THEORYCRAFT: Wierd Races

[Rabid_Cog (OP)]

So we've all been there. You want to make your race special, instead of just another variety of humans with funny spots on their heads but the game makes it tough (outside of rp). No special provision is made for Hive Minds, Cyborgs, Machine Races, Nomads and all the other wierd and wonderful inhuman species out there.

Here is your chance. Post a possible mechanic to make your race strange and unique. The only catch is that it must be BALANCED! You want the ability to instantly convert all your normal mines to automated mines? Fine, but then they must have some weakness. Perhaps sunlight or something. No need to go into details for the race, this is only for TYPE of races.

As an example, I will start us off.

[Rabid_Cog (OP)]

Machine Race

A machine race is essentially a collection of computers following the programming of their master race, whether they killed this race or not. They are extremely efficient at this, getting significant bonuses to wealth and industry and can colonize all but the most inhospitable planets with ease as they do not need to breathe a gas or even have an atmosphere.

Their downfall is that while they are really good at following their programming, they suck at deviating and developing anything new. Their 'research' consists of nothing but a vast process of trial and error and the race researches at a base rate of only 20 RP per lab. They are good at copying, however, and any technology they gain even partial research towards through disassembly or espionage is immediately researched (or perhaps just gets a multiplier to the RP gained or something).

Perks:
++ industry rate
++ wealth rate
Gas immune
Very wide temperature tolerance
Technology copying

Penalties:
Very low RP generation.

[Rabid_Cog (OP)]

Swarmer Race

Swarmers are like mathematicians: they know how to multiply. Their population growth is merely above average in most cases, but their real strength is the comparatively tiny population base they need to get the ball rolling on any worlds they decide to inhabit. As long as they have plenty of space to occupy, their growth is ferocious. As long as their population is below a certain threshold (perhaps a variable one based on race generation?) they up to double their numbers every year. This growth rate drops rapidly as they approach their threshold until it is normal (for them) at the threshold itself. A good average threshold is 100mil, but as high as 500mil is possible.

The problem is, they want to expand so badly that if they cannot, they get very unhappy. Every world has a 'submax' population limit that depends on the threshold above. As soon as the population exceeds this limit, it starts generating minor amounts of unrest, but at the same time, the race receives an industry bonus on that planet relative to the amount by which the limit is exceeded as the plentiful cheap labor means more can be done with less machines.

Perks:
General pop growth bonus.
Massive pop growth bonus if below (x) pop, rapidly falling as pop -> (x)
Pop > Submax = % industry bonus on that planet.

Penalties:
Pop > Submax = % unrest equal to industry bonus per year.
No stopping the growth! 

[xeryon]

Few additions to the races you noted that seem like logical perk/penalties: Machine race should consume resources based on population growth.  No minerals, no growth.  Go long enough without minerals and population declines.  Populations over max supported on a planet do die off like others but no unrest generates due to it.

Swarm, if they are hive based, I think don't really need RP bonuses as the explosive population growth will allow for extensive research facilities to be built and staffed.  I think sharing amongst officers of skills seems likely.  In a machine race different machines will have been built to be better than others at specific tasks.  But the hive arrangement of the swarm could mean officers share improvements.  To keep this in check there may need to be a maximum value that a shared skill can reach without being directly improved.  Say a base of 10 or 15%

I recall a race in an older 4x game that was gas giant based.  Maybe it was Gal Civ or MOO? 

The Jellyfish (or Squids)
They were sentient beings that grew and lived in the atmosphere of gas giants similarly to how a fish lives in the sea.  Their world held minimal infrastructure except for specialized installations where they are able to create alloys from the extracted gasses for construction purposes.  Their ships resemble flying aquariums and diplomacy and trade with them is always extremely difficult as their physical form is so radically different than our own.

