I think you go overboard with the maluses

But something like a swarming would be good. But with cheaper ships. And of course spezialized on exploration and population growth. Maybe with more max. Population on jungle terran and arid planets caused by building tunnels in the underground. Something with queens should also be included.



I think I'll write you a faction like this with a background and traits

What about a kind of DNA String in wich the player can model easily the attributes of a race, and which will have influence on the attributes of them...?

Really awesome!



But will you be able to use your own race in multiplayer?

yep. somebody posted that before i think.

Oh my god! I'm happy to hear that.

Hmm.. though I don't get how much you can change. Are you able to change the whole visual things? From ships to the race itself?

Maybe that comes along with modding..?

My Faction



The Shyk'ni



History and Classes:

The Shyk'ni evolved at a giant planet full of Jungles more rich in species than any known planet. Grown up on a planet full of flesh-eating plants and giant predators the evolution donated them extremely hardened chitin -plates to save their internal organs from all the different poisons created by all the creatures and plants of their homeworld. Reared by the first intelligent species on their planet, called Kusch'ro, the Shyk'ni were used for digging mines, fight to the death in coluseums or just like the human race keeps dogs as pets. They were first breeded to make armor of their naturally hardened exoskeleton as the Kusch'ro lived in tribes comparable to the early humans. Later on as their masters revealed the secrets of electricity, gunpowder and cannons the Shyk'ni were used to maintain supply-routes by carrying heavy weapons and ammunition. Split into proud nations, whose names were composed by the name of the tribe of their origin, the Kusch'ro began to supress their brothers and fight eachother with devastating weapons. When they build the first weapons of mass destruction their end approached. The biggest nations called Diz'nai and Wes'arkay were at war since years when the Diz'nai used a nuclear weapon which detonated kilometers above the athmosphere. The gammarays sent out by the detonation overloaded the energy system on the planet. That threw the Kusch'ro back into the stone age. Weakened by their own technology they became extinct. The Shyk'ni were free. Thousands of years passed while the evolution created more and more foes for them. But the Shyk'ni didn't stop to evolve and they became a sort of swarm consensus. Different mutations of their race worked together and created tunnelsystems spreading over up to 100 kilometers.

They specialized in living in groups so the mutation became more and more specific. Caused by an experiment of the endless big masses of dust entered the home tunnels of the Shyk'ni. Under the influence of the dust Queens, Warriors, Drones, Workers and Farmers established in the rank system. Having a completely different biology the "classes" took exercises in their own sections. Queens were scaled on breeding and growing the population while drones were the strongest warriors and had to fertilise the queen so she could breed Workers, Warriors and Farmers. Warriors build 15% of the population and their purpose was to defend the tunnels from invaders. Accounting for 40% of the Shyk'ni people the Farmers carry the biggest burden by farming mushrooms and cattle. This cattle is represented by 5meter long worms whose "milk" is the biggest origin of proteins that the swarm can get. Otherwise they drink the juice from the roots of bigger trees. 20% are Workers who dig new tunnels and nestchambers. The elitary fighters of the Shyk'ni called drones are just 10% while the biggest and most important Queens which bear drones to build tunnels. When the queen is fertilized it will pull off her hard chitin plates to make more room for her abdomen to have more space for eggs. They are only 5% of the population. When the Shyk'ni started to make the exploration of the space their greatest wish they fastly invented the first spaceships built with stone parts and they experimented whether they could plant some of the plants they grew down the tunnels on this stone parts so the ships would resupply themselves. The technology of their ex-masters helped them very much so they invented a system how to let the roots withstand the low gravity and the missing oxygen. Under these conditions the Shyk'ni were able to build cheap chips which were also self-maintaining. The first colonies of them were hermetic sealed bunkers on the moon of the planet. Tunnels filled with Shyk'ni feared of the missing athmosphere and provided by underground nuclear reactors. Of course this plan didn't work so they were forced to evacuate 10.000 people from the moon.

The Shyk'ni invented terraforming systems, new sealing systems and they searched their jungles for high-productive athmosphere building plants. And they found it: Ra'tosh Moss. This plant is a very fast growing moss which became the most important ressource used for colonization an ship engineering. Adapted to the poisonous plants of their home the Shyk'ni planted native flora on their ships to prevent them from being captured, abandon life support systems and to have supplies on their ships so they wouldn`t have to resupply on planetary stations. Down to the present day the Shyk'ni didn't change the main design of their fleet they only modernized some parts.



Culture

Being a race with a swarm consensus the Shyk'ni are very good at exercises which require teamwork and complex planning. In the culture of them there is no I there is only a We. Everybody does the work he is best at so the whole colony makes profit of it. It is like a human ideology called "communism" but in contrast to the communism it works. Everybody earns the same wage represented by food and water. The Shyk'ni feel no need of luxury goods the only things they need is the things keeping them alive. In the event of war the whole monarchy is bound by their genes to save the queen with their lives. Fanatism that was never seen in any races` behavior.





Visual

The Shyk'ni are an Insect Race (6 legs) whose forward legs evolved into hands with three fingers to hold guns. The different monarchies established many skincolours but the oldest monarchie under the oldest and biggest queen called Sovereign by the forces of the United Empire has the purple colour which also represents the hole Shyk'ni as a race. They have tentacle as mandibles and they are covered with a sort of spit. I´m searching for somebody to draw them.



