The purifing algea seems way too productive. To compare, turning metal into alloy costs : 4 energy upkeep + 12 mineral (6 per job w/2 metallurgist per base foundry) to produce 6 alloy (3 per job).

This mod uses only 1 job to produce 6 alloy (same production), from 4 energy upkeep + 4 food, and just 1 pop job.

If you aim for balance, and want to keep only 1 job per 6 alloy produced, a way to balance it would be to make it more expansive than while using metals. I'd propose something like :

4 energy upkeep (building)

15 food upkeep (15 per job, 1 job only) --> (compared to 12 metals, 2 jobs)

6 alloy production (same output)


It would probs still be better than foundry honestly, since you use one job instead of 2, but that would be better balanced I think. Alloys should be hard to acquire!

That is a good suggestion. Balancing alloys proved to be quite difficult to me, because I couldn't simply mirror the minerals cost (as minerals tend to be acquired in a different manner than food, mostly from stations and not districts).

Ah, I see your point, that is quite true. Then maybe the job itself could still cost 4 (or 6) food, but you could also add an energy cost (if such thing is possible), or ramp up the building's energy upkeep (with the rational that purifying algea into metals at a 1:1 ratio should be very energy intensive!).

So you would get something like :

Building : 4 energy upkeep

Job : 4 (or 6) food + 6-10 energy upkeep
6 alloy production

I'm currently testing it with 10 food as upkeep. It seems fairly balanced but I was also not focusing on food. Food-focused empires would probably need the credit upkeep boost to keep the buildings relatively reasonable.

Re: alloys, another thing I noticed is that upgraded vanilla alloy buildings use strategic resources (iirc motes) but this one doesn't, as far as I remember. Perhaps adding a strategic resource cost like exotic gas would work, and have it be higher than for vanilla alloy forge. So you trade in more strategic resource for less base resource.

Also, the way tea gardens work with Rouge Servitors is... Interesting. They already get a nice amount of unity from organic sanctuaries, but add this with tea gardens, which themselves are boosted by sanctuary production bonus, and you can easily make planets that produce ungodly amount of unity.
Maybe not as unbalanced if you use vanilla tradition """tree""", where you can max out all 8 pretty fast, but with something like Plentiful Traditions? Oh boy.

@LittleDevil the upgraded algae greenhouse does use exotic gases as output (if it doesn't it's a bug then) but it is not higher than the vanilla building, might change that.

Oh, I hadn't considered the Rogue Servitor problem because I NEVER play Rogue Servitors. Erm. Yes. Might need something of a nerf. Then again, Machine Empires have already a more than dubious balance in Vanilla.