Oberlus wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 10:45 pm
The population malus for Trith (and for any other xenophobic selfsustaining species, but the are no more) was introduced to help nerf their huge population bonus from self-sustaining.
I'm all in to change that for something else (or even to remove it if Trith are no longer a nice species to have).
But have you tried Racial Purity and Conc. Camps with Trith?
The equation for the pop malus from "nearby" species isn't easy. It's in the xenophobic macros file withing the species folder.
Another nerf for the selfsustaining start of Trith is getting medium planet, which nerfs all the subsequent population extending bonuses too, like even the early subterranean habitation, compared to species that start with large planets, and that compounds my grief from the ancient guardians
I am going the route of purging other species with camps, it seems the only way for Trith. Haven't crunched the numbers, it feels like it barely gives back of what I spent on troop ships (or not at all, depending on how defensive the natives are), but on the flip side I get an usable outpost which I should factor into P&L calculations as a big positive, and also my Trith planets reclaim self sustaining population bonus, so as designed. But it doesn't feel like I can do anything else than camps, with the stability malus and all. At best try to exploit necessity and unchanged research focus for research species, maybe. Guess this does not bode well for Eexaw either because they don't have the selfsustaining going for them, and while they are good for ships you really need only one planet for that (even if that paints a target on that planet)
It also seems to me that racial purity does not cancel xenophobic frenzy on population hit. If I purge the natives then I am reclaiming my population bonus a little, but don't tink that happens for racial purity and keeping the species, but it may as well be by design, especially if you take into account the fluff... So there exists some confusion between xenophoic frenzy of Trith on population malus and on stability malus (maybe it should be called differently for the pop hit)
Overall I can make it work, but experience with other species is much better to boot. There is some nice potential with self sustaining metabolism, but in early game it feels like it is nerfed too much (depends on luck of the draw though, how many radiated planets are in the area and how many ancient guardians are in the area - may actually be quite nice with lucky start.. which can always be said I suppose), and late game other empires will not be that far off or even might be better off, especially if they freely take advantage of better flexibility with good enrvironments without need to terraform (and let's not forget self-sustaining works only on good environment, another nerf to that trait) or of any other assorted stuff like bright stars, growth specials (that AFAIR don't require good environment), and even plain old research into max pop extending techs that lowers the difference that selfsustaining gives, too.
EDIT: I realize I am not covering planetary stealth bonus but it is a nice bonus, just not something I pay much attention to, though something definitely on the plus side for Trith, but Laenfa seems better to take advantage of that angle (can't comment on Sly, no real experience there).. But maybe Trith look better than Etty for that angle indeed