Preface

I like Vodyani. I like to think about how best to combine mechanics and flavor in a way that is fun and intuitive. These ideas are
therefore interested in specifically bolstering the core identity of the Vodyani faction, and not particularly limited in scope. The
goal is to make the mechanics more intuitive and better reflective of the Vodyani identity. To that end I'll be breaking down a number
of thoughts I've had. Some are in more detail than others, and most of them do not have numbers simply because those are the kinds of
things you have to work on after looking at the mechanics in action. Each of these sections should be more or less self contained in its
scope (changing how the Vodyani use fod should not be related to changing how Arks work). Bear with me there's a lot here.

Food: Space Broken Lords Need Food Badly

The Vodyani faction has a strange relation with food. Food is needed to support their popularion, and can grow it if you have enough, but
almost all growth is much more easily accomplished throiugh use of Essence. From a narrative perspective it is not food that supports the
population but essence, collected from lesser beings who have yet to achieve ascension to the cloth. The Riftborn are beings of material
construction, while the Vodyani are fundamentally creatures of dust enhabinting the nebulous area between flesh and machine.

Mechanic - Food: Does not contribute to population growth, insufficient food causes penalties to Dust, Industry, Science, and Influence
Production. Penalties increase with number of starving population.

Rationale: Shipbound is strong, part of what keeps it from being absolutely stifling is the fact that you still need to support your
population. But as anyone who plays Vodyani may have noticed the base faction's primary weakness is the fact that for everything
Gargantuan Population does the Shipbound affinity means you're as likely to starve out of your first population as you are to survive
with it. Thic change addresses the starting system coundrum that Shipbound has. Since your population works every planet it also eats
for every planet it works, and a penalty to food production means there's a good chance that population will starve croippling your
economy. This change also means that you don't gain any population from having surplus food, which actually weakens population bonuses
for the affinity as a whole (EG Custom Vodyani w/ other population types able to grow quickly and populate multiple planets with
oppressive ease).

Arks: There's No Place Like Home

Arks occupy a weird space. A moving Ark carries around population that can't do anything. An anchored Ark is kind of a ship, but you can
set it up not to be one. Arks can be part of fleets, but since the latest patches (as of this writing) a fleet can't anchor with an Ark.
Further, a hero is either a governor or a commander, and cannot be both. I feel like there's room to further unify the identity of the
Shipbound affinity's flagship mechanic. Some of this involves significantly altering basic mechanics, and it would have to be balanced
numerically to make Shipbound a better risk-reward choice.

Mechanic - Mobile Production Values: Arks produce Science Dust, and Influence based on their system bonuses and native population when
unanchored. An unanchored Ark can build Modernization Upgrades and Population Units, as well as convert population to troops. System and
Population bonuses are only retained if they are non-conditional. A mobile Ark still must support its population with food (unlike now).
a mobile Ark does not project influence, but does count as system support for the purpose of repairing fleets in the same system (at a
greatly reduced rate) and replenishes troops (from its own reserves). Mobile Arks do not project influence. An unachored Ark does not
generate troops for the empire troop pool, but could potentially replenish its own troops using its own system improvements)

Mechanic - Fleet and System: An Assigned hero provides their system bonuses to a mobilized ark with the same general logic as any other
system improvements.

Rationale: Mobilized Arks are powerful. They aren't giving up an entire system worth of production powerful. This mechanical change
reduces the the resource penalty you take for mobilizing an Ark to take the edge off, while also making fielding military Arks slightly
more enticing, and making them a bigger target for enemies. Currently the best way to gain a resource advantage over an unanchored Ark
is actually to avoid it and strike elsewhere. An unanchored Ark does essentially nothing for a Vodyani Player, and if it isn't earning
its keep by destroying enemy ships then you're wasting all the potential resources. On the other hand if you can leverage an ark into a
position of power it can make or break a war, and offers huge benefits in flexibility. By allowin ga player to retain some of an Arks
production it makes unachoring a less relatively unattractive option and makes chasing down and catching a moving Ark a more attractive
option for non Vodyani.

Mechanic - Ark Fleet: An Ark that doesn't have an Ark Protection Module anchors with its attendant fleet. This fleet benefits from any
fleet bonuses of any Governor the Ark has (Governor joining defensive battles optional in this case). An Anchored Fleet has a modestly
reduced upkeep cost.

UI - Merge to Ark: A new option wherein the selected ships join an Anchored Arks fleet if possible. Either a new button or a tweak to
how the game determines fleets orbiting a system.

Rationale: This is a relatively minor mechanical change. Supremacy made it a point to make Arks behave more like traditional systems if
you want them to (because space battles are more all or nothing). However a reasonably powerful fleet can hold off attackers for great
lengths of time, and allowing a fleet to be more poweful by virtue of a governor makes having "combat" loadout Arks more attractive over
a protection module + resource acquisition. This makes the non-standard option slightly more attractive but also more resource
intensive, while also making "permanent" defensive fleets less of a drain on a players resources. The ideal is to make the options a
trade-off. Right now ark protection feels like a clear winner because it means your arks can be built lightly, and don't need to be
defended by an attendant fleet (with large upkeep costs) constantly during a war.

Mechanic - Ark Flagships: Arks require 0 CP. Arks Occupy (and replace) the hero flagship slot on a fleet. An assigned Hero commands the
Ark, applying their ship bonuses to it, and does so in defensive battles commanding an anchored Ark. Arks are greatly reduced in power
to compensate for Hero bonuses, but remain powerful additions to a fleet. An Ark can serve as either a powerful artillery platform or as
a support ship providing a great number of bonuses to the fleet. Or something in between. In this change an Ark is expected to be ~60%
the stats it currently has, but a hero can cover that gap. A well built Ark should be roughly equivalent to 2*Rank in CP. An unupgraded
Ark is essentially a 1CP ship (roughly equal to a hero flagship, though tougher). A rank 4 Ark should be a bit less powerful than a
cruiser without a hero, but more powerful with.

Rationale: This changes the dynamic of fleet management. Turning Arks into a fleet flagship makes them a "free" addition to a fleet,
which makes them feel more tempting to field. But fielding Arks as combat vehicles is a tradeoff on potential resource acquisition, and
makes them an attractive target for destruction. The exact balance would need to be tweaked to make sure it doesn't, make the Vodyani
unassailable in naval combat, but currently a high end Ark is at least equivalent to a cruiser. A Vodyani fleet w/ an Ark and a Hero
should be an exceptionally dangerous opponent, possibly rivaling a behemoth is raw power. But it's important that they also be able to
be taken down with the right amount of effort (Attrition, counter loadouts, etc)

Note that none of these suggestions can be considered to exist in a vaccuum there are a lot points of contention in current balance.
Things like Energy >>>>>> Projectile weapons or the current balance state of Behemoths and the balance of other factions. These are
ultimately conceptual suggestions to increase the flavor of the Vodyani faction and Shipbound Affinity. The greatest drawing point of
ES2 over other 4X games is the commitment to  mechanical asymmetry between factions (and even between different playstyles of the same
faction).