i am curious about the three new races.



we already have: proud warrior klingons.... i mean hisso, cool scientist solarians.... i mean sophon, the requisite evil Empire, the covetous AI/genetic experiment called the borg.... i mean the cravers, and................. the Horatio (very original in my opinion)



what tropes are left?



we have birds, little big headed blue men, machines, humans and another fella named horatio.



the sophon have an aquatic theme-- leaves out any space fish/amphibians.

the cravers have a machine/space savage/hive theme-- that means no Borg/insect/zuul/reaper/reaver type races are in the works

hisso have the whole bird of prey thing going on-- bye bye romulan/klingon, andromeda type races

UE-- another human race would be dull. battle star galactica esq races are out

Horatio-- never saw there design coming before, love it



population-- horatio

science-- sophons

economy-- UE

war-- hisso

expansion/industry-- cravers



what is left for the other races to focus on. All avenues for victory are claimed, most common scifi design themes are used already. what do you guys think?

Maybe na'avis, loving their planets^^

Well Solentis hinted at kiwis not so long ago so...

These could be some rogue Hissho who populated a planet with an unusual anomaly and there you go, from the honorable avian warriors to the tiny peaceful cute little things that can charm you with their looks and discourage you from engaging in any kind of hostile actions Evolution? Devolution?

Perhaps some sort of paragon race. They believe it is their duty to protect the Galaxy (we're currently low on good alignment races). I'm imagining them looking somewhat like the Kaminoans of Star Wars, tall and slender. Though they might cross the Sophon look-a-like line a bit too closely.

Wow. TV tropes certainly jaded an individual or two here. This is SCIENCE FICTION! There are COUNTLESS possibilities for races that exist from both an aesthetic and game play perspective.



Already we have one rather unique race in the five we know about, the Horoto. If I may quote from the the game...



"Incredibly wealthy and only slightly less deranged, Horatio was an Empire trillionaire who left to discover his own star cluster. Finding a planet sprinkled with labs of ancient cloning technology left by the Endless, the boredom soon drove Horatio to create a race of allies, servants, and slaves who were every bit as gorgeous as the most beautiful person in the universe -- Horatio. Once the planet was repopulated, Horatio the First only had to look up, regard the stars, and realize how much more beautiful they, too, would be if they were filled with... Horatios. The rest, as they say, is history. "



How is any of that cliche? Or trope worthy? Sure some slivers of the idea may have appeared elsewhere but here you have a truly unique race of artificial sirens that exist to spread the greatness of their mortal god.



And so far as 'this game already doing all the tropes' No. Not it has not. There isn't a single mechanical race here nor is there an assimilating one. I don't see any energy beings or siliconiods. Or plant folk, or psychic hive minds. And if you want unique ideas perhaps a race that evolved from uplifted octopi for work in zero g environments who eventually rebelled against their human masters.



Now if your talking game play mechanic wise? I have not played this game long enough to really see how the factions differentiate from one another. But if you want I can post examples on how you can have a large number of factions be different enough from each other yet still relativity balanced. However I will say we don't have master diplomats yet, nor do we have master spies, or master gene splicers, or master assimulators, or a dedicated cultural, or trade faction. There is still so much that can be done in my eyes that nay saying based on the few factions presented is a tad...silly.

It's easier to say what I hope we don't get, like big humanoid cats (Kzin/Kilrathi) or lizard men. Just get away from the humanoid shape at all. The most interesting aliens in Mass Effect for me were the floating jellyfish guys... the Hanar. Now that's an alien. Whatever is coming next, I hope it doesn't walk on two legs.



As for organizing themes... well, there's religious fanaticism. A race of starfish or octipoid-types that want to convert the rest of the galaxy? Or is that already in one of the current race descriptions... I forget.



The UE is ecnonomy-focused, but maybe there's room for a specialized trader-focused race. Big bonuses to trade, and an incentive to either prevent wars, or exploit wars through arms trading (if the AI is good enough).



Given the likely evolution of technology for any race, I would think there's more room for a machine intelligence type. Maybe a nanotech swarm, or something. In any real evolution of spacefaring factions in the galaxy, I think it's likely that most of them would be machines (or whatever comes next) that have replaced their original creators.



It might be interesting if something like this was so goal-oriented that it couldn't be traded with, or reasoned with, like the old Berserkers novels, or the Greenfly machines in the Alastair Reynolds novels.... terraforming run amok. Then again, maybe that's something better reserved for a random event.

