Maybe I'm underestimating how much work it would be to code them though. How much effort do you think it would take to code a special pool of heroes the Harmony got to pick from, separate from everyone else?

I suppose it'd be quite massive:

currently there is NO Limitation to which faction gets which heroes, there merely is a trait that lures certain Types of heroes. tho you still get other heroes aswell. It's pretty easy to add a ... civ to a game that has 3+ civ, if the game only has ONE civ this is a whole different Story, you don't only have to add the Content but also fundamental coding Features to differenciate between the two.

to make this interesting one would need at least ...15 Heroes, all of which need a Background Story and a Portrait

You'd have to redefine many skills, not only those of the Corporate(not that bad btw, only few directly boost dust) but also think about a new concept for Hero-battle Actions, currently they cost a small Dust-fee. also the skill that decreaces dustcost of Cards and the one that steels dust. wit also may Need a workover or else would be rather ... dull.



now all this has to be done BEFORE you actually get to unique skills so up until now the Harmony heroes are just cheap copies of the normal ones, thus not adding at all to the unique playstyle of the Harmony.

No heroes = unique

bad heroes = boring



Also you'd have to start balancing anew. Considering most hero bonuses are not directly to Dust and Approval, Harmony (apart from not being retrofittable) would be VERY strong, considering all their bonuses from Monopolies or the like.

better just buff those bonuses or make their stuff cheaper so their production isn't allways clogged up with stuff.





I don't think they should get that great a Bonus for other People harvesting dust, while they are on a sort of crusade they are no Hissho and thus would probably not go berserk when they see dust, they are rocks afterall. Getting a general Bonus VS Hero fleets however would both Balance their shortcomings and be justified.

Another idea would be to give them "Dust Inhibitor-bombs" that reduce the Dust production for 5/10/20(or 15? I never Play on slow)turns by 50%-75%(more would provoke the question: why not bombard own Systems?) on a targeted System.

More anti-Dust warefare, yeah that'd be great. and unlike immitation Heroes both less work and more unique.





Ps: excuse all the capitals, my spellcheck is pretty persistent and likes to correct words that are also present in it's predefined language.

As of currently, they have covered the game's bases.

yeah, apart from a working random faction mechanic.

I feel like there is a lot of hard-coding stuff they could do for the next expansion or ES2 that they might want to expand upon.



As of currently, they have covered the game's bases.

hmmm, yeah, it's essencially an XP based tech tree, could actually be done with out too much pointless hassle.

Antera wrote:
Yea, I think its pretty easy to implement too, if you have access to hardcode. The only thing you could not do right now for that idea in soft code (ie mod) is linking xp generating event everywhere in the empire to a single accumulating variable.

Well it's a good thing Amplitude has access to hardcode. Would be cool for the harmony to have a totally unique interface to reflect their uniqueness as a race.

Yea, I think its pretty easy to implement too, if you have access to hardcode. The only thing you could not do right now for that idea in soft code (ie mod) is linking xp generating event everywhere in the empire to a single accumulating variable.

Ca_Putt wrote:
That's actually a really interesting and unique idea. Tho I think it would be even harder to implement.

Wouldn't it essentially be an alternative tech tree available to the harmony in place of heroes? Because honestly the hardest part of that is hookingt it in and setting up the graphics. The global modifiers system is already in place etc. Just need the UI, and the resource coding to "level up"

That's actually a really interesting and unique idea. Tho I think it would be even harder to implement.

I have one suggestion.

Harmony can have hive mind proxy hero(only calling him hero here but actually is hive mind proxy like stuff in game to take place for heroes), which they only get 1 hero and every planet and ships are linked to it's mind as hive but they all are still looking for core and to be collective like before again.



This hero will get stationed at home planet by default can not be moved around, will get exp over time, building stuff and with battles both. But the catch is the more dust combined on all colonized planets there is the less effective it is, say some good math function would do from developers.



Plus his abilities bonuses are all passive and all apply same time to every ship and planet both not individually because they like things together.



I hope this idea gets picked up I won't charge just get it in game. :P

The best compromise is probably to replace the "heroes" tab with an "Empire Focus" tab. The Harmony as an empire would gain experience siilar to a hero, and you'd gain skill points to spnd. Not as good as normal heroes of course, but an effective compromise.

Ca_Putt wrote:
before contact with dust the Harmony did not actually have individuals, so having pre dust heroes would be even less plausible than having "post-Dust" heroes.

