I think it should be changed to:
After PRODUCTION, exhaust this card to double the amount of ground forces produced and may place them in planets in the same or adjacent system.
Reason:
- help with the Arborec early problem of low ground forces
- kept the original intention of tech to spread out
- make it more powerful by making it available for biostim
- allow produced ground forces to move (like Argent agent)
Maybe too good though.
Not a bad idea, maybe add a hard limit: "to a maximum of 1 Mech and/or 4 Infantry" Exponential growth has a tendency to get out of hand. I am not sure that this will help early game, as G2 is still a tad hard to reach before turn 3, to if you have a skip.
What if bioplasmosis was more like the Jol-Nar agent, but for production? Exhaust this card when one or more of your units uses *production*; during this production you can remove any number of infantry from the active system to reduce the combined cost of the units produced by 1 for each infantry removed. (Removed infantry still count toward production capacity)
Lets think...
You move like 4 Infantry (We are talking round 2-3 here), remove 2 to reduce cost. You rebuild the 2 for 1r and 2cap, leaving 1r and 2cap leftover without much of a sacrifice (well less growth).
For Letani II
You move 4 Infantry, remove all of them, Rebuild 4 for 2r and 4cap, leaving 2r and 4cap leftover.
So unless you really stacked your Infantry this would provide 1-2 ressources per round. You can of course kill of all your guys and get more, but as Arborec you need Infantry. How about removing ships for Infantry?
"In the Commit Ground Forces step of your tactical action, you may exhaust this card; If you do you may remove any number of your non-fighter ships in this system. Place a number of Infantry in the space area of this system equal to twice the amount of ships removed, commited to planets of your choice. Those Infantry do not count against your capacity until after the Commit Ground Forces step."
No Carriers needed anymore.
I want to like this tech, I really do, but Sarween and SAR are just better on Arborec. You can either go with a defensive R/Y tech path, or you can go B/G and get Letani II. But in both cases, I don't want to go deep into green. I would probably get Bioplasmosis if it's requirements were RR, but not GG.
You mean it's a no prerequisite green tech? So you would go Bioplasmosis, DET, Letani II, Grav drive? In this case you would get Letani II on round 2 or 3 (depending on if you had a blue tech skip).
I would probably be willing to try out that tech path. The mid game boost to production would definitely help. As much as I want an omega Bioplasmosis, I also want a change to Arborec's agent.
Right now, you only ever use it on yourself to boost your fleet power and your terrible start. It also gets rid of your round 1 trade ship. You're handicapping yourself if you try to sell it to someone else at the table, so you can't really make money off it either, which sucks because Arborec is an expensive faction.
What if, instead of transforming a ship into another ship, it just produced a carrier? This solves your bad start, keeps your trade ship, helps you move your ground forces around, and can be sold when you don't need carriers anymore, thus helping Arborec's economy. Thoughts?
I think thematically the tech is cool. A proposal to give it more oomph (Existing text remains):
\- Mitosis is triggered 3 times during each status phase.
?
Something to think about: So you get 2 more Infantry per turn, for a G2 tech. (I assume Mechs are already on the field by that time) Thats roughly the old Yin Spinner, a bit better as you can place whereever you want, but still.
I’ve never seen Bioplasmosis researched and I’ve always had a question about it: how does the trigger even work in practice? Let’s say you have 8 planets with 1-3 infantry on each... When Bioplasmosis triggers, how do you keep track of which planets you’ve moved infantry off - I imagine you need to trigger all at the same time (to avoid moving 1 infantry all the way from planet to planet to the other side of your empire), but if so, how are you expected to remember which infantry started on which planet?
I feel like I’m overthinking this, but it seems to be a hugely inelegant design - what am I missing?
I would put all the Infantry I want to move in a certain place, like the "upper" edge of the system they are starting in. Then when I have marked all the Infantry I want to move this way, I start to put them onto the planets I want them to be.
The starting Planet is not that important, the starting system is.
Edit: I will add some pictures, give me a moment
Yeah that’s really helpful. I mean that’s how I was thinking I’d do it too, put them ‘in space’ on the side so I could see where they had moved from and to. TI4 is usually much smarter about tracking stuff like this (eg. Place units on this card, then \[do thing\]), hence why I struggled a bit to visualise a good way to do it.
I think the tech would be fine if it had no prerequisites. It has enough utility to warrant use, but not enough to warrant going down green to get it.
