Minor Racial Traits

Fyron · #1 May 10th, 2003, 05:57 AM

Anyone have any nifty ideas for minor racial traits? Or new tech trait areas?

Baron Munchausen · #2 May 10th, 2003, 05:01 PM

Define 'nifty'... for that matter, define 'minor'! Racial abilities are going to be written into the game mechanics, so they can affect the whole game.

That said:

1) How about replacing 'hardy industrialists' slight boost in production capacity with a real change in ability? Let them build ships at any world without a space yard.

2) 'Non-respiratory' -- This is a race that does not need to breathe, like Silicoids in MOO, and so treats all atmospheres the same -- even None! Should probably be as expensive as "Emotionless" since it's another sort of immunity.

3) 'Xenophobe' -- More or less like in Moo, you have very limited diplomatic options but woul dget some racial points back to spend on other things.

4) 'Xenophage' -- this one is a bit nastier. Like the Kzinti, you regard other races as food. This woul allow 'harvesting' other races as a resource when you conquer their planets, but cause a very bad diplomatic reaction from other races.

5) 'Fragile' -- A race that is so physically delicate that it cannot engage in ground combat at all. Not able to use troops, and no militia appear to defend planets when invaded. If enemy can land troops on the planet, invasion is automatically successful. Should returns lots of racial points to be used on something else. (The Amon Krie are good candidates for this. How do worms operate battlemechs?)

6) 'anarchist' -- assuming that the 'seat of government' feature so many of us want is ever implemented, there can be a special trait to not need it just like there is currently a special trait to not need space ports.

Q · #3 May 10th, 2003, 06:19 PM

All nice ideas. However as far as I see these new traits could only be implemented by hard-coded changes.

jimbob · #4 May 10th, 2003, 06:37 PM

Addicts: A la Deep Space 9. The race fights really well as long as their addiction is available, but if the chemical/TV/X-box is destroyed, all units and ships (and planets?) suffer horrible minuses to their functions. This'll give them a moderate edge in combat, a definite defence against ship capture, but a really significant weak spot which can be exploited by other races.

I've tried to do this without hardcoding, but the problem is that other races could capture the addictant (facility or otherwise) and recieve all the benefits but would suffer none of the limitations.

Baron Munchausen · #5 May 10th, 2003, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Q:
All nice ideas. However as far as I see these new traits could only be implemented by hard-coded changes.

So? How else do you expect a racial trait to be implemented?

Ragnarok · #6 May 10th, 2003, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
So? How else do you expect a racial trait to be implemented?

Change the tech tree related to that item. Like for religious for example, to make a new racial trait just change some techs, add new techs to the tree, and make it so that only a certain racial trait can access that certain area. I know how to do it I just not good at explaining it.

I'm sure Fyron or someone else can explain better then I.

jimbob · #7 May 10th, 2003, 08:00 PM

Does anybody use mechanoid currently? I think it would be great to add some additional abilities to the mechanoid trait to make it worthwhile. Perhaps a hidden increase in their farming capacity to represent their lowered requirement for organics, with a slight rebalancing by decreasing their mineral and/or radioactive efficiencies? Perhaps a ground combat bonus?

I dunno, but there has to be something better than they're simply immune to plagues... I've never bothered with plagues - gone right to the napalm

Desdinova · #8 May 10th, 2003, 08:07 PM

for mechanoid. how about special repair coponents for ship similiar to ability in moo. or giving their crew quarters the ability to repair 1 component each.
question for racial traits. can you give a single trait multiple abilities? for mechanoid make it also a racial tech as well as the immunity to plagues.

Q · #9 May 10th, 2003, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:

quote:
Originally posted by Q:
All nice ideas. However as far as I see these new traits could only be implemented by hard-coded changes.

So? How else do you expect a racial trait to be implemented?

I am sure you know that you can create a new racial technology without hard code change as long as you stick to the existing abilities. But you probably mean by "racial trait" what is specified in the racial trait folder as "advantage" with unique abilities.

Fyron · #10 May 10th, 2003, 09:02 PM

Check out Mechanoids in Adamant mod.

BM, I was more asking about ideas for traits that were possible to implement in SE4 without hard-code changes. Like Pack Rats, Big Thinkers, etc.