Im hoping for an advanced Robot civilisation, ala Transformers style- Alignment would be Good, peaceful but if you hit them with a stick you unleash the swarm of robotic death!

ThatStupidGeek wrote:
Wow. TV tropes certainly jaded an individual or two here. This is SCIENCE FICTION! There are COUNTLESS possibilities for races that exist from both an aesthetic and game play perspective.



Already we have one rather unique race in the five we know about, the Horoto. If I may quote from the the game...



"Incredibly wealthy and only slightly less deranged, Horatio was an Empire trillionaire who left to discover his own star cluster. Finding a planet sprinkled with labs of ancient cloning technology left by the Endless, the boredom soon drove Horatio to create a race of allies, servants, and slaves who were every bit as gorgeous as the most beautiful person in the universe -- Horatio. Once the planet was repopulated, Horatio the First only had to look up, regard the stars, and realize how much more beautiful they, too, would be if they were filled with... Horatios. The rest, as they say, is history. "



How is any of that cliche? Or trope worthy? Sure some slivers of the idea may have appeared elsewhere but here you have a truly unique race of artificial sirens that exist to spread the greatness of their mortal god.



And so far as 'this game already doing all the tropes' No. Not it has not. There isn't a single mechanical race here nor is there an assimilating one. I don't see any energy beings or siliconiods. Or plant folk, or psychic hive minds. And if you want unique ideas perhaps a race that evolved from uplifted octopi for work in zero g environments who eventually rebelled against their human masters.



Now if your talking game play mechanic wise? I have not played this game long enough to really see how the factions differentiate from one another. But if you want I can post examples on how you can have a large number of factions be different enough from each other yet still relativity balanced. However I will say we don't have master diplomats yet, nor do we have master spies, or master gene splicers, or master assimulators, or a dedicated cultural, or trade faction. There is still so much that can be done in my eyes that nay saying based on the few factions presented is a tad...silly.

i think i remember something on some other forum that the tv tropes fanbase tends to want to tropify things even if its not warranted. its almost the same as selling philosophy or religion or a really bad idea. But in other words its snake oil with a bunch of buzzwords and unoriginal ideas or concepts being pushed on genres. its pretty bad and cheapens things and even for some perpetuates unoriginality.



anyone thinking tropes are good or a game needs a godamned checklist of them is asking for some flak and others will take it to be a insult depending on what corner of the net someones in. thats what ived seen some will think about it others will be ticked off about it.



but the horatio ships are really something and look fragile and is helix like. its pretty odd from what i have played

Mechanos wrote:
i think i remember something on some other forum that the tv tropes fanbase tends to want to tropify things even if its not warranted. its almost the same as selling philosophy or religion. But in other words its snake oil with a bunch of buzzwords and unoriginal ideas or concepts being pushed on genres. its pretty bad and cheapens things and even for some perpetuates unoriginality.

Well part of it is that tropes can be allot of fun and can be rather helpful when trying to diversify or break down various ideas. The problem is like you said, allot of Tropers just want everything to be a trope because everything must be cataloged. It can cheapen entire works.



On another note star worshiping oceanic dwelling Cephalopods could be allot of fun. Would get a bonus to boarding ships due to those extra limbs and with those big brains they tend to pump out media to convert other races to their side...or something.

ThatStupidGeek wrote:
Well part of it is that tropes can be allot of fun and can be rather helpful when trying to diversify or break down various ideas. The problem is like you said, allot of Tropers just want everything to be a trope because everything must be cataloged. It can cheapen entire works.



On another note star worshiping oceanic dwelling Cephalopods could be allot of fun. Would get a bonus to boarding ships due to those extra limbs and with those big brains they tend to pump out media to convert other races to their side...or something.

it was just what i have observed. I admit i have gone at that site to find new tidbits of information and have really found some good shows movies or books. or some stories that have some similar story elements or qualities.



i saw one of the sophon corvettes and their ship types the windows resemble bug eyes and some of the ships have a cephalopod like form its really neat.

I think a completley synthetic AI faction is missing from the game. Perhaps the Cravers fit the AI, but they are organic. Aside from that, there is only one good races. At least one or two of the new races should be good, and the last neutral.

Since when does having one of something of a broad category mean that another isn't a very viable choice as well? If you pick something of Chinese origin and classify it as "East Asia", does that mean that nothing from Japan or Korea can be used?