Ahh, that's quite a good explaination!

before contact with dust the Harmony did not actually have individuals, so having pre dust heroes would be even less plausible than having "post-Dust" heroes.

anc42 wrote:
Humans in many lores have had heroic people long before Dust came around. Why shouldn't the Harmony have something similar? Think of Green Arrow and Batman from the comics. They don't have any special enhancements, they are just extremely fit and do a good job of maximizing their potential by taking care of their bodies and their minds and practicing their skills. The same idea could be applied to some unique Harmony heroes. They, for example, have people that excel in Science, so thus a high Wits score, and perhaps a bonus in science points when researching Applied Science tech rather than Dust generation improvement. Or those that are clever at the Biosciences, who could increase Food generation. Etc.

Hmm, you got a point there with the human heros. But idk, maybe in the future, Heros are "outdated" ? lol

Humans in many lores have had heroic people long before Dust came around. Why shouldn't the Harmony have something similar? Think of Green Arrow and Batman from the comics. They don't have any special enhancements, they are just extremely fit and do a good job of maximizing their potential by taking care of their bodies and their minds and practicing their skills. The same idea could be applied to some unique Harmony heroes. They, for example, have people that excel in Science, so thus a high Wits score, and perhaps a bonus in science points when researching Applied Science tech rather than Dust generation improvement. Or those that are clever at the Biosciences, who could increase Food generation. Etc.

Why not just add the ability to create portable Contamination Barriers you can equip on fleets that nullify enemy fleet heroes entirely. Could be unlocked alongside the system improvement. Alternatively, maybe a tech or special module that can instantly wound an enemy hero when they begin a fight with your harmony fleets? Maybe the second one is overpowered. I'm not really in favor of adding harmony heroes, as pointed out before, heroes use dust to make magic things happen. Harmony hates dust.

It's probably better to continue the "Harmony have no heroes" theme than try to retrofit them and then just balance around their lack.



How about giving Harmony the equivalent of the "Fearless Foe" hero upgrade for their fleets (so whenever they're fighting an enemy hero, they get a bonus to weapon damage/ship defence and whenever they're attacking a system with a hero on it they get an invasion bonus)?



Obviously, you still need to balance around their lack of admins/corporates early game where they just fall woefully behind (some sort of flat food/science buff would be helpful just to dig them out of the hole - percentages multipliers from their tax slider are pointless when you've got nothing to multiply, and per-pop bonuses are pointless when they have less pop than anyone else).

Harmony's lack of heroes is a major disadvantage. It means they'll have significantly lower FIDS and/or fleet strength, and miss out on some very powerful unique hero abilities. Why not make heroes more like ship upkeep for them? Other races have to pay dust to keep their ships each turn, but because the harmony don't use dust, they simply don't pay that ship upkeep. Likewise, they could get their heroes for free. Maybe once every few turns until the cap is reached, or with an initial cap of 1 (or 0) that was expanded quickly with early research in the first few rings of the diplomacy tree.



You could reduce their exp gain to make up for the lack of payment, but I think the fact that their Wit stat only provides bonuses to science, and not to dust, more than compensates for it.

But never to the extent of the dust wielding heroes.

The harmony might have been a hive-mind in the past, but they're individuals now. It's right there in their back-story:

Dust was their downfall. In the galaxy of the Endless they were ensnared; this strange technological creation that affected particles, fields and waves broke the single movement of the Harmony into a cacophony of gravity-enchained individuals.

That means some of them can be better than others at certain things.

Dust gives the users magical like ability's that allow them to do things that otherwise would be standard and thus we would have no heroes.



The heroes and unique because they use dust to give themselves enhanced ability's, however dust in it's self are very bad for the harmony as it brakes the hive-mind nature of their race causing individualism to form, and that is abhorrent to the harmony (Much like being forcibly being linked to every other human mind against your will) and is essentially a form of mental abuse on a society level....it destroys what is the harmony in an event known as the disharmony, as in they have lost their harmony.



While you are mostly correct that dust isn't required to manage fleets or colony's (Other then that every other race uses dust as the standard economy) the ability manage them to the effect of producing a bonus to production or trade income is unique to dust users.



So heroes begin to lose meaning when not-dust users are also heroes, and considering the harmony is a hive mind.





However I am interested in the idea of expanding on what the war against dust can drive them to achieve, much like many dictatorships the desperation of such a conflict could drive them to become more extreme when faced with overwhelming odds.



Not heroes, because the harmony don't have individuals....kinda.



