Opinion on emotionless

[Arkcon]

Hey there, I've been playing around with the Emotionless racial trait. Since it costs 3000 points, I also reduce the happiness racial characteristic to the minimum (and a few others a little bit). I then take the neutral happines type, as if that matters. I start the game with +10 % productiion bonus from happiness -- and I assume it will stay there no matter what.

How would you guys feel about this opponent on PBW? Do you think I'm exploiting a loophole in the rules that MM hadn't thought of because there's no harsh penalty for my choices -- just no possibility of bonuses.

Would you think it was more fair if I reduced all possible production characteristics by 10%? Could probably take another racial trait with all those points.

I'm really considering making an AI and a shipset around this race. A race of machines with organic components -- just not as mean as the Rage or self-rightous as the Vaxin.

[Suicide Junkie]

Re: the 10% production bonus.
Everybody else will have that 10% bonus at first, and it will rise to 20% permanently once their police force is established.

You'd need to take a +10% production modifier in order to keep up with the others.

[geoschmo]

I will second what SJ is saying. You only get 800 points back for minimising your happiness. It's not exactly a "loophole". Basically you end up paying 2200 points for the racial trait. I think maybe Malfador made it 3000 points with the intention of people minimising their happiness and getting the 800 points back.

Even at that it's the most expensive racial trait. Personally I dont see the value in it at all except for role play reasons. The only time I take it is for a race that it makes sense for. You are actually limiting yourself by taking it, not getting any kind of advantage over the other players.

Geoschmo

[Ed Kolis]

Well, it does keep all your planets from rioting just at that critical point when 150 Concordium battleships open a warp point to your home system

[Arkcon]

Thanks guys.

Geo: Yeah I remember a while back people disliked the high cost for emotionless, but hey, I like to role play

S J: Thanks, I didn't realize how easy to was to improve happiness with troops. Sometimes, when I spread my population really thin, on remote, small planets. I end up with lots of angry planets. Even if there are no enemy ships around. Like Ed says, I get a benefit when ememy ships are around -- but I shouldn't let that happen anyway.

Ed: Wait a minute... no cool new icon? That spaceman pic just screams for a cool background.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Well, it does keep all your planets from rioting just at that critical point when 150 Concordium battleships open a warp point to your home system

Naw, seeing that will make my population happy cause they will finally get to watch the slaughter in person rather than have to watch it on the news feeds transmitted by my allies as they rampage through Concordium space.

[capnq]

I don't know if this bug has ever been fixed, but AFAIK, if an Emotionless race takes over another race's colony, that colony's Mood stays at its current setting permanently. If the colony was Rioting, the riots never stop.

[PvK]

Emotionless is extremely valuable if and when disaster strikes. If you lose many ships and/or planets at once, all of your planets can go to rioting, which paralyzes your production. If you just lost your main fleet, this will greatly impede you from rebuilding it, unless you have masses of space-based construction capacity and lots of resource reserves and/or trade. I've seen this be a major factor in several PBW games.

What I am wondering now after capnq's post, is what happens if an emotionless race gets hit with an Anarchy Groups intelligence attack? Does it suffer permanent damage, or no damage? If permanent, I'd call it a bug that really messes up Emotionless races. If no damage, then it's another good advantage of Emotionless.

All told, and assuming my fear of the political parties bug is unfounded, I think Emotionless is somewhat undervalued... but only until you get smashed, at which point it could definitely save your skin.

As for capnq's point about captured planets, it's not correct (it should be based on the population on the planet, or at least even captured planets should normalize happiness). Can't it be fixed though by removing the population and re-populating (though, that's silly, and impractical in Proportions mod).

PvK

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Arkcon:

Ed: Wait a minute... no cool new icon? That spaceman pic just screams for a cool background.

Well, I never got up the gumption to bug David to make one Besides, it's only a stock Shrapnel forum avatar, believe it or not - Nebraskan uses the same one... I'm thinking maybe I should switch to a picture of Rimmer with Mr. Flibble from Red Dwarf before I ask for avatar enhancement...

(Completely off topic... Isn't the name "Rimmer" kind of naughty??? Or do I just have a dirty mind? )

[Phoenix-D]

"Completely off topic... Isn't the name "Rimmer" kind of naughty??? Or do I just have a dirty mind?"

Both.

Phoenix-D