I extracted "SS" to "MyDocuments\EndlessSpace\Modding", something wrong with that directory?



As for points... I'd say sowers would be balanced at ~70 points with other factions (note that the other <70 factions could use a minor buff too). I'd put in Optimistic II and call it good (aside form those other changes). Possibly Builder III (putting them on par with Automatons for points total).

Oh, I forgot to tell. That mod requires Disharmony.



Metallic Waters 4

Tolerant 2/2 30

Headhunter - Administrator 5

Builders 2/3 16

Optimistic 2/2 25

Xenobotany 4

N-way Fusion Plants 4

Anarchists 2/2 -15

Feeble Warriors 2/2 -5



Total of 68 points.



--I never really understood why Sowers had 2 levels of Space Cadets. According to Sower description, it's a good faction to expand quickly and produce things rapidly. And Sowers don't really care about the other factions unless they somehow prevent Sowers from expanding. Only in that case, Sowers will think about war. Which makes me think they are not really a good "warrior faction", at least that's not what they are made for. That's why I think Anarchists 2 and Feeble Warrios 2 suites Sowers better than Space Cadets 2. I might be wrong tho.--





Instead of using 3 levels of Builders trait, we can change the AI Labor a little bit. It may provide -%30 industry cost on improvements rather than -%20.

Anarchists + feeble Warriors just doesn't feel very much like "Sowers" to me. Space Cadets was intended to capture the "we build things not research them" focus of the Sowers. The sowers themselves are machines, which really doesn't feel like they'd be feeble on the contrary I'd imagine they should have something like Solid Citizens.



And that's ignoring their "Integrated AI" nature which would mesh well with Crowded Planets(more sowers equals faster completion of the calling). Anarchists is debatable, it makes sense that they'd be less interested in military endeavors early (which is what anarchists in effect does) though the "feeling" of the trait doesn't mech well (the Sowers are the exact opposite of anarchists). Rename it and it would fit just fine. Removing the fleet speed malus is actually going to make them CRAZY fast (especially with those traits) and I think it should remian a part of the Sowers. They don't (as a faction) expand quickly so much as they establish themselves, terraform, and move on. I feel that -1 speed helped to keep them in check, as their growth is almost entirely unhindered by planet quality.



Honestly I'd tack Builder III to the above and see how it feels (rather than make the extra 10% attached to a racial tech). They'd be right on par with Automatons, and I honestly think either the devs need to do a trait sweep on all factions to align them with custom or a sweep to put all factions at the >70 point mark (to make up for having no throwaway point reductions).



Edit: I'd like to see a new Trait that reduces overpopulation disapproval. "Populous Unity", would be a perfect fit for Cravers, Sowers, and Horatio.



Edit2: Figured out the mod. Apparently the Mod FAQ needs to be updated, no need for a modding folder in disharmony. Anyway, I go to try the tech tree changes (good job, just needs a little polish on positioning) and the game starts me (plant number "many" in a 3 planet system and the first system I find is Terran... woth only two planets. God this game hates me (just murdered me as harmony by having ONLY arid/desert planets in my arm of the spiral)



Edit: A couple things... The Exp Disapproval reduction you gave the Sowerrs seems to be acting weird, and the FIDS bonus from Exotic Thermodynamics is also acting weird. Dunno if it's working fine (just weird display) or if it's being borked

I believe you are referring to Cyro-Hygro Systems, that is working fine but there was a minor localization issue on the Empire Factors screen. Fixed it.



About the Expansion Disapproval, yes it's working, but in an odd way. Gonna work on that more.

rockmassif wrote:
I believe you are referring to Cyro-Hygro Systems, that is working fine but there was a minor localization issue on the Empire Factors screen. Fixed it.



About the Expansion Disapproval, yes it's working, but in an odd way. Gonna work on that more.

So at turn ~110 I had full tundra systems (minus the off Lava that I kept) in my major systems. And my ships were holding off enemy ships 4x their. 1st in FIDS (easy as hell) but 5th in score (I suck at score) and like 4th in research.



I'm thinking the changes are pretty good. I've been brainstorming other trait changes, I'll get backto this thread on those. I have to manually account for FIDS production on a harmony save.



Edit: OK I had an idea with cryo-hygro that I think would be a bit more fair. Rather than combine it with Tundra, combine tundra+Arctic terraformation and have Cryo-hygro replace arctic in the tech tree for the sowers. This prevents the "rocket syndrome" I found where you can go from 7th to 1st in FIDS literally in one turn. Slows it down just a little, and makes more sense for terraforming



Edit2: AND then the mod stopped showing up again. Man this game.

Autocthon is posting some great stuff here, can only hope Amplitude is listening.



If - IF - Sowers need further buffing, I believe it should come in the form of a boost to their approval levels (which Disharmony already delivers with the 'Sociologics' trait). They should work according to their lore - they're machines, bent on terraforming the snot out of the entire galaxy. That provides ample cause for them to have the way approval works for them toyed with, it doesn't (shouldn't!) follow the same rules as for the carbon-based species - the fact that it currently does so also being one of the main reasons why 'tolerant' is arguably underpowered as it stands. Either as a reworked part of their affinity, the 'tolerant' trait (this is likely the best option) or as a new trait entirely, give them an approval bonus to 'hostile' planet types so that Sowers can colonize lava, asteroids & gas giants and no/low approval drop.