But a mechanic where dust users drive the harmony to become more fanatical and less moral, driving them to do whatever it takes to win the fight.



So a suggestion? What about a mechanic where the harmony gain an empire wide bonus based off of the dust being generated by everywhere else? A global mechanic where as the economys of their enemy's begin to start, grow and begin to steamroll the harmony would become more desperately fanatical to fighting the plague of dust, driving them to gain bonuses to extinguish the threat?



Now that is a mechanic I could get behind.

It wouldn't make them less unique if they had unique heroes. If anything, it would make them more unique. Instead of just not having access to a major part of the game, they would have something nobody else did.



Maybe I'm underestimating how much work it would be to code them though. How much effort do you think it would take to code a special pool of heroes the Harmony got to pick from, separate from everyone else?



As for lore, I don't see the issue. Other races may have dust enhanced heroes, but there is no reason the harmony's heroes have to be. Dust isn't necessary to lead a fleet or govern a solar system. As long as their heroes are not the same heroes everyone else gets.

And why do those anti-Dust heroes have that ablity? Are they under "anti-Dust" or "Tsud" influence?

Adding heroes to the Harmony is a hell of work, does not goe with the lore, and makes them less unique.



Now that's a good idea Ingcom1! I like!

Id love to see harmony fleet modules that enhance their fleets potential when fighting the great agents of evil, the heros, and when bombarding the more infested nests of the great corruption gaining bonuses for every 10 dust the system generates.

Lore wouldn't really be the problem.



You could simply envision heroes whose only ability is to absorb and destroy dust, thus helping Harmony clean systems faster or hampering the use of dust-based abilities by enemy admirals.



Where I agree is that it would make the harmony gameplay less unique .

Ca_Putt wrote:
So in order to buff a faction, you propose to add a whole fction unique set of heroes that make a lot of extra work and actually make the faction less unique?



Really there are better, more controllable ways of buffing the Harmony.



Plus it does not make sence lorewise.

So in order to buff a faction, you propose to

Then make harmony exclusive "heroes" who serve the same purpose, but without the dust.

add a whole fction unique set of heroes that make a lot of extra work and actually make the faction less unique?



Really there are better, more controllable ways of buffing the Harmony.



Plus it does not make sence lorewise.

Igncom1 wrote:
Harmony heroes are infected with dust, and it's that infection that they are fighting against.



If the harmony have heroes like everybody else they will be just another sowers faction and that is unacceptable just because players can't learn to play without heroes.

Learning to play without heroes isn't necessarily the issue: it's that the Harmony are massively gimped because they don't have any heroes and heroes are extremely potent in the game. If the Harmony were powerful enough to be competitive, this wouldn't be an issue.

Harmony heroes are infected with dust, and it's that infection that they are fighting against.



If the harmony have heroes like everybody else they will be just another sowers faction and that is unacceptable just because players can't learn to play without heroes.

Nacho wrote:
So what makes them unique is being worse than everyone else?

As Nacho says, currently what's making Harmony unique is how useless they are! Heroes make an enormous difference to your FIDS and combat strength, the latter so much that it can become almost impossible to defeat a fleet with a level 20+ hero on it without one of your own. I'm not suggesting we give the Harmony heroes as such but they need -something- to address this imbalance.

Nacho wrote:
Then make harmony exclusive "heroes" who serve the same purpose, but without the dust.

Indeed. In fact, there's a whole section of the fluff which talks about the Harmony becoming more individual due to the corrupting influence of the dust. They might not like it, but it sounds like the dust is -already- creating Harmony heroes.

Igncom1 wrote:
And that would ruin what ever makes the harmony unique.

So what makes them unique is being worse than everyone else?

Ca_Putt wrote:
Apart from the aforementioned gameplay problem, there also is a severe lore problem:

Heroes are not like in other games "just" outstanding individuals but Dust enhanced uberpeople. It's a bit like Spice in dune, the Midi-chlorians in todays star wars or the stuff captain america takes. Giving heroes to the Harmony(who loathe Dust) would simply make no sence.

Then make harmony exclusive "heroes" who serve the same purpose, but without the dust.

Apart from the aforementioned gameplay problem, there also is a severe lore problem:

Heroes are not like in other games "just" outstanding individuals but Dust enhanced uberpeople. It's a bit like Spice in dune, the Midi-chlorians in todays star wars or the stuff captain america takes. Giving heroes to the Harmony(who loathe Dust) would simply make no sence.

And that would ruin what ever makes the harmony unique.