Pollution, Sillicoids, and Inferno planets

[Erymon]

In the past, you could degrade planets and turn them into inferno environments through pollution, but now that doesn't seem to be the case. This is especially sad since it was the one thing making the race semi-viable with their terrible growth rate.

Is there a reason barren planets now degrade into toxic planets, nearly preventing any sort of ubering? Or could there be a way to make uber planets for Sillicoids coming in an upcoming hotfix?

[Captain Keen]

Silicoids are the strongest race you can pick.

[Erymon]

Silicoids haven't been strong for several patches, after they neefed their growth rate. They are now weaker after the pollution changes.

[Captain Keen]

Ok. If I play silicoids, they wreck literally everything. To be sure, their early game is fairly weak - surprise, surprise - but once they have 3+ colonies, there's no stopping them anymore.

Maybe when you play silicoids, they're somehow magically weak. Can't imagine what the deciding factor might be.

But I suggest you just play something else then. To me, the Psilon feel weak. I don't play them for that reason. See how that works?

[frdnwsm]

Silicoids need cloning centers. Psilons need gravity generators. Cloning centers are earlier on the tech tree and cheaper to build. This means that the Psilons will be a bit slower to counter their particular racial weakness. If the Psilons manage to survive being bullied by their neighbors, their research bonus should give them an edge toward a tech victory. The Silicoids will get an earlier boost since radiated, toxic and vulcanic worlds tend to have rich mineral environments.

All races, stock or custom, played by a player >> AI races. The AI is pretty vulnerable to the early rush.

Note to Capt. Keen: Silicoids are not the stongest stock race. Meklars pretty much sew up that spot.

[Captain Keen]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

Note to Capt. Keen: Silicoids are not the stongest stock race. Meklars pretty much sew up that spot.

Oh ... I should pretty much certainly have added 'in my experience'. I played two games as meklar, the first one failed spectacularly due to terrible planets and aggressive neighbors - the other one was fine, but not particularly exceptional.

I just lose patience with OP because his complaint seems to translate into:

My favourite race has a weakness - and now they cannot even randomly pollute every planet into uber planets. Life is so unfair, I'ma go hurl myself off a bridge because I just can't ever be happy again.

Also I'm not sure you're right about the meklar. Silicoids can honestly just go basically everywhere, set up camp and go to work. Not everywhere is equally good - but literally everywhere will do.

"Sir, we've found a new planet, but it's so ♥♥♥♥ my mother would be insulted if I named it after her, sir!"

"Excellent - send the colony ships at once."

[frdnwsm]

The best way to compare stock races is to imagine a small galaxy with only the two races in question populating it. Meklar vs Silicoid. Silicoids don't care about pollution, can basically colonize anywhere. Meklars need only half the food, produce like crazy.

Meklars get off to a faster start.They grow their population a lot faster, produce more warships, and basically snuff the Silicoids before they get a chance to grow into their strength.

[Erymon]

No, your issue Captain Keen is that you're just an arrogant ass that lacks basic reading comprehension and doesn't understand the post. I have no issue with thinga changing, but I do have issue with how the changes, specifically pollution, have forced Sillicoids to care about pollution unlike in the past and unlike their lore/fantasy/racial traits would indicate.

As the planets become more polluted and downgrade, you suffered reduced population and resource access in the past, but the offset was eventually you ended up with a volcanic planet that could be made uber. That no longer happens. If you continue to pollute, you end up with a toxic planet that is incredibly difficult (due to pollution changes) to degrade further.

As such, Sillicoids now operate best like other races, building pollution buildings and maintaining their environment like other races that care about food. Can they colonize anything? Sure. But their goal will be to terraform up to at least 2 or 3 bars to get that population increase.

If that is the developer goal, so be it. But it dramatically changes how Sillicoids play and their flavor, which I believe is not a net positive for the game.

[Mayhem Effect]

planets should never have reached volcanic due to polution, it makes no sense

[Infinite Probability]

Originally posted by Mayhem Effect:

planets should never have reached volcanic due to polution, it makes no sense

Pretty much this, it makes more sense for pollution to make a planet TOXIC, not Volcanic. I do think they should add options similar to Terraforming, but make it turn into the ideal planet type for said race. Like Sillicoids Volcanoform, Trillar Oceanform... etc.

[Captain Keen]

Originally posted by frdnwsm:

The best way to compare stock races is to imagine a small galaxy with only the two races in question populating it. Meklar vs Silicoid. Silicoids don't care about pollution, can basically colonize anywhere. Meklars need only half the food, produce like crazy.

Meklars get off to a faster start.They grow their population a lot faster, produce more warships, and basically snuff the Silicoids before they get a chance to grow into their strength.

Yes. If you imagine a chess game between the meklar and the silicoids, the silicoids will win every time.

But that's not what we're talking about, now is it?

What race is strongest in the hands on a human player? That's the real question.

[Erymon]

Originally posted by Mayhem Effect:

planets should never have reached volcanic due to polution, it makes no sense

From a science perspective, we'd have to disagree on this point. If you tax an environment enough (and in the process greatly raise planet temperature), volcanic activity does increase due to increases in planet core temps.

But aside from that, it raises a greater with uber planets in general gameplay. Although it is most clear with Sillicoids, is uber really even a class bonus? Or is it an aspect of the game that needs to be redesigned, like spying or minor races?

This was one of the things MoO 3 did well. Each race had essentially an "uber" preferred planet type, and terraforming (for their race) pushed the planet towards that preferred planet type.

It's unrealistic to belive that every race, especially huge lizards or giant rock people, would find terran-norms to be their preferred living environment. Perhaps that's one of the things missing with terraforming right now, to the point that it is an unfun and at times counterproductive task to produce.