Feature Comparison

With the release of the Biotech DLC, there are often questions as to what Humanoid Alien Races can do that the gene and xenotype system cannot.

The following features are features that can only be implemented by an actual race and not a xenotype:

• Custom ThingComps
• Custom Inspector Tabs
• Different body layouts from vanilla humans (tails, horns, different organs, etc)
• Custom ThinkTrees
• Custom relationships
• Default stat values
• Custom color channels entirely separate from hair and skin
• Separation of cannibalism from alien meat consumption
• Race-specific SolidBio entries (specific characters rather than shuffled backstories)
• Genderless races
• Customization of which gender fertilizes and carries pregnancies

The following is a short list of features that Humanoid Alien Races can do out of the box that require additional libraries or custom code to do with Biotech xenotypes and genes:

• Body addon textures that reflect damage to the pawn (damaged or missing ears, tails, etc)
• Limiting research projects, weapons, plants, animal taming, or buildings to a specific race
• Altering the basic melee tools for a race
• Altering the life expectancy curve for a race
• Unique meat, leather, or other butchering products
• Fine control over skin and hair coloration, including dual-channel support and greater variation independent of skin and hair color genes
• Blocking or replacing thoughts
• Custom body types for custom apparel, with multiple apparel texture fallbacks for compatibility
• Without framework support, vanilla subraces such as creepjoiners cannot ever romance or be romanced by regular humans

Furthermore, since xenotypes and genes are a completely separate system layered on top of the race system, the combination of both Humanoid Alien Races and Biotech can accomplish:

• Custom gene lists for Baseliners of a custom race
• Custom xenotypes that are only available to a specific race

Also to be considered:

• As every gene is a ticking context, xenotypes with a significant number of custom features may incur more performance overhead than a race using more efficient code hooks such as ThingComps
• While many races have been migrated to Biotech xenotypes, those races have often had to have custom code or other libraries pulled in order to reinvent features that come out of the box with Humanoid Alien Races
• Humanoid Alien Races generally offer a much more cohesive experience when attempting to implement a faction with a specific culture and appearance, whereas in order to fully emulate many features that Humanoid Alien Races provides would require both Ideology and Biotech, which is a significant paywall for many players.