The Lumeris ability of colonizing with dust and selling planets have always felt at odds with their lore. Being a race of slug mobsters one would expect them to be focused on more aggressive commercial actions with lots of backstabing and sabotage instead of simply being planet brokers.

With the Umbral Choir bringing espionage with them it feels the right time to revisit and rework the Lumeris around this new mechanic. Maybe even possibly mixing espionage with the trade companies and the galactic market mechanic for extra Mafia flavour.

Though, of course, I might be in the minority in this musing of mine...

Not sure exactly what idea you have in mind but the Lumeris can't be reworked to have espionage made a major part of their faction as then they would be locked behind a DLC. 

Removing a faction from the base game that people already had just to be resold ain't going to happen.

That said, it's certain that the Lumeris will be able to greatly benefit from what espionage brings as will all factions, and may even have faction specific things that fit with their lore.

(I personally feel that how they are currently fits well, given that you're a mob boss not even part of the elected government)

The Lumeris are a very strong faction because they can snowball very hard by assimilating minor factions quickly. They certainly don't need a rework because they work well, even if the intended playstyle features selling outpost doesn't work out in practice. 

Of course all factions will get access to espionage actions, or so I hope, since all factions but UE are drowning in influence lategame with nothing to spend it on. 

CyRob wrote:

Not sure exactly what idea you have in mind but the Lumeris can't be reworked to have espionage made a major part of their faction as then they would be locked behind a DLC. 

Removing a faction from the base game that people already had just to be resold ain't going to happen.

May be the espionage mecanism will be added as a patch for everybody, and the Umbral Choir as the DLC ?

sheredynplayer wrote:

The Lumeris are a very strong faction because they can snowball very hard by assimilating minor factions quickly. They certainly don't need a rework because they work well,...

Every faction can snowball I would probably not deny a second look to a useless faction mechanic over the fact that lumeris can delay their colonization or buyouts in favor of bribing a faction.

While everyone else is like 'hmm early game influence I'll just spend tiny amounts and scan for friendship with close to zero drawbacks'.

sheredynplayer wrote:

The Lumeris are a very strong faction because they can snowball very hard by assimilating minor factions quickly. They certainly don't need a rework because they work well, even if the intended playstyle features selling outpost doesn't work out in practice. 

Of course all factions will get access to espionage actions, or so I hope, since all factions but UE are drowning in influence lategame with nothing to spend it on. 

The purpose of a rework is not to modulate power level, it's to promote better play patterns. Not saying the Lumeris need reworking, mind you, but if the only reason not to rework something is "It can win games" that's not much of a foundation.

Personally, while the Lumeris don't interest me as a race I don't think that's because of any core flaw in them and they seem pretty much functional from what I've seen. Planet Brokering is a bit of an odd niche to build an entire faction's identity around, and they could probably be a bit more distinctive, but Dust is flexible enough as a resource to allow them to do... basically whatever they feel like, so I don't think they need anything new specifically related to it. That being said, if any Faction needed to start with the ability to Buyout production with Dust, it'd be them, but they can take that as their first tech if they really think they need it, so that's hardly a pressing need for them.