We get to vote 3 new factions, 2 of them being either rubbish is so ill defined you can't make a educated decision and then there is the blatantly obvious winner.







So we have 3 new factions, one is a faction that can cap systems by looking at them for a while. You know this sounds good until you notice that the faction has NOTHING in terms of eco or military that would especially enable them to get into a position to actually make use of this. Unless they cap systems really fast with that i see problems rolling in via war fleets.

Start stealing systems via your stellar guardian enhanced race? yeah good luck fighting the peeved of current owner who has the military and/or economic edge over you because his race trait is geared toward that.





Then we have the virus... where you did not bother to inform us about the specific effects of their ability. "various bonuses" wtf does that even mean?!

More elaboration please before you go and put this up to a vote.







And then we have the blatant winner by default:



Harmony, they not only poison the well for anyone who caps systems from them, they also get to be THE premier faction chosen to build 'Tolerant' builds with.(currently only truly viable with a cravers framework due to the 25%+ fids negating the -25% fids from tolerant 2 and the fact that cravers work of off fodd and not some sort of crippled industry conversion crap that stunts growth massively due to imposing a ridiculous penatly to food production for a race that is ♥♥♥♥ign machines and should not need food at all.)



They also have a valuable intel source by knowing where to find the good resources but also get the 2000 pound balancing elephant called "no approval worries at all". Say hello to a custom factino that will colonize EVERYTHING the moment it can build those cheap ass colonizers en amsses. Every planet, with no regard to apporval. They can colonize everything right from the get go and NEVER stop doing it. Does noone else see this huge train coming at us? With planets not handing out mali at all that is stopping them is expansion disaproval.





You make 2 factions with an affinity either so niche its arguable it should become a trait instead (yes, cap via influence should be a trait instead) or is just plain unexplained. What exactly does the virus do?



I sure as hell would love to play a virus but simnce i have to pick one of the 3 races i have to go with the one that has actually been properly explained and is not niche.





I am with holding my vote until more details are known about the virus dudes.

Well, if I can give my view on these, well, concepts.



Dust Collective



Just because they cannot declare war doesn't necessarily mean that they cannot have war declared upon them. And the influence thing would be a bit of subterfuge.



The Virus



I agree, it's fairly vague on information, but again, it's more a concept.



The Harmony



Admittedly, the concept does seem to be overpowered, since it seems to read like there being no penalty for colonising, say, gas giants, apart from the fact that you're colonising a gas giant.



Besides, we can simplify the various normal factions into one element.



United Empire - Dust

Sophons - Science

Horatio - Population

Cravers - Conquest

Hissho - Invasion

Sowers - Industry/Terraforming

Pilgrims - Heroes

Amoeba - Diplomacy

Automatons - Industry (And Terraforming)



So, by that means, let's see how the 3 concepts fit in.



Dust Collective - Indirect methods of combat.

The Virus - I would have to say, well, infection, maybe conversion.

The Harmony - Abnormality enhancement/refinement



Frankly, I'd have to agree that we need more information, but at the moment, I can't really see any real need for such hostility.

hostility? no. Major irritation: yes.



We are asked to vote on future faction, with the others bascially bing locked out never to be seen. Not getting proper infos and having such disproportionate differences in advantages.....



I mean come on: a faction that caps systems by remote but has nothing in terms of enhancing their ability to use that ability by defending from the offended party?



A race that is so i'll defined you are bascially asked to give your vote to the lottery (mantra: plase don't be lame please don't be lame please don't be lame)?



And a race so obviously stacked with boons that its clear it will win and properly replace sophon as favorite custom race framework?



please. Excuse me being irrate when i see something like this repat itself over and over with these votes lately.



one option always is "what are they thinking?!"

one always is obscure and left field

one option that is always blatantly better than the other 2





Remember the sheredyn affinity polls? yeah....

Or the recent fighter bobmer polls.

We had left field (aka the lame field): being stock stats.

Than the WTF option: "trust us!"

And the blatant winner: "spec your fighters!"



Was this even a contest?!

This was never a contest, and really only is when we are specificity told it is.



The g2g vote is a preferential vote on what first and what we preferably want.



As for the factions, they are not really factions according to the dev blog but are more "We have 3 concepts that we regrouped in 3 archetypes:"



So archetypes is not detailed description of anything, so no need to blow up.



My opinions of the archetypes:



The Dust Collective: Can't declare war but can capture systems via influence.

I like this affinity, as the inability to actually declare war does in no way prevent you from harassing an opponents in a cold war with your fleets, and with your influence.

You essentially goad your enemy's into declaring war for you, making this a passive aggressive affinity, so accusations about it preventing you from defending yourself are unfounded.



The Virus: Infect enemy stuff to get stuff.

This is an aggressive affinity, no specifics but from the looks of it you will be relying on leaching off of a stronger opponent to grow yourself into a proper power, making races like the Cravers prime targets for a never-ending plague vs locust war.

I like the idea.



The Harmony: Ultra planning experts with no approval effects who can also weaponize their anomaly's.

This seems like it will be a faction who will be reliant on the terrain to assist them, with no bonuses or penalty's from approval the other factions will most likely out grow them and out tech them even with malus included, but that said from the description it seems that they are defensive experts and are more like a galactic infection that will be ni impossible to remove, but will have great difficulty in expanding once they find their enemy's borders.



So really I don't get the problem, and even then is isn't your game or your discussion in the end, so id the devs particularly want an idea, then they are free to tip the scales.



There ain't to democracy on the internet.

Yeah, these seem like vague, undefined concepts, because they are in fact vague, undefined concepts. The devs just want to know which general ideas sound interesting enough to develop further. Specifics will come later.

Virus sounds cool as hell

I'm more concerned that the vote winning "crown" for some reason set to not winning choice.

This is clearly saw on last voting for fighters/bombers: http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/content.php?259-Additional-G2G-vote-Fighters-and-Bombers-design

My post with screenshot numbered 17.

Well... it seems your prediction was right, which is a shame in my eyes. I've only seen a concept like "the virus" in one other games: The Beast, from Homeworld: Cataclysm (if you know of any others, I would love to hear them). I always loved the concept, but alas, it was not meant to be...

IamPr1celess wrote:
I'm more concerned that the vote winning "crown" for some reason set to not winning choice.

This is clearly saw on last voting for fighters/bombers: http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/content.php?259-Additional-G2G-vote-Fighters-and-Bombers-design

My post with screenshot numbered 17.

The crown thingy is glitchy. We can't make any mistake with the winner as the amount points are displayed, so that's "not too bad". Hopefully, we'll fix that when we work on a new website.

Steph'nie wrote:
The crown thingy is glitchy. We can't make any mistake with the winner as the amount points are displayed, so that's "not too bad". Hopefully, we'll fix that when we work on a new website.

Once again, thank you, Steph'nie. You are our saviour!