I've been trying out custom factions, and while I enjoy creating them there's something I have a big issue with. The issue is that custom factions do not have the ability to choose both an affinity and ship design. It may not seem like a problem, but it can get annoying when trying to create a custom faction. The reason for this is that if you want to select a ship design because it's one you like, you have to choose that faction's affinity, even if it isn't what you like or doesn't fit your play style. At the moment, there's no way around this; there's no way to have one faction's affinity and another faction's ship designs.



Example: I create a custom faction and want to use Sower ship designs since I find them interesting. However, I really don't like the Sower affinity because of the large food penalty which isn't even matched by the industry benefit (lose 50% food, gain only 40% industry), so instead of the Sower affinity I want to use another affinity (for example, Horatio for the cloning). The only problem? None of this is possible. If I don't like the Sower affinity but still want to use their ship designs, then I'm just out of luck. I could choose the Horatio affinity, but then I would lose the Sower ship designs I want to use.



It seems to me that the only logical solution to this is to separate the two, and allow custom factions to choose both ship designs and affinity. As an added bonus, this solution would not unbalance custom factions at all. All it does is give the player a choice in the ship design/affinity they want.



Any thoughts on this?

Already developed and in testing: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11569-g2g-votes-follow-up

Huh, can't believe I didn't notice that. Oh well, easy mistake to make. Now all I have to do is wait a month for it to come out.



Thanks for the link.