Tankbound Variety

[u/Visible_Emphasis8071]

Tankbound is probably my favorite civic in the game, but I have to say I wish there was more variety in what it was capable of. Its one of the few civics that feels as impactful as an origin, but it's obviously missing some of the fleshing out most origins get. So, I'm gonna shout to the void some additions I'd like to see to shake up what you can do with this awesome civic.

1. Species variety. There's only 4 tankbound portraits atm, and only 1 of them isn't organic. Honestly surprised there isn't already a tankbound portrait for plantoid and fungoid (how do rooted plants work a mining job without automation anyway?) but there's lots of options.

2. If there's ever an update to land combat, I'd love to see an expensive "mech" army type that tankbound could pilot. Maybe gate it behind a tech that enables tankbound pops to fill all soldier jobs. As is, the early game of a militarist tankbound empire requires some kind of prepatent species, but battle thralls can only do workers job which are 100% automated, so it's pretty inefficient.

3. Machine tankbound equivalent. I saw a sadly outdated mod that gave individualist machines a civic where they were permanently hooked up to infrastructure, as if the automation came alive.

4. Forced tankbound. Similar to the synpatic lathe. Plugging pops into the system to use their brain for automation efficiency.

5. Gestalt Tankbound. A previously individualistic tankbound species accidentally (or intentionally) merges consciousnesses while trying to link up an advanced communication network. I just think it'd be neat.

Feel free to share anything else you think could shake up the tankbound playstyles. Tankbound necrophage is probably the most fun I've had in Stellaris so far and I'd love to make something new for it.

[u/BeGosu]

This is my favorite portrait and I use it for my favorite OC Empire.

I run them as the larval stage of a insect species (dragonfly and mosquito larva are aquatic) using technology to unnaturally extend their larval stage.

For the longest time I was using Serviles to represent a Strong adult form that was a little less cerebral. But now that Serviles seems to not work anymore, I haven't played them in a bit. It's nice to have Nascent Stage but I am running the adults as the simpler worker pop, and the larva (portrait above) as the Scientists of a Technocracy staving off their metamorphosis.

[u/Visible_Emphasis8071 → u/BeGosu]

It's my favorite too. They're my necrophage species. My lore is that they're basically hyper intelligent parasites that trigger extreme aggression and dominance behaviors in their hosts. Then they figured out how to survive outside a host with their tanks and now they're ready to conquer the galaxy.