Obviously, they can colonize gaseous planets.  With infrastructure can operate high cost colonies on terrestrial planets with extremely dense atmospheres.  They would even have the ability to colonize low temperature stars in the upper atmosphere layers.  (This derived from recent discoveries that there are Brown Dwarf stars with surface temperatures in the 50-200 F range).  Due to living their entire evolution essentially floating in sorium they have amazing skills with the material and receive large bonuses to propulsion techs.  Due to living in a gas ball and having limited need for minerals until the discovery of TN elements they are unskilled at mining and suffer from the inexperience.

Perks
Colonize planets that no one else can attempt
Large racial bonus to RP for all propulsion based technologies and fuel storage.

Penalties
Diplomacy skills greatly reduced
Revenue from trade with other races reduced due to logistics difficulties
Reduced output with mining

[Person012345]

How about an aquatic race? The atmosphere of a planet would matter much less than the presence of a hydrosphere. Although atmosphere would still have an effect, since a fish still breathes oxygen for example, the breathable gas would still have to be at a certain pressure. But it wouldn't matter as a percentage of the atmosphere and the total pressure might not matter. Whatever calculation fits gameplay. This would make airless worlds much easier to terraform, but it would be impossible to terraform it to perfection without a hydrosphere.

[Rabid_Cog (OP)]

That's an interesting idea. The aquatic range can effectively ignore atmospheric pressure, but they require a hydrosphere (water, or whatever).

Part of the idea for these races are for them to be tickboxes that you can tick on and off for ANY race. Hence, you can make a Swarm/Machine/Aquatic race if you wanted. Just keep that in mind when you dream up something so that it doesn't interfere too much with the other racial options.

I like the idea of the machines consuming minerals, but the minerals they would consume would not really be TN mins. Instead, it would be normal minerals that are currently represented by wealth, just like normal food, so it wouldn't change much. Instead, that could be a different race entirely. Like cyborgs or something.

I feel the Jellyfish have too many penalties for their perks. None of the worlds they can colonize normally would have any minerals but Sorium, which is a pretty bad penalty.

[xeryon]

It would need some sort of balancing to make it feasible.  The upside is non-competition for habitable planets.  I also think the lack of other TN materials on gaseous planets is a mistake.  Most gas giants still have a solid core which is far larger then Earth.  Would be logical that a mining technology would allow orbitals to extract them.

[Erik L]

Thinking this fit more in the chat area than Mechanics. Or maybe Suggestions.

[Redshirt]

xeryon, the solid core of gas giants is practically inaccessible, or otherwise bizarre. Jupiter's core, for example, is most likely metallic hydrogen. The difficulties in reaching it (severe atmospheric pressure, for example) would make the required tech level extraordinarily high.

[xeryon]

I agree that extraction would be difficult and require significant technological advances.  What the core is most likely made of according to current technology is kind of irrelevant given the leap in logic needed to swallow that TN materials exist in Earth's core and we never knew they were there.  Stands to reason that those same elements really should exist on ALL celestial bodies varying with core size.  It is an odd break in the games logic that the minerals only appear on some bodies and not all, but I accept that it was a gameplay concession Steve made to make the game more interesting.

As a side note, Jupiter and Saturn are true gas giants in the sense that the majority of the area the body occupies is filled with various gasses, but Neptune and Uranus are far more rocky in proportion.  Their 'atmosphere' is considerably less and the rocky core far more accessible.

[Rabid_Cog (OP)]

Then the rather simple modifications to the jellyfish would be that they are the only ones that can harvest TN minerals from gas giants. Or even find it.

[xeryon]

We need an infection, parasite or zombies.  How about a race that can only propagate by capturing existing races?  They have no population growth but large bonuses in other areas.  They would have to maintain 'farm colonies' to keep themselves going into the future.  They have the ability to infect planets and bases (or drop infected forces on a body).  In doing so if the defender had military units some units would be infected and start fighting the other units.  When there were no uninfected military units left the population begins to be converted to the infected race, temporarily creating a two faction settlement on the body.  Original planet controller can arrest infection rates and reverse it with sufficient military intervention (effectively the CDC drops in with the marines and starts treating people en-mass kind of thing).  Ships could also be intercepted and crew infected and converted to the infected's side (makes an interesting need for troop arrangements on ships so you have something to combat infection attempts).  Infection rates can be reduced by enemy technology advancements in biology.

