Individual ability review:

Notes:

"Competes with CD"
Competes with a vanilla variant that is limited only by charges and a multiday cooldown. Generally, the hemogen variant is strictly better since it has more uses per battle and can be refreshed by bloodbags. You could technically double up by having the CD variant AND the hemogen variant, but few if any abilities are good enough to justify this.

"Competes with Psycast"
Competes with a psycast. Generally, psycasts are more spammable and have no upkeep, but require tons of meditation time from your most valuable pawns. Hemogen can rapidly be refreshed by feeding on your least valuable pawns, but you suffer a metabolism penalty for each hemogen ability even if you don't use it.

This is an interesting and balanced tradeoff, but generally psycasts are strictly better due having no additional upkeep no matter how many psycasts you learn. See any "Wizard vs Sorcerer DnD 5e" thread to see this discussed ad nauseum.

-Acidic Bloodspray-
Competes with CD. I hear that the vanilla version of bloodspray is very underwhelming, as it doesn't disable pawns the way fire does, and lacks both the damage and stopping power of guns.

It *might* be very strong depending on how it stacks as a DOT on individual targets, AOE targets, or the ground. Testing needed.

-Bloodfoam-
Competes with CD. Very niche, but it negates most of the penalties of Pyrophobe.

-Animal Bloodcall-
Competes with CD. Far, FAR more useful than the vanilla variant. Munching on prisoners and a 1 hour cooldown is MUCH stronger than a quadrum long cooldown. I would consider a 1 day cooldown and a hemogen cost of -40.

-Fire Blood-
Competes with CD. Just like DnD, fire is strong, but only against anything that isn't outright immune.

-Bloodmist-
Competes with psycasts AND the smokelauncher! Normally, a non-stacking AOE field debuff is a case where psycasts (or a single smoke launcher!) are strictly better than hemogen variants.

However, sanguos are uniquely suited to melee combat (due to deathrest alone!), so they get more mileage out of spamming smoke-effects.

Suggestion: Change bloodmist to be emitted from the caster over time in a 3x3 square, instead of being cast on an area. This would let sanguos fight with significantly less micro, differentiate bloodmist from the psycast/weapon variants, and would look cooler.

-Painblood-
Competes with psycasts. As a nonstacking self-target-only buff, this competes with psycasts surprisingly well. The recovery bonus of the hemogen variant stacks with the damage reduction of the psycast variant, while adding post-combat utility.

The tooltip doesn't mention the immunity buff. Testing is needed to see whether this bonus stacks with immunity traits, or overwrites them.

Suggestion: Allow this ability to be activated even after a pawn is downed.

thanks. i like having feedback. i'll try to do what i can with the suggestions here next time i can make an update! anything that can't be done in xml is impossible for me without paying someone. but i will see what i can do!

Originally posted by RedPine:

Individual ability review:

-Bloodmist-
Competes with psycasts AND the smokelauncher! Normally, a non-stacking AOE field debuff is a case where psycasts (or a single smoke launcher!) are strictly better than hemogen variants.

However, sanguos are uniquely suited to melee combat (due to deathrest alone!), so they get more mileage out of spamming smoke-effects.

Suggestion: Change bloodmist to be emitted from the caster over time in a 3x3 square, instead of being cast on an area. This would let sanguos fight with significantly less micro, differentiate bloodmist from the psycast/weapon variants, and would look cooler.

-Painblood-
Competes with psycasts. As a nonstacking self-target-only buff, this competes with psycasts surprisingly well. The recovery bonus of the hemogen variant stacks with the damage reduction of the psycast variant, while adding post-combat utility.

The tooltip doesn't mention the immunity buff. Testing is needed to see whether this bonus stacks with immunity traits, or overwrites them.

Suggestion: Allow this ability to be activated even after a pawn is downed.

sadly all of these cannot be done with xml only and i'd have to pay someone to make the code for them. and i don't have the funds for that currently. but when i do i will make sure to do so!

Originally posted by RedPine:

Subject.

-Cons of Biotech-

Generally speaking, xenogerms are bad for caster builds due to vanilla biotech design.

1. Removing or adding ONE ability requires rewriting the entire xenogerm (including archite genes!)

2. The metabolism cost is paid even if an ability is never used. This punishes having any abilities that are less than OP.

