I HAVE EDITED THIS POST AS THE ORIGINAL BAGHIIR DID NOT FEEL FLESHED OUT NOR BALANCED. THE SAME GENERAL IDEA IS STILL USED FOR THIS NEW VERSION AS THE ORIGINAL. PLEASE ENJOY.

THE BAGHIIR

The Baghiir are nomads among the stars. Thousands of years ago, their homeworld was bombarded with immense amounts of dust thanks to several battles between the Concrete and Virtual endless over the system. This greatly increased the rate of their evolution, and the Baghiir were soon soaring among the stars. However, this had a deeply detrimental effect on their homeworld Ishkal. The dust destablized the planet's magnetic field, causing it to begin to fail. To escape, the Baghiir created the Cradles, mobile space stations where entire generations could live and die. Leaving Ishkal, the baghiir made the journy to a nearby system, where they planned to colonize a local planet. However upon reaching their target, they discovered a terrible truth. Ishkal, due to its immense exposire to dust, had become the only planet capable of supporting their species. Sullen and without a home, the Baghiir have been drifting among the stars ever since, searching for a way with which they can finally create a place to call home.

Faction Affinity

Nomad Fleet: 

The Baghiir cannot truly settle worlds. Instead, their colony ships (cradles) can ‘deploy’ in uncolonized star systems in order to exploit them. The deployment is instant, but it will take a turn to pack up and move away. While deployed these ships act as the Baghiir’s cities/colonies. They each have their own population count that can grow and fall, and can be used to produce ships and colony improvements*. Cradles exploit 100% of the total base FIDSI of the star system they are deployed in. Each additional Baghiir ship in that system adds a flat number (non-percentage) to that total, which is equal to their command point value.

 *Colony improvements and population are not lost when relocating cradles.

**Only one Cradle can be deployed per system.

Eye to Eye Neutrality:

 The Baghiir can spend a decent chunk of influence to force diplomatic forums upon other players. During these forums, the players involved are force into peace with one another until the objective of the forum (peace, settlement rights, economic sanctions, etc.) is reached. Other factions can also offer influence to the Baghiir to fund one of these forums for their own purposes. 

Population Bonus

Some Bahgiir reject fleet life and instead choose to live among other factions, whether it be in stations or on planets. The Baghiir people will provide their expertise in politics to their new homeland. The laws of political parties currently not in power become 20% cheaper to maintain. 

Gameplay/How they Work

+Players cannot truly colonize, they can only exploit systems with their Cradles. Cradles are ships and therefore can be destroyed in naval combat (similar to the setseki of the Roving clans), be sure to provide a decent escort.

-While Cradles are deployed as colonies they provide and influence radius for the

for the player’s empire. However when undeployed and moved, this radius ceases

to exist.

-While Undeployed and mobile, Cradles do not generate FIDSI, have their build

ques and population growth frozen, and move governing heroes back to the

Academy for redeployment.

-Cradles cannot be deployed in an area of foreign influence.

+Due to their reliance on their Cradles and the resultant fragility of such a reliance, declaring war as an aggressor as the Baghiir is not a good idea. Instead, be the victim (or make yourself out to be as such) and fight a defensive battle. Tire them out, and keep them away from your Cradle systems. Make sure your Cradles have decent sized defense fleets.

-Baghiir military technology is inherently defensive in nature. Their prowess at

constructing orbital infrastructure gives them an immense advantage in a gravity

well. They can construct a variety of orbital defenses that deal attrition damage over

time to enemy fleets orbiting with them. However these defenses, like the Vaulter

portals of ES1, are ‘colony’ improvements and are packed up alongside other

improvements when undeploying the cradle. This freezes their attrition damage.

-Sabotage enemy attempts at advancing with system hazards whenever possible**

+The Baghiir are well respected for their ability to hold grounds of political neutrality where other races and get straight to the point with one another. These forums can be forced when the Baghiir see the need to for an immense amount of influence (similar to declaring war) or other races can provide favors such as dust, system rights, valuable materials, etc. in exchange for hosting such an event.

-The Baghiir are not meant to force peace using forums wherever they see fit. If there

is no real reason to host such an event (major war, power bullying, etc.) then the

cost of doing so becomes so high that it is simply a waste of influence to do so.

-Making demands or deals during a forum still costs influence. So any faction

seeking to have a forum hosted needs to keep that in mind.

Homeworld

The Bahgiir fleet starts in a randomized star system, with a Cradle (colony ship equivalent), and whatever other ships factions will be starting with.

Faction Specific Technologies

The Baghiir are masters of starship and space station engineering. Their technologies reflect this.

+The following are a few proposed faction specific technologies for the Baghiir Nomad Fleet. These technologies reflect not only the political and pacifistic nature of the Baghiir, but also their willingness to keep their people safe. These technologies are in no specific order, nor do I know where they would be placed in the tech tree, that is up to Amplitude. Flavour text will be needed as well.

-Forum broadcasts: Baghiir hosted forums are broadcasted throughout the galaxy, to

the benefit of the host and the instigator. Both the Baghiir and the empire who

petitioned for the forum enjoy a 50% boost to their dust and influence output for the

duration of the forum.

-Debate Networks: Baghiir citizens across the galaxy host local political debates and

discussions, feeding back details to the fleet for archiving. Baghiir political deals

and demands are decreased by 2 influence for each Baghiir citizen in a foreign

empire.

-Lancer Batteries: Orbital plasma cannon emplacements. Lancer batteries cause 10

points of attrition damage per turn on enemy fleets in system.

-Autonomous and Extra-system Defenses: Baghiir orbital attrition damage is

doubled. Unlocks minelayer ship modification. Allows selected ship to spend 2 turns

setting up a minefield in the local system. This minefield deals 25 attrition damage

per turn to enemy ships passing through it.**

-Support Campaigns: Adds access to the Support Campaigns project. While in que,

this project converts 30% of dust output into influence output.

This is all I have for now. I may add things as the contest drags on, but I am unsure of what. I would like to hear what those of you reading this thread think of the idea, and if there are any ways you think I could improve it. Remember the main i

I too have a nomadic entry in this contest, glad to see another one. Here's mine if you want to take a look, I also agree that it is a harder type of race to design while still maintaining game balance.

Take my vote.