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

ohhh you´re right... SOTS = sword of the stars, SOASE = sins of a solar empire. sorry :P

I miss this, this aspect isn't in many games.

I have been modifying some traits from an old 4X game called Stars!, and one of the major traits that could define a civilization was Alternate Reality. Below is my description of how it works for Endless Space.

Shadowmasters (Alternate Reality Civilization)



Hidden beyond the veil that was spun by the Virtual Endless, the Shadowmasters have claimed the Virtual Reality for their own. Yet it isn't enough, because they have to subsist upon the scraps that the Concrete's young unwittingly grant them. No more. The Shadowmasters have no wish to be paupers, nor do they want to be the lapdogs of others.



Slipping through the cracks, they will descend into the other universe to make it their own through force, but they have to take great care in doing so: while much more informed than their Concrete rivals, the Shadowmasters lack the sheer resources that their opposition possess. They form alliances and pass on tidbits of information to the Concretes, pitting them one against the other, and funding their infrastructure projects on their homeworlds. All of this is done to secure the prosperity of the Shadowmasters, as what helps the Concretes thrive, also benefits those who live in the Virtual Reality.



The Shadowmasters, as their title implies, are shadowy in appearance, though the shapes have quite a bit of range, as does the coloration. They sometimes possess the ability to cross over to the Concrete universe, which may be why there are legends of demons and other supernatural tales throughout the galaxy. They often makes deals with Concrete races, often moving goods across the Concrete Universe by taking them into their own realm and passing them through to the opposite end of the galaxy. However, the Shadowmasters are also uneasy when encountering situations and beings they do not understand, so they often have diplomatic difficulties.



+Starts the game with Warpdrive technology

+Starts the game with the Manifestation technology

+Colonized virtual worlds can spy on their concrete counterparts

=Homeworld is located in the Virtual Reality, other races begin within the Concrete Universe

-Virtual Worlds produce significantly less resources than their Concrete counterparts by default.



The Shadowmasters have a TRON aesthetic to them, as does the Virtual Reality that they exist in.

MAJOR TRAIT - ALTERNATE REALITY CIVILIZATION

Occupying another plane of existence, this race occupies an "virtual" reality based on the "concrete" universe. It is identical, except Concrete races do not naturally occupy it, and the effects of each planet is subdued, resulting in barely any resource generation. The focus of an ARC (Alternate Reality Civilization) is to make their worlds more accurately reflect their concrete counterparts, which increases resource production. The ARCs have difficulty in directly affecting the performance and nature of their Virtual Worlds, because those worlds are based on Concrete Worlds. As such, the facilities, terrain features, and so forth are brought about by Concrete civilizations, so ARCs are dependent upon other civilizations to unwittingly improve their worlds.



Virtual Reality

*Warpdrives perform better, and are the default form of movement.

*Planet and star locations are identical to Concrete versions.

*Few starlanes.



Virtual Worlds

*The resources and system improvements reflect that of the Concrete Planets, but are much less effective, often giving half or less of the resources until Manifested.

*Civilizations occupying Virtual Worlds can't produce their own system improvements, they have to rely on Concrete civilizations to unwittingly provide the infrastructure.

*Using "manifesting", system improvements grant their full bonus, and won't disappear if the concrete version is destroyed. This process requires the original article to exist while the Manifestation is being applied, and to match the technological ability that is required to produce the Concrete version in the first place.

*Colonized virtual worlds can observe their Concrete counterparts, but can't influence them.



Concrete Universe

*Starlanes are the dominant form of movement.

*Warpdrives are very slow.



Concrete Planets

*Unaffected by the development of Virtual Worlds.



Virtual & Concrete Conflict - The Endless were said to be divided into two great factions, one being "Virtual", and the other "Concrete". It is hypothesized that the Virtual Reality is an artificial construct, and the conflict between the two factions arose from the creation of it. Some say that the conflict still rages on, through having lesser races contesting each other.



The advantage of living in the Virtual Reality is that foreign races would have relatively little interest, since Virtual Worlds are less valuable than Concrete Planets. The Virtual Reality is also based on physics that don't utilize Starlanes, and Wardrive is the preferred means of movement. Moving across the Virtual Reality is relatively quick, and one of the advantages of going into it is to access the wormholes, which means an Concrete race could enter the Virtual Reality, find another wormhole, and ultimately end up on the other side of the Concrete Universe, without having to use starlanes.



ARCs are capable of inferring the abilities, resources, and actions of races that occupy the counterparts of the worlds they occupy, by watching them at work. ARCs may not be able to touch Concrete races while in the Virtual Reality, but they can certainly watch.



