ideology, I feel like now the game is only as challenging as it was before if you purposely cripple yourself.

[Big Dog]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Originally posted by Ģ◊иŽФ⚡∀mηЯΛ¥:

you need to find the immortal gene, literally the best addition so far.

Still farming vampires for it. They have A Lot of genes and most of them seem to be more common than ageless and deathless. I've only got 3 vampires I'm farming for it too, so it'll be awhile.

I don't think you can farm xenogenes, only germline genes.

[Astasia]

I didn't even realize you could sell genes. I put a trade beacon near the gene banks and assumed if they could be sold then that was all I needed to do. Didn't work so I remove the beacon and stopped trying. That should probably be corrected, if they can be sold then they should be sellable even while banked.

I think I'm mostly fine with the cooldown and extraction process, but some way to limit duplicates would be nice. Like if you extract a gene from a colonist then the next time you run them through the process that gene should have a much lower chance to be extracted. Getting intense UV weakness 4 times in a row from my dirtmole feels bad. I don't know how I feel about targeted extraction.

[HunterSilver]

Originally posted by Sirjames101:

you cant extract the archite gene you need to find traders that sell them

Thanks for confirming this. I've been farming vampires forever and gotten none of their archite genes, so I suspected this to be the case.

Originally posted by Smokey The Bear:

I don't think you can farm xenogenes, only germline genes.

I can confirm with confidence that you can extract xenogenes, I've gotten all of the non-archite genes from vampires except for Bloodfeed and Intellectual (Strong). Once I can pull out Bloodfeed I can give anyone Hemogenic, Coagulate, and Long jump. I actually really like coagulate and long jump.

Originally posted by Astasia:

Getting intense UV weakness 4 times in a row from my dirtmole feels bad. I don't know how I feel about targeted extraction.

Yeah, my idea may not be optimal, but it felt better to suggest something than to just ♥♥♥♥ of the current system. Essentially I just want the current system to be less random.

[Defektiv]

I just wish I'd realized sooner that the gene packs deteriorate outside a powered gene bank. I was storing them on shelves then one day started hearing the sound of rotting food going poof and didn't realize it until half my packs had rotted.