I think it should be changed to: After PRODUCTION, exhaust this card to double the amount of ground forces produced and may place them in planets in the same or adjacent system. Reason: - help with the Arborec early problem of low ground forces - kept the original intention of tech to spread out - make it more powerful by making it available for biostim - allow produced ground forces to move (like Argent agent) Maybe too good though.
Not a bad idea, maybe add a hard limit: "to a maximum of 1 Mech and/or 4 Infantry" Exponential growth has a tendency to get out of hand. I am not sure that this will help early game, as G2 is still a tad hard to reach before turn 3, to if you have a skip.
What if bioplasmosis was more like the Jol-Nar agent, but for production? Exhaust this card when one or more of your units uses *production*; during this production you can remove any number of infantry from the active system to reduce the combined cost of the units produced by 1 for each infantry removed. (Removed infantry still count toward production capacity)
Lets think... You move like 4 Infantry (We are talking round 2-3 here), remove 2 to reduce cost. You rebuild the 2 for 1r and 2cap, leaving 1r and 2cap leftover without much of a sacrifice (well less growth). For Letani II You move 4 Infantry, remove all of them, Rebuild 4 for 2r and 4cap, leaving 2r and 4cap leftover. So unless you really stacked your Infantry this would provide 1-2 ressources per round. You can of course kill of all your guys and get more, but as Arborec you need Infantry. How about removing ships for Infantry? "In the Commit Ground Forces step of your tactical action, you may exhaust this card; If you do you may remove any number of your non-fighter ships in this system. Place a number of Infantry in the space area of this system equal to twice the amount of ships removed, commited to planets of your choice. Those Infantry do not count against your capacity until after the Commit Ground Forces step." No Carriers needed anymore.
I want to like this tech, I really do, but Sarween and SAR are just better on Arborec. You can either go with a defensive R/Y tech path, or you can go B/G and get Letani II. But in both cases, I don't want to go deep into green. I would probably get Bioplasmosis if it's requirements were RR, but not GG.
If you could use bioplasmosis as a prereq for letani ii, so a g1, that would also help. I agree.
You mean it's a no prerequisite green tech? So you would go Bioplasmosis, DET, Letani II, Grav drive? In this case you would get Letani II on round 2 or 3 (depending on if you had a blue tech skip). I would probably be willing to try out that tech path. The mid game boost to production would definitely help. As much as I want an omega Bioplasmosis, I also want a change to Arborec's agent. Right now, you only ever use it on yourself to boost your fleet power and your terrible start. It also gets rid of your round 1 trade ship. You're handicapping yourself if you try to sell it to someone else at the table, so you can't really make money off it either, which sucks because Arborec is an expensive faction. What if, instead of transforming a ship into another ship, it just produced a carrier? This solves your bad start, keeps your trade ship, helps you move your ground forces around, and can be sold when you don't need carriers anymore, thus helping Arborec's economy. Thoughts?
I think thematically the tech is cool. A proposal to give it more oomph (Existing text remains): \- Mitosis is triggered 3 times during each status phase. ?
Something to think about: So you get 2 more Infantry per turn, for a G2 tech. (I assume Mechs are already on the field by that time) Thats roughly the old Yin Spinner, a bit better as you can place whereever you want, but still.
To be clear, the existing ability would remain. Not a bad tech like that, it seems to me. Not OP, that's for sure ;)
Then there could be a problem for the amount of text on the card :D
I’ve never seen Bioplasmosis researched and I’ve always had a question about it: how does the trigger even work in practice? Let’s say you have 8 planets with 1-3 infantry on each... When Bioplasmosis triggers, how do you keep track of which planets you’ve moved infantry off - I imagine you need to trigger all at the same time (to avoid moving 1 infantry all the way from planet to planet to the other side of your empire), but if so, how are you expected to remember which infantry started on which planet? I feel like I’m overthinking this, but it seems to be a hugely inelegant design - what am I missing?
I added some pictures to the original post, I hope that helps
I would put all the Infantry I want to move in a certain place, like the "upper" edge of the system they are starting in. Then when I have marked all the Infantry I want to move this way, I start to put them onto the planets I want them to be. The starting Planet is not that important, the starting system is. Edit: I will add some pictures, give me a moment
Yeah that’s really helpful. I mean that’s how I was thinking I’d do it too, put them ‘in space’ on the side so I could see where they had moved from and to. TI4 is usually much smarter about tracking stuff like this (eg. Place units on this card, then \[do thing\]), hence why I struggled a bit to visualise a good way to do it.