As I mentioned before I am thinking of maybe doing some events if the Living Planet is lost to invasion.

Right now claiming an AI living planet grants the winner (if not aliving planet itself) a super powerful planet without the penalties that the Living Planet empire would face.

I like the idea that the player (or AIs) would get an event upon defeating the livining planet as to what to do with it. For example Xenophobes might just kill it and get a larger than usual planet with blockers (trees, roots, etc). Egalitarian/Xenophiles might have a (in event lore at least) not kill the planet but work out some sort of cohabitation or vassal type situation with the planet. Slaving empires could enslave the planet. Crusaders could potentially even free the planet getting it's gratitude.

Indeed a popular trait. The planet rework gets us SO much more room to make interesting tall builds.
For the events, basic ideas seems good. Conceptually, three lines of decisions come to mind. Destroying, using, or befriending it.
Destroying it... Killing the core unit of the hive mind, and thus the planet, likely would kill most of its drones and most of life on the planet off. This should come with some MAJOR (districts set to 1 each as a hazard-free zone! Habitability maluses galore!) expensive to clear blockers - maybe granting research for clearing them, in addition to clearing blocked districts. Alternatively, just the option to blast it into a toxic hellscape with nuclear weaponry if you are xeno/militaristic.

Befriending would probably involve the living planet giving in and reshaping its nature to become a nice special vassal type. Maybe grant bonus research per LP type, robot or organic?

"Using" the planet may just be somewhere in between. Find a way to let the planet live in peace while being settled by you, grant some permanent features reducing the district space to emulate that it still is very much alive, making it non-terraformable but giving habitability bonuses as the planet can just adjust itself for you.


Edit: Small note now that I consider these options, maybe restricting this to "Living Planet" as a hivemind trait, and adding a separate living robot planet civic would be a way to keep things from being too convoluted. But that's getting ahead of stuff.

Currently the trait does require both hive mind and non machine empire, hence the name.

I was thinking that with killing it you'd have to clear the now dead organic stuff left behind. Maybe a decaying trait that makes it generally inhospitable and pops unhappy to live there for the first 20 years after death. You'd also be stuck with a variety of large blockers ( gigantic roots, decaying forests, etc). One entirely cleared the planet end up being a bit larger than average but not as large as the living planet can be onto itself.

I think the ability to spare its life in exchange for something what would be interesting. I can see that maybe a few different options exists here.

>Turn it into a "nature preserve" of sorts. It becomes off limits to habitation but a science station can be placed over it granting huge science collection 50 each.

>Alternatively, maybe it can agree to produce strategic resources and become the same nut a mining station collects a moderate amount of motes and gasses from it.

>Some sort of co-habitation like we both suggested. Possibly have occasional events where disagreements between your resident pops and the planet itself occurs.

>Vassalize/protectorate it. This might be the closest to befriending mechanically speaking.

> tributary it would be the closest to slavery I can think of.

Having customized Ascension stuff for it could be cool as well. Some of the Ascension traits are more or less useless empires using it. Though I don't want to get into that this moment.

Aye, ascension is still a bit complicated to work in. Also - right now the trait is allowed for bio and machine archetypes, may need some changing then.

Protectorate/tributary with a single tall system sounds good for the non-destructive option.
The mining/research maybe could merge into the cohabitation, give a special job class (planet tender?) through a unique feature symbolising the core living planet, and a building to earn resources from it, something into that direction. And limit districts of your own heavily.

Xenophobe options sounds good, plenty blockers, smaller than before, give it a special "decaying planet" modifier which can only be removed with a long and expensive planetary decision.

I love this civic in concept and in execution, I love the idea of just playing as a single planet-mind. Unfortunately I play with a ton of mods and somewhere there's a conflict which negates the colony ship cost modifier, meaning I can just colonize normally. Naturally this is broken as ♥♥♥♥ once I have 2 or 3 more hive worlds. Maybe this trait should prevent you from building colony ships all together instead?

A loftier idea I had about this would be that if you colonized another planet it would automatically become an independent hive mind. Basically you'd be making more world-minds to fill up your galaxy.

Out of curiosity what is the likelyhood of you making a trait akin to this for a machine empire? A AI planet in essence. So far ive loved this trait with my Hivemind.

I would need to buy the expac first. I only have Utopia and Apocalypse. I might get the other expacs over a summer sale if they have one... As of right now no plans but if I got Synthetic Dawn I'd make a machine variation of it when I have time to work on this project next.