Racial Differentiation (long read)

Egregius · #1 January 8th, 2002, 02:06 AM

Well not having the dough for SEIVG, and not being content with how the standard races perform and are, I'm gonna make my own private little mod. Nothing major, except slight tech-tweaking, and add range for sats and planets (automatic heavier mount) once I figure out how.

What my main intent is, is besides boosting the AI a little, (I'm not as good a player as most of you so I'm easier challenged

is to make the races more different from eachother then they are now. Like in MOO2 where you could really hate one race, but got along with the other race, and planned on 'taking out those darn bullrathi coz they have the audacity to invade my main planets and win'.

I havent thoroughly tested 1.49, but I'm already not content heheh.

For example, I think the Cryslonites should be the overpowering scary race that's quite a threat, but who won't dominate because they refuse to make treaties with anyone (kinda like Silicoids, if left unchecked dangerous but otherwise sucky as hell) (bloodthirsty or neutral though?) as they dont recognize anyone as sentience. The other races are like fungi, something you should burn away or scrape off the rocks they cling too. Like say heavy pop-killing bombs or even biowarfare.
But now they act like any other race, except they use crystalline armor and shard cannons. Make treaties, and suck coz there are little gasplanets with hydrogen atmosphere.

Also it seems every race needs min-prod/maint-reduction to do well. Also some races differ little at higher racial point settings. I prefer one ability be godlike, rather then everything +20 or another ability every other race has.

So I'd like to give every race a certain theme, and I want your input to give me more ideas.

Here are the themes I already have (most elaborations on their descriptions, and streamlining their theme):

-Cryslonite: The ruthless enemy that gives you reason to fear them, if it wasnt for them being at war with everyone else. GAs/Hydr, psych berz, bloodthirsty.
Crystallurgy; +mineral,+reproduction, +rad,---trade
-EEE: The wise ancient ones. Because they're ancient they always have superior research, and know the galaxy already. Never start a war, but always finishes them due to their powerfull ships (tech). Gas-CO2, Serene scientists, peacefull.
Ancient race; ++research
-Abiddon: thought about making them the only gas-based neutral race..
Otherwise Gas-O2 or CO2, frinedly artisans, peacefull.
++ship defense, +happyness

-Amonkrie: worms everywhere!!! Methance ice, neutral/neutral/neutral (I'm gonna try and make the other cultures as good/bad as neutral)
Advanced storage capacities; ++reproduction, slight +min/org/rad
-Sergetti: aggressive Xenophobes, neutral.
But what to do with them to make them behave different?
-Ukra-Tal: the ever peacefull-traders. Strange, not very expansionistic, but they can fend off attackers quite well with their bizarre organic technology and political machinations. Methane-ice, Honorable politicians.
Organic tech, +trade, +organics

-Jraenar: The military imperialists with a focus on expansion and conquest. Their AI is quite good already for that task. Hydr/rock, aggresive warriors, bloodthirsty (hey they wanna win dont they?)
+int, +res, slight +GC, +att, +minprod
-Krill: They seemed too much like Jraenar before, so their focus lies on combat. Instead of having masses of ships, theirs are just worth a lot more.
CO2/rock, Violent berzerkers, bloodthirsty
+GC,++att,+def,+reproduction
-Cue Cappa: Either the only race with psychic abilities, or one of 2. But what abilities ti give to intelligent hard workers?
Honourable traders, O2/rock. peacefull.
-Drushocka: should be EEE arch-nemesis, so I'm gonna try and make energy draining weapons unique to them, and usefull. Can you mod a weapon so that it deals good damage to a shield (shield-depleters) and adds that partially to your own?
Otherwise they're just gonna do their thing and build a corner of the galaxy as their own.
Impulsive neutrals, methane/rock, peacefull.
Mechnoids (or? they do have moss