Really, the problem with the design of Sowers is they weren't designed to have a completely different approval model to begin with. I'm not sure what to put in place of the current model, but having them follow the same model as the other faction doesn't fit in with their supposed terraform-everything style or with the fact they're machines. Unfortunately, it's probably too late to change this into something better now so the above outlined suggestion is probably the best that can be done.



Finally, it boggles the mind why the whole ice/tundra-colonization & adamantian requirements debacle wasn't worked out for Disharmony. What was supposed to be a boon to the Sowers in the form of special faction research is instead a huge detriment - it's not sane to expect the player to have adamantian available that early, and hence this research reversal does nothing but make ice colonization (and the accompanying very powerful improvement) much more expensive than it should be, giving Sowers the worst terraformation options of all factions! Absolutely atrocious design on Amplitude's part, and impossible to understand why it wasn't changed now that the tech trees were obviously revisited and reviewed with Disharmony. Fixing this would greatly increase the competitiveness of the Sowers.

Autocthon wrote:
So at turn ~110 I had full tundra systems (minus the off Lava that I kept) in my major systems. And my ships were holding off enemy ships 4x their. 1st in FIDS (easy as hell) but 5th in score (I suck at score) and like 4th in research.



I'm thinking the changes are pretty good. I've been brainstorming other trait changes, I'll get backto this thread on those. I have to manually account for FIDS production on a harmony save.

Which difficulty are you playing on? I was playing on Normal difficulty and I just finished my game. I managed to achieve both Wonder and Economic Victory, first in almost everything.



And I think the game is working fine now with the changes we made. Expansion Disapproval now can be reduced by up to %100 (at least this was the case in my save) which basically means that you got no expansion disapproval at all. (It's still not showing on the Empire Factors screen but it works)



By the way, after releasing it here I made a little bit more changes in the mod.

Removed +10 Approval from AI Labor. As a replacement, Sociologics(Task Pathing Protocol) now provides +10 Approval.

+33% of Industry added to Food.



So there's that, I keep changing things, nothing is finalized.

rockmassif wrote:
Which difficulty are you playing on? I was playing on Normal difficulty and I just finished my game. I managed to achieve both Wonder and Economic Victory, first in almost everything.



And I think the game is working fine now with the changes we made. Expansion Disapproval now can be reduced by up to %100 (at least this was the case in my save) which basically means that you got no expansion disapproval at all. (It's still not showing on the Empire Factors screen but it works)



By the way, after releasing it here I made a little bit more changes in the mod.

Removed +10 Approval from AI Labor. As a replacement, Sociologics(Task Pathing Protocol) now provides +10 Approval.

+33% of Industry added to Food.



So there's that, I keep changing things, nothing is finalized.

Normal too. I have non-military victories off. So I can't win except by complete takeover so my games are longer (and therefore better with lategame factions). And I absolutely suck at score. As for brainstorming traits/changing techs, the goal is to capture the "best" sowers we can. These changes are certainly good but I'd like to see them a bit more logical in terms of progression.



Did you change Sociologics to +10 flat on system (it should be higher) or +10 per planet (probably a bit too high but I don't thing Sowers should have to worry about approval anyway).



Too bad I can't get the mod to ACTUALLY show up. I have no idea what is causing this, it was working just fine last night /sigh



Edit: Rough draft of Sowers.2



Xenobotany

N-Way Fusion Plants

Metallic Waters (Alternatively Mineral Rich?)

HH - Admin

Optimistic II

Tolerant II

Builders III

Anarchists II

Slow Travelers I

Space Cadets II



68 Points (If Tolerant cost is reduced add Core Mining, if going for 75 points add Strategically Resourceful)



These sowers are *entirely* focused on industry and terraforming. They have minimal military capacity, space cadets and slow travelers keeps their early expansion in check. However when gearing into war they can produce ships quickly, and they have strong ships thanks to repair and armor affinities on their hulls. This captures their non-military nature pretty well and highlight exactly what they should be doing (terraform everything!).



One alternative as a"high powered change" is to basically redesign the entire sower exploration tree to focus ENTIRELY on terraforming. Reposition everything to get the anomaly reduction techs early etc. HOWEVER doing so should also be accompanied by the removal of tolerant as a trait (make it part of the Sower affinity) and should probably be left to the Devs.



Edit2: A quick note: Sowers HATE T1 planets. We need to find a way to make that more apparent (since T1 terraforming is required to get high level techs going down the left of the expansion tree). Perhaps by switching the positioning of certain techs for the sowers? They want to avoid those expensive researches as teh yget nothing from it.

It was +10 per planet, changed it back to +5 again. I do agree that was a bit too high.

Autocthon wrote:
Rough draft of Sowers.2



Xenobotany

N-Way Fusion Plants

Metallic Waters (Alternatively Mineral Rich?)