You talk about "Bird of Prey" excluding Klingons and Romulans...that's pretty flippin' ironic considering both Klingons AND Romulans were added to the same show(s).



And why on earth would having one race aiming for a certain victory mean that no other race could achieve that victory in a different fashion? There are a dozen ways you can approach "war" - research, population, modules, production, fleet size, fleet strength, heroes, speed, revenge, etc. etc. etc.



You lack vision

SomethingBlue wrote:
I think a completley synthetic AI faction is missing from the game. Perhaps the Cravers fit the AI, but they are organic. Aside from that, there is only one good races. At least one or two of the new races should be good, and the last neutral.

Yeah an AI faction would be nice.

I can give a little insight, I worked with a couple people on the modding boards to decode what the save files code equivalents to in game and there are some hints in the XML files as to what the new races will be.



There are the Sower, Resistance and Amoeba



For the resistance there heroes are referred to as "Pilgrim" and there unique improvement is called "Factories Of The Faithful"

They also have Techs like:

Consensus Systems as opposed to Improved Fleet Mangement

Analytical Faithbase as opposed to Vocational-Oriented Society

They may well be some sort of religious zelots



The Amoeba on the other hand have a unique improvements called Diversity Systems and have revised Techs for Perfect Negotiations and some taxation related techs including one tech called Galactic Botherhood.

For this reason I believe the Amoeba will be the diplomatic race; by uniting all the races under one flag they succeed or something to that notion.



For the Sower not a lot can be said; at least from what I've encountered. A lot of their unique Techs are placeholders except for;

Concurrent Logistics as opposed to Optimised Logistics

and their unique improvement Extreme Infrastructure

The only real hint I could find was in one of the Hero desciptions

The Sowers have a shared consciousness within communication range, and therefore have little need to specialize as individuals. $Last however, was an experimental model who (for reasons understandable only to quantum computing psycho-engineers) turned out to have a great knack for ground warfare.

Note: $Last is a placeholder for the heroes name



So they are some sort of hybrid AI-Organic life form?

i didn't mean that we should expect no more than the standard races you useualy get. i was just thinking and it seems to me that alot of 'standard' ideas and theams in scifi are expressed (in original multi-faceted ways) in the races we have.



Horatio is awesome, i love that race, it was just a surprising concept, something right out of left field. i hope that the remaining three races are just as wonderful unique



in the game as it exists right now there aren't any "niches" left to exploit. what would the game play benefit of a purely AI race? industry? (taken care of) resurch (same)... ect the three next races i hope will be wildly different.



we have a group of win conditions. wonder, conquest, expansion, resurch, annihilation. and we have races that specialise each of those victories.



what is left (other than diplomacy). that is what is exiting, what is left?



space octopuses? cool--- but what is their game play catch... in many 4x games there are many things to balance. in Gal Civ II for instance there was alignment, so there were good, bad, and neutral warrior races, traders, builders ect but in ES we have the FIDS and every race uses/specialises in one.



Star-craft has three races because they all fill a niche, a fourth race would either be redundant, overpowered, eghter way completely out of place. part of a different game.



what niches are left game play wise, is what i was asking.

Well the space cephalapods could have a combat focus on trying to get close to their opponents ships and boarding them as well a subterfuge win condition. The former makes sense because of their multiple limbs, strength, and the fact that they breed very very fast. The latter arises from the fact that modern day octopi are very intelligent, have natural camouflage, and seem to have a knack for getting into places there not supposed to or shouldn't physically be able to.



For instance....







Personally Ive always loved a subterfuge option in Fx games and it just is never that well devloped.

Then again allot of this is from having the octodad songs stuck in my head. Stupid catchy music...



So far as remaining Niche's that remain? Well Subterfuge as I stated. There doesn't seem to be a dedicated trade empire either nor is there a faction that straight up works to assimilate their opponents.



Trade and assimilation would fall more under a cultural style victory however. If your the one who's needed to manage the universe's resources then you make yourself rather indispensable and your culture travels with the finances that get funneled through your empire. Assimilation would be some sort of system that takes your neighbors and makes them into an extension of your empire through less violent means.



Really the diplomacy and cultural side of things as well as financing from my limited time seems to need more work but perhaps were get some new factions that implement a less violent means of victory for those of us that like to subvert instead of subjugate.