Not really human so forced labor is a non-issue. increased production in all areas.  Because they are not true sentient beings their leaders are all capped on bonuses but better leaders could be captured.  Research is impacted similarly to machines were: they don't think too well on their own and base RP generation is hugely reduced but once they are given a few 'free' RP on a stolen technology the development is accelerated rapidly due to the forced labor.  (this would drive the need to capture enemy ships)

Pro's
Bonus to mining rates
Bonus to all construction rates
Research bonus if RP points gleaned through component disassembly
Ability to infect and capture enemy ships, officers and military units
Because they are not truly sentient they have no morale issues as will be coming in 5.7.  Training takes much less time and negative issues of insufficient training are reduced.  Enemy combatants have increased effects due insufficient training (scared of being turned into a host)

Con's
Can not reproduce except via infection.  (the trick here is to code an equilibrium value where infection happens at the same rate as planetary growth in a farm colony)
Greatly reduced RP generation for self initiated research
Empire generated officers are all vastly sub-par and capped at either 5 or 10% bonus value
Enemies are capable of developing resistances and drugs to limit your ability to infect them.  Because of your limit on RP generation it will be difficult to out tech them with advances to improve infection so you would have to best them militarily.
Enemy with all factions immediately.

[Rabid_Cog (OP)]

I was thinking of a race along these lines, actually. Something that can convert enemy population to your population. The problem I foresee with these guys is how do you start? Your home planet would be unable to grow in population as all of it is you. I would suggest a vastly reduced rate of growth when not converting enemies, but not NO growth. Also, the taking over enemy ground units is a bit unnecessarily complex. Instead, how about they can only take over civilians? But the process is automatic as soon as they have a positive population on the same planet as another species. Also, their populations cannot be conquered, only exterminated, something which is done automatically by unopposed ground forces. Capturing ships is cool, but would work the same way it does currently (except perhaps better and you keep some of the crew's skill). Instead of a bonus to disassembly, perhaps a bonus to espionage research theft instead? Perhaps something like this:

Perks:
Bonus to mining
Bonus to industry
Any population on the same planet as an enemy population acts as a skill 100 espionage team.
Any population on the same planet as an enemy population slowly siphons off the enemy's population, converting it to your race, at a normal growth rate.
Ability to infect and capture enemy officers.
No morale penalties.

Penalties:
Reproduction without conversion (no enemy race) is slowed.
Reduced RP generation. (not greatly reduced, just 100 base or so)
Undefended populations are rapidly exterminated by enemy ground forces.
Once encountered, tech trees will open up for enemies slowing your conversion rates.
Initial diplomatic position is hostile.

[xeryon]

Not bad adjustments.  The items you noted are a bit simpler overall and would be a lot less complex to implement than I initially came up with.  With your changes in mind, would a landing onto Earth be handled as such: Initial small population infection but the Human ground forces would quickly destroy the infected population unless the infected combat landed their own ground forces?

An interesting addition to this would be the ability to create bio-missiles.  Infected could launch a drone sized missile with a bio contaminant warhead that when impacted on a body would begin the process of infection.  That could the ticket to converting enemy craft without the complications of boarding and such.  If a bio-warhead pierced the hull the crew would be infected and the ship would become yours.  Would make an interesting tactical issue with combat.

[Redshirt]

Unless you're up against a robotic race.

Anyway, a race of parasites would presumably have developed on a planet that has another species they've taken control of.

The main problem I see with a parasitic race is a large possibility for biological incompatability, especially when looking at completely alien planets. They'd probably have to have a biological tech tree all their own to research new hosts. More than likely, they'd have to use the genetic mutation centers to either alter themselves or their hosts.