Intention of the Booster Pack: pure bionic or hybrid?

[ChrisPBacon000]

I'm trying a pure bionic run, nothing fancy, and I got to thinking how different the game becomes early on when you have pure bionic dupes.

No farming, mess hall, barracks, so research priorities shift significantly.  It feels like base cooling and gas management aren't nearly so important either. 

 

In exchange for these low priority colony needs, instead you need to deal with huge power demands, a critical metal ore shortage, unless you rush Eco banks, and eventually power demands way greater than a "regular colony" usually sees. 

Additionally, you need to deal with more specialized dupes (no skill levelling), oil/gunk, worse morale... Just totally different colony development needs and challenges.

 

Now imagine having 3 bionic dupes and then printing one standard dupe. Suddenly you have to add food, beds, and toilets.  With farming comes more challenging temperature control issues. You also need a cook, farmers, CO2 management...  The complexity of the colony explodes.

 

So getting to main discussion point: is it worth trying to run a hybrid colony?  The fact that bionic and standard dupes have such different needs means early hybridization imposes major demands on research and infrastructure.  Hybridizing later seems better, maybe?  

I get that it's probably more about fun and choices, rather than "optimal' play, but I'm curious what others have encountered in trying to add organic dupes to a bionic colony, or vice versa. 

 

 

[Tigin]

Bionics are much more productive at digging/exploring because of their O2 tank. I started with bionics for the first few dupes to do all the digging/initial base setup/oxygen+critter infrastructure. I started printing normal dupes at around cycle 40 to get canivore. Your experience may differ if you don't use a printing prod dupe customization mod though

[speckle21]

I'm STILL on adding bionic dupes to regular bio colony after they set up the basics. So i can't comment on all gameplay styles...

.... but i gotta say i LOVE how different it feels, some systems are simplified, and others are more constrained. But it definitely makes the game feel fresh and different. Not just a reskin.

I think i'm going to go with hybrid colonies in the future just because i LOVE building out complicated infrastructure, and now i have an incentive to build out massive power systems. 

[FoldableHuman]

The clear intent is a mixed colony. The better reference frame is that flesh dupes are still the core of the gameplay, you want/need farms, ranches, bedrooms, kitchens, toilets, CO2 processing, etc. and bionic dupes supplement that with some strengths, weaknesses, and considerations of their own.

The great thing is that it's not prescriptive, and there's already surfacing a bunch of different ways to play with bionics, either bringing them in later as specialists who can get caught up very quickly due to boosters, early game powerhouses who can efficiently get the core habitat set up with their uninterrupted work cycles, or even 100% bionic colonies.

[GuyPerfect]

I think there needs to be a way to guarantee a Bionic and/or standard Duplicant gets offered at the Printing Pod, for those who do want to go one way or the other versus mixed. For the time being, there's always save reloads.

[Lillegre]

40 minutes ago, GuyPerfect said:

I think there needs to be a way to guarantee a Bionic and/or standard Duplicant gets offered at the Printing Pod, for those who do want to go one way or the other versus mixed. For the time being, there's always save reloads.

Bionic, Dupe, Care + wildcard ^_^

[imazined]

I'm playing a hybrid start on radioactive ocean on highest difficulty without teleporter and having a blast.

The most efficient way would probably start with organic dupes only andlater get bionics as specialists.