Drones and Superdrones problem

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Starting a new topic for the problem that has been bothering me (and maybe others) for quite long time.

Vanilla drones and superdrones mechanics is exceptionally not linear toward psych. Here is and extreme example. Assume player has so many bases that bureaucracy generates enormous number of superdrones in every base. Let's say POLICE = 0, player can build police2x units, recreation commons and hologram theater. Even though each base has number of drones and superdrones equal to the size player can keep base size 6 content with one police2x + RC + HT. Now let's see what does it take to keep base size 7 content. It requires one more content citizen generated by psych. However, to create one, psych should first suppresses all existing superdrones (7) and only then turn first drone to content. That requires 8*2 = 16 psych total or 11 with HT multiplication effect. That could be somewhere 40-60% psych allocation for the base of this size.

Watch the hands. Base size 6 - psych is completely useless. Base size 7 - psych is completely useless until it reaches certain threshold of 40-60% to even start generating content citizens. Anything below that is a pure waste.

The reason for it is that all other drone suppressing means affect citizens by count regardless of whether they are drones or superdrones. Whereas only psych deals with superdrones and drones separately and in this specific order! Meaning police and facilities effectively override psych subthreshold effect and make it redundant.

This mechanics renders psych exceptionally wasteful (and therefore quite unused) way to deal with drones especially in early-mid game. It would be nice to fix this somehow. Here are few options I was thinking recently. Let me know if you like them or have anything else in mind.

1. No superdrones. Easy but then b-drones would be limited by one for human on highest difficulty. Making game significantly easy.
2. All drone means deal with superdrones same way as psych. I.e. superdrones first, then drones. This way all ways of reducing drones will be working additively. Pretty simple way to go.

[dino]

If by option 2 you mean that for example recreation commons just provides 2 psych points, then I'm not a fan.

First you can have the same problem just from the start including building drone control facilities that would do nothing.
Second, since psych slider is faction wide, early psych control facilities and police units have unique ability to control superdrones in new bases, or small production bases, when your large energy bases midgame require small psych slider while there are only superdrones in new/small bases due to beurocracy drones, especially crucial in your mod since you've removed crawlers.

So, solution 3:
Leave everything vanilla, except make psych deal with normal drones first before moving to the the next superdrone, this way each 2, or 4 ( if there are only superdrones ) psych points would count toward reducing the number of required specialists.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

If by option 2 you mean that for example recreation commons just provides 2 psych points, then I'm not a fan.

4

First you can have the same problem just from the start including building drone control facilities that would do nothing.
Second, since psych slider is faction wide, early psych control facilities and police units have unique ability to control superdrones in new bases, or small production bases, when your large energy bases midgame require small psych slider while there are only superdrones in new/small bases due to beurocracy drones, especially crucial in your mod since you've removed crawlers.

Didn't get the whole paragraph but there is a major difference between psych and facilities. Psych is controlled faction wide. Whereas facilities you can build as needed. That is why they are usually built when they are needed at base. Psych is pretty easy to waste.

So, solution 3:
Leave everything vanilla, except make psych deal with normal drones first before moving to the the next superdrone, this way each 2, or 4 ( if there are only superdrones ) psych points would count toward reducing the number of required specialists.

I thought about this too. Should work probably if I am able to implement it.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Let me go wider on the problem discussing the generic drone problem first.

It seems that the most generic problem with drones is that they affect bigger bases more. First, number of drones depends on base size. So the bigger the base the more difficult for it to deal with drones and to continue growing. Second, facilities and police effectively protect minimal size bases from bureaucracy. Like size 3 base with RC and 1 police is guaranteed to have no drones regardless of b-drones count.

All the above favors creating many small base rather than growing them. Ironically spreading size 3 bases with RC and 1 police is an absolute cure against bureaucracy even though the bureaucracy is generated by number of bases. The drone mechanics that was specifically invented to slow down the expansion is nullified by drone mechanics itself.

I am trying to think of some way to marry these two opposite requirements.
1. Number of bases should impact player in some way. Preferably, in some uniform way that does not penalize growing bases vertically.
2. At the same time there should be some way to maintain small bases to allow further expansion even if slowed down. Otherwise, inability to maintain newly built base even with police and RC in it would be a major game stopper.

I welcome you to share ideas. Here is what comes up to my mind so far. Just random thought. Each of them is not necessarily valid choice.

Make facilities and/or police to quell both drones and superdrones. This way RC would guarantee only one content citizen after +2 b-drones per base.
Optionally, give RC and police an increased police power. I.e. they have to quell both drones and superdrones but have say RC = 3 and police = +1. This way in early game RC would make 3 citizen content but reduced to 1.5 for large empire. Same for police: 2 early and 1 in large empire.

Specialists should not limit number of drones. Otherwise, it is very easy to abuse them and turn all remaining drones into specialists.
With the above in mind doctor produces 4 psych to emulate same functionality as in vanilla for all base drones. I.e. it pacifies itself + one more drone.

Another option is to continue with vanilla drones and super drones and phantom drones distinction but make phantom drones matter. For example, not suppressed phantom drones may reduce energy or mineral or even nutrient intake (or combination). Although, I am not very keen of treating drones and phantom drones differently.

Or maybe all the above but on the faction level, not base one.