Powerful Bionic Duplicants vs. Standard Duplicants

[O.J.Vodka]

Bionic duplicants are so overwhelmingly powerful that many Chinese players have likened standard duplicants to "disabled" characters. Should Klei consider enhancing the abilities of standard duplicants or adjusting the probability of bionic duplicants appearing during new recruitments?

[gigamoi]

I see what you mean. I've seen people with similar ideas on Reddit. I don't share those views. I think standard dupes far outshine bionics in all roles where more than two attributes (machinery, science, digging, building,...) are relevant (aside from athletics). That's because bionics have 8 booster slots and each booster generally provide 5 attribute points (+2 athletics) which limits them to t maximum of 8*5=40 attribute point. A standard dupe can accumulate up to 20 points per attribute so, in all circumstances in which they regularly are to use more than two attributes, you are better off with regular dupes. Keep in mind that this includes carrying capacity. bionics don't get "free" carrying capacity through their skill tree. You need a booster for that. Where bionics really shine in end game IMO is in all roles were stacking a single attribute is required and it is best for this attribute to be as high as possible as they can stack 40 points on that single attribute. Those roles are ranching, as points dramatically lengthen the duration of the grooming effect, farming with fertilizer, as it lengthen the duration of the fertilization effect, saving fertilizer, and machinery, as it lengthen generator tune-up time.

All in all, unless you are to constantly micromanage them (which is viable in some situations), regular dupes make better generalists than bionics, but bionics makes for better experts.

[O.J.Vodka]

14 minutes ago, gigamoi said:

I see what you mean. I've seen people with similar ideas on Reddit. I don't share those views. I think standard dupes far outshine bionics in all roles where more than two attributes (machinery, science, digging, building,...) are relevant (aside from athletics). That's because bionics have 8 booster slots and each booster generally provide 5 attribute points (+2 athletics) which limits them to t maximum of 8*5=40 attribute point. A standard dupe can accumulate up to 20 points per attribute so, in all circumstances in which they regularly are to use more than two attributes, you are better off with regular dupes. Keep in mind that this includes carrying capacity. bionics don't get "free" carrying capacity through their skill tree. You need a booster for that. Where bionics really shine in end game IMO is in all roles were stacking a single attribute is required and it is best for this attribute to be as high as possible as they can stack 40 points on that single attribute. Those roles are ranching, as points dramatically lengthen the duration of the grooming effect, farming with fertilizer, as it lengthen the duration of the fertilization effect, saving fertilizer, and machinery, as it lengthen generator tune-up time.

All in all, unless you are to constantly micromanage them (which is viable in some situations), regular dupes make better generalists than bionics, but bionics makes for better experts.

It takes 300 cycles to train a standard duplicant to surpass a bionic duplicant, while a bionic duplicant only needs 50 cycles to reach the max level. Even though the bionic duplicant has extremely high final attribute values, the cost for players is too high, making standard duplicants completely incomparable to bionic duplicants.

[gigamoi]

I see what you mean. I alleviate that point by starting to train my generalists early. As the game goes on I have less and less need for generalist digger/builders. Early game, the majority of my digger/builders are bionics, with a few regular dupes in training. As the regular dupes are a minority, most of the tasks are still done very fast by the bionics. By the time the regular dupes are well trained, I don't need that many digger/builders so I turn my bionic builder/diggers into ranchers, farmers or machinists. I end up with the best of both.

[reddocc]

bionic duplicants are clearly weaker as they are uglier than normal dupes and they aren't as unique, this is the reason that people will defend them even if Klei decides to further buff bionic duplicants

[ALCRD]

They are kind of annoying without extra "baby proofing". They also require a lot of power and atmo suits (cause digging through areas with liquids can rapidly get them to 100% stress - which means losing power banks/eco bank charges and getting everything in their path of electric rage getting damaged)

I did try reducing their power drain in game options by one notch and they became .. tolerable. Still prefer regular dupes.

Edited June 2, 2025 by ALCRD

[mitboy]

I feel like they are much more powerful for space expeditions specifically since they don't need food and can wear a suit infinitely. But I still prefer regular dupes for normal colony business. 

[Carib94]

2 hours ago, gigamoi said:

All in all, unless you are to constantly micromanage them (which is viable in some situations), regular dupes make better generalists than bionics, but bionics makes for better experts.

Basically this. The Boops are good but not that good I think vs dupes they are pretty much equal. I usually start with 3 dupes or 2 dupes 1 boop then by the mid game I start to take a few more boops, I only use boops for specific jobs that benefits being +40 however I do sometimes opt to go +30 then +10(like strength). Ranching, Farming(+fertilizer), Cooking, and Machinery/Operating all are useful with high attributes to get stuff done faster and increase buff duration's. 

So imo the boops have a place in the game as top tier experts in certain fields(like irl jobs especially tech lol)  and then you have dupes who are a sort of jacks of all trades master of none type deal(altho late game they basically become super dupes XD) 

[Tigin]

Boops has an extremely early power spike with 3 skill points (Booster Processing1 -> Booster Processing 2 -> Complex Processing) which gets you really early access to 25 attribute points on like cycle 15. A 25 attribute digger with Exosuit Training and Atmo Suits is orders of magnitude more productive than anything you could train for awhile

After that, they kind of go downhill from there. 40 attributes are nice but it requires a certain amount of discipline to design your chores right, and going with all generalists is generally easier. (Plus, RPG-like progression is always a nice dopamine hit)

Edited June 2, 2025 by Tigin