HH - Admin

Optimistic II

Tolerant II

Builders III

Anarchists II

Slow Travelers I

Space Cadets II



68 Points (If Tolerant cost is reduced add Core Mining, if going for 75 points add Strategically Resourceful)

I think this is it. I'm perfectly fine with this traits. Looks really good.

When you draft those sowers up you should make the change to terraforming techs I recommended. IE Tundra+Arctic one tech, Tundra Geomorphology replace arctic in the sowers tree. If you can manage it.



Also me wanna try that Sower setup!



Edit: OMG I forgot to include micromanagers in that lol. So really you could just add Core mining and Micromanagers and BOOM 71 point faction (that's the supposed sweetspot is it not? roughly 10 points over custom version for "vanilla" factions)

I think it's done, this is a new one. I just deleted the old mod and started to work on this, just to get rid of dirty edits. I hope I didn't forget something in the process of doing this.

Changelog wrote:
Sower Affinity



%50 Reduced Food from Systems

%33 of Industry value also added to Food

%12 Reduced Expansion Disapproval on Systems



Sower Traits

• Metallic Waters
• Xenobotany
• N-Way Fusion Plants
• Core Mining
• Headhunter-Administrator
• Builders 3/3
• Optimistic 2/2
• Tolerant 2/2
• Spaced Cadets 2/3
• Anarchists 2/2
• Slow Travelers 1/2
• Micro Managers 1/2
  
  

*Changed the strategic resource requirement for Tundra Transformation from Adamantian to Siderite.

*Cyro-Hygro Systems moved to Low-Temp Hydration, Arctic Transformation moved to Exotic Thermodynamics, Tundra Geomorphology removed from the tech tree.

*Research cost of Exotic Thermodynamics is now 4000.

*Low-Temp Hydration's icon changed to orange due to it being a Sower Faction-Specific tech now.

*Both Exotic Thermodynamics and Low-Temp Hydration moved in the tech tree to more suitable positions.(made it look more symmetrical.)

This mod requires Disharmony to work properly.



Edit: About the AI Labor... I can confirm that it also applies to Terraforming actions, not just for Sowers, that goes for all factions. And after getting 3 levels of Builders trait, Industry cost of AI Labor is now 1008 for Sowers on default, so there was no need for a change.
SOWERS.rar

For a race that likes to attack first ask question later, this race gets smoked all the time by me.

Bad213Boy wrote:
For a race that likes to attack first ask question later, this race gets smoked all the time by me.

Sowers are TERRIBLE militarily. They're only really good defensively, their offenses are bad compared to most other factions (even the non-military).

rockmassif wrote:
I think it's done, this is a new one. I just deleted the old mod and started to work on this, just to get rid of dirty edits. I hope I didn't forget something in the process of doing this.







This mod requires Disharmony to work properly.



Edit: About the AI Labor... I can confirm that it also applies to Terraforming actions, not just for Sowers, that goes for all factions. And after getting 3 levels of Builders trait, Industry cost of AI Labor is now 1008 for Sowers on default, so there was no need for a change.

Whan yo uswitched the terraforming around... Did it end up applying to non-sowers? (Tundra and Arctic being combined/tundra being changed to siderite)



I'm sure I'll be able to check in two seconds but I'm playing Automatons for teh first timne and don;t wanna reload XD

No, It did not. I made it as a new Sowers Faction-Specific tech. Both tech remain the same for other factions. But I forgot the Siderite, lol, gotta fix it.



Edit: Aaand, it's done.

rockmassif wrote:
No, It did not. I made it as a new Sowers Faction-Specific tech. Both tech remain the same for other factions. But I forgot the Siderite, lol, gotta fix it.



Edit: Aaand, it's done.

If it's done where's my DL linky? XD



Oh and I feel super powerful when I play any faction except Sowers/Harmony/Amoeba because they're so trait heavy LOL.

Autocthon wrote:
Sowers are TERRIBLE militarily. They're only really good defensively, their offenses are bad compared to most other factions (even the non-military).

What makes them terrible offensively? They don't have any of the traits that give weaker or less accurate weapons (I think the traits are called "Humane Weapons" and "Spray and Shoot" -or something similar). Thanks in advance

Autocthon wrote:
If it's done where's my DL linky? XD



Oh and I feel super powerful when I play any faction except Sowers/Harmony/Amoeba because they're so trait heavy LOL.

Here, use it with extreme caution :P
SOWERS.rar

JetJaguar wrote:
What makes them terrible offensively? They don't have any of the traits that give weaker or less accurate weapons (I think the traits are called "Humane Weapons" and "Spray and Shoot" -or something similar). Thanks in advance

They have no traits to reduce weapon weight o nships, and they have a combination of reduced research rate and no specialized weapons tech that makes them pretty weak militarily.

rockmassif wrote:
Here, use it with extreme caution :P

YAY! I'm gonna try this out. And tehy can't be any more powerful than Automatons or Hissho XD



God the Automatons are ridiculous.