3. Due to the expense and logistics of creating new xenogerms, most colonies will only have a single "familiy" of sanguo casters, all of whom have identical spell lists. There is little room for variety much less fluff in biotech.



-Pros of Biotech-

1. Limitations make magic more interesting.

2. One "set" of abilities per vampire "family" can be interesting.



-How to Change Biotech-

Gain hemogen from xenogerms as normal, but gain abilities from elsewhere. Possibilities include (in no particular order):

1. Make a new "EXOgerm" layer that operates separately from the "XENOgerm" and "Philogerm" layer. This would allow using biotech mechanics without the biotech drawbacks. Not sure how hard that would be to code, but it would produce a very powerful framework for future mods.

2. Store abilities in a deathrest building, similar to how genepacks are stored in genebanks. Needing to enter deathrest, and swap out deathrest buildings to switch abilities could be rather interesting.

3. Gear. Only one type of gear can be worn per slot. Ideal slots for casters include the weapon slot, headgear slot, and utility slot. Due to how powerful vanilla items can be in these slots, you can justify very strong abilities.

4. Items. Gain abilities via consumable "hemogen trainer" items. Makes casters more unique and subject to RNG, at the cost of bloating the selection of quest rewards.

5. Bionic Implants. Balance the number of abilities with a mild hemogen drain per implant, plus the wealth cost of the implant.

6. Ritual rewards. Use a similar system as anima psycasters to force casters to be different from eachother via RNG and a hediff that can only be 'upgraded' a limited number of times.

7. Ideology Roles. This idea might be janky and silly, but it is an option!

very interesting. sadly outside of my wheelhouse. i'd need to hire a c# coder for much of this. I only work with xml for this game.i don't have the funds to do so or i would!

if any of you have numbers changes i can do those. i can change cooldowns, costs, effect numbers and such.

I can dream :) I'll keep the limitation to XML in mind. Even if I like the idea of C# stuff, XML is more stable and customizeable in practice.

Again, I'm not playtesting, just theorycrafting off the XML. I'm strongly considering using this mod in my next playthrough though.

General Notes:

+ It amuses me that the meta for a besieged vampire is to cast all buffs in a bloodfarm, top up on blood, down as many enemies as possible within 3 hours, then feed on the fallen to refresh the buffs.

- It's awkward that the duration of buffs can't be refreshed before the duration expires. I'd recommend either:
A) Make cooldowns longer than the ability durations for balancing
B) Remove cooldowns, so that durations can be refreshed for QoL


Abilities:

-Soothing Blood-
Very good flavor to balance ratio.

Competes with Psycasts - sort of. They joy effect is weaker than Word of Joy, but lasts longer and doesn't hurt consciousness. The opinion effect is stronger than Word Of Love - but it's not mutual, and costs 80 hemogen to get 4 stacks.


-Strength Blood-
IMO, not my cup of tea.

A 2x damage multiplier would be OP, if melee wasn't so risky. The carry weight aspect is interesting. With Strong Melee genes, damage is already enough to one shot limbs, so weapon warmup/cooldown/accuracy is more important than the actual damage.

There are already plenty of useful melee buffs (Pain Blood, Adrenaline, etc), I don't see a reason to clog the UI with more. What's currently missing is active melee abilities, such as a "melee slam aoe" ability (not really melee, just a short range grenade similar to Piercing Spines).


-Mind Blood-
Boring. Psycasting is plenty OP to start with, especially with deathrest buildings and genes granting passive psy bonuses, so an additional bonus from an active ability is redundant and clunky. At high sensitivity, focus costs are often more relevant than heat costs.

To be interesting, their needs to be more risk/reward/conditions - such as:
A) 1.5x sensitivity, but slows heat loss.
B) Restores focus, but to no more than 50% full.
C) Drain a downed/enslaved to 90% blood loss for +20% focus, comparable to kill-focus persona weapons.


-Hemogen Adrenaline-
Stacks with Go Juice. High cost, high benefit. I like this one.


-Circulate Antigen-
Assuming this stacks with Very Fast Healing, this could make prolonged combat in melee slightly less suicidal.


-Hemogen Hardening-
Unimplemented? I don't see it listed as an active ability, but I see it as a hediff. Weaker than Unstoppable and Fire Resistant (always on passives), but is super valuable for non-Tough vampires. More relevant at lower tech levels, where Pheonix Armor isn't available.