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Riftborn Global Pop Scaling

Adjusts cost scaling of Riftborn population.

The industry cost of creating Riftborn population in the vanilla game increases proportionate to the number of locally resident Riftborn.

As a result, there is a strong incentive to isolate manufacturing to systems containing only minor races. Such systems can easily pump out one major population unit per turn, which must then be individually shipped out to adjacent systems.

I find this fairly tedious mechanically and counterintuitive lore-wise: one of the first things we learn of our floaty friends is their abject horror at the idea of cohabitation with the ugly, fleshy things scuttling about this universe, so why would such a system be their natural entry point?

This mod corrects this oversight by adjusting the industry cost of the "Machine Embodiment" project to scale instead with the average system population across the empire. The industry cost of Riftborn pops is thus equal across systems, so there is no longer an incentive to create them outside the one you intend them to inhabit.

The specific formula used is 30 + 40 * population/systems. This means initially that the cost is the same as vanilla (150), and increases slightly less per use (40 rather than 50), yet also scales with minor population growth. On the other hand, settling new, empty systems reduces the cost across the empire.

This mod is compatible with ESG, but must be loaded after to take effect. Note: the ESG mods adds a special Riftborn recipe for Fast game speed which this mod does not presently account for.