+GC, ++tolerance
-Fazrah: they should be designed as a kind of pirate like race (not stolen from P&N!). Main focus on travelling to the far reaches, and stealing ships/doing combat with their ships. Could you make them wage wars in trade for tech/resources via AI?
Overall not a good race/big empire potential, but someone to look out for. O2/rock, violent renegades.
Advanced power conservation, +GC, +maintenance red, maybe +att.
-Xi'Chung: The scary swarm race that doesnt care much about the rest of the universe. Like ants, terrific production and lots of small ones bring a big one down. Thought of a Star Trek episode: the swarm. I'd give, if I was able to via modding, Xi'Chung heaps and heaps of fighters, their preferred unit. This costs no maintenance, and all they'd do would be pump out fighters with their superior production (bonuses and organic tech making mincosts less), and carriers to get them to the next system. At the start more colony ships and small craft of course, but they'd research fighters asap. Also I'd try and make a fighter component if possible with boarding parties (say what?): tiny boarding parties with maybe 5 offensive marines, requiring a large fighter and mucho space thus making or little speed.
psych warriors, methane/rock, peacefull
Organic tech, +GC, ++SY rate,+maint red perhaps --trade also. Too bad I cant squeeze in repr too.
-Xiati: the grande scheming imperialists, unlike the Jraenar the main theme is intellige not military. Tweaking themselves, trying to be a mighty imperium by sabotaging all the others.
ox/rock, aggressive schemers, peacefull.
++intelligence. +min/+rad
Then there's two Versions: either temporal tech: the dangerous weapons that makes even these creatures dangerous, and increased SYrate is dangerous too and typical of their imperium-tendencies.
And there's a psychic Version: scheming being their main interest, telepathy is something highly desirable for them, and possible thanx to their artificial body-tweaking.

-Mechnoid Collective: one of my few unique races so far, using the piundon picture set (ideal). Inspired by a Voyager episode, where they encountered a race of robots who were warring another race of robots. They had big problems trying to reproduce however. Their main goal was trying to stay alive, destroy the other race, and finding a way to reproduce. No atmosphere/rock, neutral workers, neutral.
Mechnoids, emotionless with ---happyness, --reproduction,---trade,-maint aptitude,+min prod
These abilities demonstrate they are robots, trouble replicating if the conditions arent optimal, emotionless, and require a great deal of resources to keep them in shape, and dont communicate very well. Their power lies in their emotionless and prod bonuses.

Besides these (running out of time and space here) I want
-one zealot religious race (Norak),
-possibly one other with temp tech (Sallega dont appeal tho)
-A race that has an incredible fleet-regenerative ability (++SY and HardyInd), but doesnt focus on tiny weak ships but big semi-weak/strong ships.
-A race whose only intention is a big fleet (++maint and +minprod)
-One race with crystallurgy (Piundon? Maybe other picture set),
-And not the same as the super mining race (Phong)
-Aggresive merchants (terran)
-Something to do with them Praetorians, cuz + in all vocational aptitudes doesnt make mucho sense to me (they end up with biggest fleet), and it's not worth putting any points in repairation skills. Repair isnt automatic when you have the ability aight? Well if it was it would be worth considering.

All I'm asking from you now is if you consider what I've posted, could help me with my questions, and if you have an original race theme (focus on AI is good too).

Phoenix-D · #2 January 8th, 2002, 02:30 AM

"Nothing major, except slight tech-tweaking, and add range for sats and planets (automatic heavier mount) once I figure out how."

That's easy, if somewhat long-winded. Just copy/paste all the components used on those two types, and make improved Versions that are WP only/Sat only.

As far as race happyness types go: giving anyone an unmodified neutral happyness type is a BAD IDEA. Neutrals are a pain in the *** unless you keep troops on all your planets; very very few things will make them happy. The AI will fall apart from it's own internal problems..

Haven't played bloodthristy, but I think it might have similar problems.

Phoenix-D

Suicide Junkie · #3 January 8th, 2002, 05:15 AM

Bloodthirsty is only good if you're winning.
If you start to lose battles, your planets riot.