1. They don`t need ressources any luxuries they don`t need dust.-30% dust per system -24

2. Evolution worked very well on them. Terraformed planet. +18

3. Very ambitious Queens and Farmers. +30% food per system. +45

4. Hardened in the fires of a carnivore planet. +20 approval bonus. +15

5. The Shyk'ni are clever but they are still insects. -20%science per system. -16

6. Swarming. +2Fleet size. +25

7. Fanatism. +2ground defense. +12

8. Tunnel Systems. +80% ownership gain. +10

9. Everybody gets the same treatment. heroic medicine-80%. -6



They´re affinity is to settle the underground so they would have more room.

Tyni planets +1 max population

Medium planets +2 max population

Huge planets +3 max population





I´m open for every constructive critics

I love this, the player base gets to be involved in the creation of the game. I will have to plan out my own civilization.

Yes, they do but the races are already designed and finished. They won't take one of ours or do you?

Wotan wrote:
Yes, they do but the races are already designed and finished. They won't take one of ours or do you?

Have you already entered the design competition? /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/13099-official-amplitude-studios-endless-space-faction-creation-competition

Yep, page 6.

What is the prize of the competition by the way

Can you choose the value of effect/cost or will it be set ?

man read the thread.

yes you can.



set in some options 10+,15+20+ etc..

Looking forward to an industrial powerhouse/militarist faction, it's going to be a great game with all the possible combinations

it's greate that we can create a race that will benefit our own playstyle, instead of having traits that you dont realy have any use for most of the time.

I also thought it would be fun to play an influence race. Someone that doesn't take over sectors via raw power but is just so influential that other sectors are just swaid to them. I don't know if this type of mechanic will be offered I'm the game but I think it could be cool.

Maybe an psionic race? Your happy citizens would impress other races just by giving off waves of euphoria. However, if they are unhappy, they would project their regrets and dismay onto their neighbors, which has the twin effects of making the neighboring empire's citizens unhappy, and the empire itself wanting to kill your race for it. So basically: happy telepaths make friends, unpleasent telepaths make people murderous.

It's really awesome to try and create something for such an good game. Hell I had quite a lot fun even playing only the alpha. And it was a lot of fun to design my own faction with a lot of details for the competition, didn't have a motivation for such creativity in a long time. It already feels like most of the money I paid on the pre-order came back in different forms of value



But enough with the praise for now and onto my current point in this thread. I'm not the first one to suggest updating the thread, but instead of just suggesting to update it I'll try and include as many given and needed details to properly update the front page.



Missing Affinity Traits:

Sophon Affinity: -50% support module cost on empire

Hissho Affinity: +5% weapon damage on all fleets for each battle won (15 turns*)

+10% FIDS on all systems for each invasion victory (15 turns*)

* The bonuses accumulate each time, as well as the counter being reset.



Also the guidelines and tips on creating a own faction could a little bit more specific in some parts:

Affinity Traits: How to deal with this depends a lot on how they are handled by the devs in the future. If only the 8 main faction Affinity Traits will be available and you'll obviously have to pick one of those, not allowing for creativity.

But seeing as there's currently a nice faction creation competition online it might (hopefully) be possible to include more than thos 8 Affinity Traits in the game, once such a mod is approved in terms of balnce by the devs. In which case you'll have to play with creativity a lot to come up with a new faction trait. As you can see by the 5 existing ones so far it can be pretty much everything as long as it is balanced.

Then again since each affinity includes a few special techs it might be a bit more complicated to include more. I still hope though the devs are willing to include more affinity traits in order not to restrict the creativity too much.

Normal Traits: Just listing it to be complete here, but the front post explains this quite good.

Visual: While the term is pretty self-explanatory a tiny guideline won't hurt. The most important part for visuals are:

- Starship design

- Art of faction lifeform (organic/cybernetic/virtual/animal-like/etc.)

- Design of faction lifeform (big or small/color/shape(humanoid, animal-like, etc.))

Diplomatic Alignment: Good/Neutral/Evil

Gameplay: How the faction is played best.

Victory Type: Which type of victory is easiest to achieve



Not necessery but beneficial:

- some background story

- homplanet type





I hope that contributes a little.

Vhaidren wrote:
I'd love to see a completely organic race with organic ships and everything. Make their specialty swarming, give them a -25% weapon power, -25% ship defense, -25% ship cost/up-keep, and +60% fleet size. Maybe give them a -30% science production and a +25 food production and +25 fleet speed. Basically a less intelligent/technological race that specializes in quickly expanding and that relies on numbers to win battles. (aka the zerg....)

yupp, we definitely need some race that is especially swarmy, which would fit some hideous 100% bio-organic species. I don´t know about those minuses and pluses you mentioned, sounds a bit extreme, you have to be careful with those.

Stargem wrote:
Maybe an psionic race? Your happy citizens would impress other races just by giving off waves of euphoria. However, if they are unhappy, they would project their regrets and dismay onto their neighbors, which has the twin effects of making the neighboring empire's citizens unhappy, and the empire itself wanting to kill your race for it. So basically: happy telepaths make friends, unpleasent telepaths make people murderous.

sounds interesting, reminds me of SOTS advent a bit. this race could also have some sort of plus effects on industry, food and other resources if they are happy, and minuses if they are not. In a nutshell, emotion driven race.

Fixxel wrote:
sounds interesting, reminds me of SOTS advent a bit. this race could also have some sort of plus effects on industry, food and other resources if they are happy, and minuses if they are not. In a nutshell, emotion driven race.

Aren't you confusing SOTS with Sins? Or did they add a new faction to SoTS when I wasn't looking? :P