Some simplified calculations to answer that "how bad is (very) bad" (and how good is good).
S: average colony pop size
F: average colony IP flat bonus
U: total IP colony upkeep is (#colonies - 1)*sqrt(#colonies)-3 (from the palace)
O: IP output from a colony set to influence is SpeciesTrait*sqrt(S)+F
Number of colonies required on influence focus to pay for the upkeeototal colony upkeep is round_up(U/O).
So, number of colonies set to influence (the more, the worse):
Early game? S=9, F=0
#Colonies | Very Bad | Bad | Average | Good | Great |
5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
10 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
15 | 13 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 4 |
20 | 21 | 14 | 11 | 7 | 6 |
During the initial stage (<10 colonies), the influence species trait is not a limitation or a boost, thanks to the palace flat bonus.
At 10 planets, very bad already need >50% of the empire set to influence. At that mark, very bad should have better flat IP bonuses or get out of game.
Assuming Replicon had greater average population than other empires (16 instead of 9), it would still need 5 out of 10 planets, or 16 out of 20 planets set to influence.
When you require more than a third of your empire focused on infuence, more colonies won't help much (sweetspot varies depending mostly on unfocused bonuses). When you hit 50% more colonies will hurt.
So Replicon Very Bad is not "fast colonization" no matter what other traits you add to them: when you can build colonies cheaper and faster than your enemies, but you have half their producing planets, you won't produde colonies faster. Plus you will produce warships slower.
Mid game? S=16, F=1
#Colonies | Very Bad | Bad | Average | Good | Great |
10 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
20 | 11 | 8 | 7 | 5 | 4 |
30 | 21 | 16 | 13 | 9 | 7 |
40 | 32 | 24 | 20 | 14 | 11 |
50 | 46 | 34 | 28 | 20 | 16 |
60 | 60 | 45 | 36 | 26 | 20 |
With a flat bonus of 1 IP per colony, things get better for (very) bad, but not by much.
At the 30 colonies mark, average species can have 17 planets set to PP and RP. If we take that as the base value:
Great has +35% PP&RP, Good +24%, Bad -18%, Very Bad -47%
Late game? S=25, F=2
#Colonies | Very Bad | Bad | Average | Good | Great |
20 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
40 | 22 | 17 | 14 | 11 | 8 |
60 | 40 | 32 | 26 | 19 | 15 |
80 | 63 | 49 | 40 | 30 | 24 |
100 | 88 | 69 | 57 | 42 | 33 |
120 | 116 | 91 | 75 | 55 | 44 |
Calculating the same percentages than above, we get
At the 40 mark, Great is +23% PP&RP, Very Bad is -30%.
At 80 planets, Great is +40% and Very Bad is -50%
Bad influence is worse than bad research/production/population. Very bad influence is... very bad.
It is not noticeable at the beginning of the game, but for galaxies with more than 100 systems, Very Bad influence is a huge drawback.
As always, one can overcome that by having other species in the empire to do the influence job.
Feudalism policy is something else. Bonus to industry focused from in-system, same-species, unwoned planets. It's quite niche (how often do you have in a system 2+ planets habitable for the same species?) plus annoying (colonize+independize). This' been discussed somewhere else, but I don't know if Feudalism will ever change or stick to current form.