Racial trait balance suggestions

[anoncastillo]

One of the bigggest issues I have with MOO right now is there are multiple races that are worse than what you can build with a custom race, and some of the trait costs are out of line with how good they actually are. There also need to be traits that affect pollution that fit the new pollution system. Here's some suggestions to fix that.

Races that need improvements:

Bulrathi: Could use a production bonus but would be fine if ecologist reduced pollution like it used to. -5 pollution per world and 25% bonus to pollution reduction buildings would make them a solid race again without needing a production bonus.

Humans: Increase the morale boost from Diplomat to 10% and add a bonus to assimilating other races since their other traits are overpriced. Or keep Diplomat as it is and add a trait called "cooperative" or "xenophilic" or something which adds a bonus to assimilation of other races and doubles the bonuses received from minor civilizations.

Klackon: Large homeworld and/or +10-20% command points or +25% population growth would do a lot to balance them without changing the nature of their race (increased command points would make them play more like a communal insect swarm). +20% command points would be my recommendation.

Mrrshan: +10-20% command points, -20% ship cost, +25% beam attack, or a large or rich homeworld would be great and wouldn't change the nature of their race. If you add pollution reduction traits, -5 pollution per world and 25% bonus to pollution reduction buiildings would be fine too, or a unique trait that reduces pollution by 1-2 per farmer. They're a race of predatory hunters so a bonus to attack or building ships would fit them well, Predators are an important part of an ecosystem so pollution reduction would be good too. They kind of have to rely on conquering other races to be good, and their ground combat bonuses are basically worthless if they can't win space battles.

Psilons: Get rid of the security penalty. Return creative to 25% research bonus but make Psilons the only race that can be creative and have a 50% research bonus so that way they're uniquely powerful even if their total points don't add up to 10. Or make their trait "super creative" and cost 11.

Sakkra: Large/huge homeworld makes sense for a race that breeds like they have endless room to grow. +10% command points would also make sense for a race based on large numbers. However the Sakkra don't need as big a buff as some other races, mainly because repulsive should be -1 rather than -2 cost.

Trilarian: Give their homeworld artifacts (makes sense if they're a transdimensional race with relations to extradimensional beings). Large/rich homeworld and/or +25% food production would be fine too. Maybe modify aquatic so they get some kind of bonus in swamp, ocean, terran, and gaia biomes and make it more expensive.

Races that need to be nerfed a bit:

Elarians: Take off either beam attack or beam defense. With one or the other they're fine, with both they're too overpowered militarily.

Silicoid: Give them -25% credits. As living rocks that are isolationist they wouldn't be good traders or very materialistic so the credits reduction would be fitting. If this makes them too weak (it probably won't, they're one of the better races) increase lithovore population growth slightly to compensate (it's not very good on custom races anyway).

Trait changes:

Pollution: Make three new traits: +5 pollution and -25% pollution reduction effectiveness for -2 cost, -5 pollution and +25% pollution reduction effectiveness for 2 cost, -10 pollution and +50% pollution reduction effectiveness for 4 cost. Make ecologist cost 3 and include -5 pollution and +25% pollution reduction. Possibly create a trait called "sustainable farmers" or "sustainable hunters" that causes each farmer to reduce pollution by 1-2 for 1-2 cost and give it to the Mrrshan. The -5/+25% trait would generally let you get 1 more worker per planet on production (and 1 less or 2 more for the other two traits), while the sustainable farmers/hunters trait would let you get about 1-2 more production workers while a planet is growing and has large food production but would be less effective on planets that are already full and have lower food production (but potentially very useful with interplanetary administration during mid-late game).

Traders/Fantastic Traders: Make this cost 4/7 instead of 5/9 since trade goods is really not that useful as a source of income even with these bonuses.

Diplomat: Make the morale bonus 10%, add 25% faster assimilation of alien races, and make it cost 5 as part of rebalancing the Humans. Alternatively, leave Diplomat as it is and add a trait called "Cooperative" or "Xenophilic" and have it add 25% faster assimilation of alien races and double the bonuses received from minor civilizations for 2 cost.

Aquatic: Give an additional bonus (+1 food per farmer or +1 max population size or something like that) on swamp, ocean, terran, and gaia planets and increase the cost as part of rebalancing the Trilarians.

Repulsive/Charismatic: Repulsive should cost -1 and charismatic should cost 3. Has no effect on human players in multiplayer and the penalties/bonuses are really small.

Creative: Should cost 8 and add only 25% to research again, and let Psilons have "super creative" which adds 50% to research along with the bonus from creative (which wouldn't have to be available to custom races, or could cost 11 instead of 10).

Homeworld Specials: Allow red fungus, dark quartz, and gold or gems to be purchasable for 1 cost (but only one option per race). They're not that great of bonuses (could maybe add something to the tech tree that improves each of these midway through) but some people might want them for an early boost and there's no reason not to add them.

[numbnumbnewbie]

Currently,
you have 340 hours of playtime,
understandable

It's highly recommended that you try out the 5X utlimate balance MOD.
All of the races are unique and have some form of balancing.

I'm surprised you didn't ask for a nerf of the Meklar race.
LOL

Cybernetic was a preferred trait until I found out how overpowered lithovore and 50% population growth works with a custom race.

[anoncastillo]

I'm more interested in making the base game balanced so mods aren't needed. It's cool that mods exist but I want to see a better base game.

Meklar are a little OP, but you can build them from a custom race just by taking repulsive, unlike Silicoids and Elerians which are way more expensive. Maybe cybernetic should cost a point or two more, and maybe Meklar should have some kind of drawback to make them more balanced (poor homeworld from mining out all the minerals to build themselves? -20% security since they can be hacked?).

[Spud Dastardly]

Originally posted by anoncastillo:

I'm more interested in making the base game balanced so mods aren't needed. It's cool that mods exist but I want to see a better base game.

You have some good suggestions, and many players including myself pleaded for similar changes to the base game back in early access and after the game was released. The devs outright refused to change their race designs. That's why I made the 5X mod in the first place: to correct the race trait imbalances because the devs refused to. Now that the devs aren't working on the game at all, mods are our only recourse.