Gifting harmless ships to an enemy, then killing them for show helps to keep your people happy

I would suggest that Bloodthirsty races should use bigger ships than average: For every big ship lost, you should be able to kill at least a few smaller ones.
Peaceful races aren't affected by ship losses as much, so they could stand to lose more cannon fodder in order to win a war.
(Of course it works best when smaller ships are balanced (or even more "efficient") than the largest ships.)

quote:
Repair isnt automatic when you have the ability aight? Well if it was it would be worth considering.

Any ship in the same sector as something with a repair bay or space yard will get automatically repaired (once it becomes highest priority among the cripples)

In general though, AIs will either lose the ship completely or come out of the battle unharmed.
Humans make much better use of repairs.
The setting is a multiplier for your repair rate:
50% = require twice as many repair bays to get same effect.

The living ships and worthwhile-to-use armor in P&N keep repair ability important for races who use those things. Normal, shield-heavy races can ignore repairs.
PS: Ukra-Tal are prime candidates for using self-repairing ships (life-support = 1 per turn repair bay)

quote:
Cue Cappa: Either the only race with psychic abilities, or one of 2. But what abilities ti give to intelligent hard workers?

Hardy Industrialists = +25% to ship building rate.

quote:
Can you mod a weapon so that it deals good damage to a shield (shield-depleters) and adds that partially to your own?

There is no "vampire" damage type, but you could make a combination BLaster/Shield Regenerator component.

Jreanar VS Krill
Considering the shipset, I would suggest swapping those two.
The red organic-shapes of the krill remind me of a swarm of bugs, while the StarTrek style ships of the Jreanar are more of a standalone vessel.

quote:
Also I'd try and make a fighter component if possible with boarding parties (say what?): tiny boarding parties with maybe 5 offensive marines, requiring a large fighter and mucho space thus making or little speed.

Fighter boarding parties are in P&N, but they don't work, since SE4 dosen't bother to check fighters for boarding capabilities

.
You'd have to use escorts for the assault transport role.

Atraikius · #4 January 8th, 2002, 01:42 PM

Not to make a plug for myself, but for the Krill you might want to try the ones from the Last TDM-ModPack - they are a bit more psychotic and bloodthirsty, and will also attempt to capture planets.

Egregius · #5 January 10th, 2002, 07:10 AM

Hey thanx, those have been usefull suggestions!

Especially the TDM-modpack rules!
Well I've decided to download a bunch of races together with the modpack, and I'm testing to see how great they work. Well so far Centauri are outresearching me even though I'm spending 90% of my income on new colonies and I got a 20% bonus, quite impressive!

I'll just weed out races I dont like (like the Roguefleet, sorry guys), and reshape the ones I do in my image

I'm thinking of indeed making the krill some semi-suicidal mass-fleet race, while a race like the klingons get dibs on heavy attacking race...maybe.

Is there any way to make bloodthirsty/neutral less detrimental race-stances by modding the game files? I.e. assign less penalties more bonuses? I'm still only beginning to look into all the files.

Xi'Chung wont have fighters that can board, I'll leave that for another race.

To fix the boarding problem however, I was thinking of using the psy-tech's allegiance converter, and make it a fighter compatible weapon (with a diff name and maybe diff pic), in a Version that does minimal damage. However, for this to be modded correctly I need to know how exactly the conVersion works. Does each ship size require a different amount of succesfull shots/damage by an allegiance converter, is it based per amount of living quarters or what?

"There is no "vampire" damage type, but you could make a combination BLaster/Shield Regenerator component."
Ooh, nice idea! Is it possible to make the Shield Regen only trigger when fired?

Oh btw suggestion for SEV or the next patch: races with repair bonuses should get automatic repair IMO. If you're a race of engineers I think you shouldn't have trouble fixing your ship. Makes more sense, and adds use to the ability.

Phoenix-D · #6 January 10th, 2002, 07:29 AM

"Is there any way to make bloodthirsty/neutral less detrimental race-stances by modding the game files? I.e. assign less penalties more bonuses? I'm still only beginning to look into all the files."

Yes, happyness .txt I belive.

RE: repair: automatic repair would be a bit TOO powerful methinks. Especially given that the basic repair component is *150kt* and only repairs three components at once..

Phoenix-D