After the polaris patch the basic Sophons only have 53/65 points due to the reduction in technology costs. I would argue even in that state they are(were?) the best of the default races, in the faction trait balance pass is this going to be addressed?



I'd like to see the -50% support module cost be removed in favor of Master of Illusions 2 as currently it gives custom Sophons super rapid colony ship production and top of the line science output.

Kareal wrote:
After the polaris patch the basic Sophons only have 53/65 points due to the reduction in technology costs. I would argue even in that state they are(were?) the best of the default races, in the faction trait balance pass is this going to be addressed?



I'd like to see the -50% support module cost be removed in favor of Master of Illusions 2 as currently it gives custom Sophons super rapid colony ship production and top of the line science output.

I want the support module thing kept.



Just cause I me I would want to see them get more traits so they exceed the cap. There are also other races that have less points than cap and the same for them to.



this is because atm u can just make a Custom standard race with same + more traits and not play the real race.



balance between the standard races only is a difficult topic



cause each race is good at its own thing

I was thinking about this and it seems cool if instead of -50% support module cost it was -50% power, sensor, radar, repair weight. i.e. all the suppport modules except invasion and armor.



It would give them lore appropriate better scouts and a small boost to later fleets.

I like that Idea Kareal.



As it also promotes the use of these other support modules.

It's not just the Spohons, but all of the races except pilgrims have either less points allocated or, in sowers case, 1 more point than they are allowed. Surely the point of the original races is to have more points in them than normal, whilst you create your own race that fits your play-style, but would, in terms of pure numbers, be weaker? If not then it kinda makes no sense for pilgrims to have 88 points whilst the rest of the factions have 60...

The point of the pre-designed races is to be thematic as all hell and their traits have been chosen to support the themes rather than to optimize performance. They've ALL got trait setups that nobody in his right mind would choose for game mechanical purposes if trying to set up a well functioning race. This means that the exact cost of their traits using the point-buy system used for custom races is pretty much irrelevant: They aren't going to be competitive against custom races no matter what. The only thing that matters is how they perform against other pre-designed races.



It thus makes excellent sense why the Pilgrims are currently running 88 points, far more than any of the other original races, while being probably the second worst of the original races in actual gameplay in human hands, only beaten in the bottomfeeding department by the atrocious Sowers: the Pilgrims have got several of the very best traits that, when used in combinations with other traits and other affinities have awesome synergy - it just happens that with the Pilgrim's affinity and as part of the complete package of traits Pilgrims get, it doesn't work all that well it practice. (The Sowers has the opposite problem: an strong affinity that can be awesome when coupled with the right traits, but which are in the default setup coupled with traits that work exceptionally poorly together with the affinity).



At the other end, look at the Sophons. With the reduction in the cost for individual technologies (because few people took them for custom designed races), Sophons are now at 53/65. This does not mean that they "lack" or "are owed" 12 points of traits. They are as strong against the other pre-defined races as they've always been and are in no need of help.



So time should be spent on modifiying a pre-designed race if, and only if, it fails to perform adequately against other pre-designed races when all are in human hands. Not modified while chasing a changing point-total as traits are balanced for the competition of custom-designed specialist strategies against eachother.



As the bottom feeders are currently Pilgrims and Sowers, I could easily see both get even more traits to help bring them up to par... Arguably with Sowers, what is needed is not so much more or better traits, as that would still leave people ignoring the thematically central tolerance-colonisation most of the time due to approval issues; Rather additional benefits added directly to the Tolerance trait to make it worth colonising non-researched planets more frequently would seem to be the way to go.

Pi2r seems to know what's up. I don't have anything worthwhile to add after that... so I just need to show my support for his post.

I think affinity balancing is important for the MP aspect of the game. Right now, the affinity is by far the strongest, and keeping it for thematic purposes can really detract from the funness of playing online, in the sense that you don't get to see people implement a variety of strategies.