As an general rule, Stardrives operate more effectively and provide greater speed in the Virtual Reality, but are inefficient within the concrete universe. Conversely, there are few Starlanes in the Virtual Reality, but are dominant in the Concrete Universe.



Wormholes are a chokepoint for ARCs, and one of the special elements is that an wormhole has an capacity limit. The bigger and more numerous ships are, the longer it takes for them to make a wormhole "pop". This process can take several turns, with the wormhole bulging to reflect the displaced space caused by the ships passing through it. Concrete races can use this to get an general idea of how many ships are attempting to enter their reality.



Virtual Worlds reflect their Concrete Planet counterparts, and as such automatically produces resources according to the development that has occurred on the Concrete Worlds. However, ARCs can utilize a process called Manifesting to make shadow improvements more "real", which improves their effects to match the genuine article, and prevents these improvements from vanishing if the Concrete version was scrapped.

Interesting concept. Great thought put into the idea of Shadowmasters... But perhaps a bit out of touch of the theme of the game? Granted, imagination is key into creating a special race.. But perhaps.. Too technological for this age of space? Almost sound like the Geth from ME.. But that's my opinion and in no effect an insult to your idea.

This race creation sounds a lot like Stars! Which is... AWESOME.



Affinity = main trait.

Then add lesser traits.



Now if we can get packet flinging and warp gates at planets...

i like an organic race too, would be neat to have yoru ships regenerate slowly even in enemy space. THough if you focus like that, odds are you have to rework the techs.

One of the themes of the game is that there were at least two major factions of Endless, and you can find artifacts associated with them on planets. I figured to try to build off that, using an combination of TRON's cyber reality with Metroid Prime 2's Shadow World as a basis for the Virtual Endless. One of my goals was to make multiple forms of movement, which is why the Virtual Reality has few Starlanes - the rules of how you conduct conquest would be very different, since one has chokepoints, and the other doesn't. Differing forms of movement is what helped make Sword of the Stars a pretty good game, because each race actually plays differently. I am hoping that we can customize our races in Endless Space to also have differing forms of movement.

DMTucker wrote:
Well I'm not a 100% sure on the lore in this universe yet, but I gave my hand at making a fanatically religious, rapid expansive, and xenophobic race.



The Scions claim to be direct decendants of The Endless. Whether this is a confirmed fact or not is still unproven, but The Scions carry their supposed ancestory with extreme pride and reverence. The Scions see The Endless as the rightful creators and gods of the universe, and as such, see themselves as The Endless' torchbearers. The Scions Spread fast and bring with them their ferverent faith, either converting planets in their vast influence, or crushing them with holy fury.



The Scion society operates one a three-tiered class system. At the top are the religious and military castes, formed of the most ferverant priests and tactically brilliant generals. The second caste is the civilian class, formed of the mass populace which the Religious caste controls via indoctrination and hinderance of knowledge. The bottom class consists entirely of slaves captured after military raids and conquests. Members of the slave caste are forced into working the back breaking labor camps that produce the Scion vessels and weapons.



The Scions see themselves as the only true descendants of The Endless, and as such see the other races as 'imperfect' or 'failed' creations of their forefathers, or impure if they evolved on their own.

I think this faction is brilliant, great job!

What about a treacherous economic race. One that would be all about playing the other races against each other.



Weak military, but strong spying and economy. AKA: smart ferengi.



How you win: You would win by spying and using diplomacy as a weapon. once you set the others against each other you could waltz in a win.





Also I like the idea of an assimilator race. They have weak ships in themselves, but they have the ability to assimilate the ships of the other races.



How you would win: basic idea is a long protracted war would hurt them, but quick sortee's would allow you to gather ships and strength. You could even make it so the cp's of the assimilator ship, would have to meet the cp's of the ship assimilated.

See next post. Missed the reply with quote option...

lyravega wrote:
I'd like to see a race who relies on extensive dust usage - actually, evolved by/with the Dust. Maybe even Dust being their food source. Not some form of Dust-addicts however.



They would possess all positive bonuses of the Dust, but they cannot colonize every planet, and suffer heavy population growth penalties. About planets, I don't know how we get Dust (whether or not it is a Resource being gathered on planets I mean), but if Dust is being accumulated from the planets as a resource, this could be their colonization rule aswell. They cannot colonize any planet without a dust source. Their farms provide dust, with some buildings to boost dust production by a percentage to level it out with other races (where they build +food buildings and such, this race builds more +dust buildings, but since dust is used for other stuff aswell, they have access to +dust% buildings aswell).



Also, they are closest to the Endless race. They evolved after the Endless, but worship them as gods, as they think Dust is their creation, and thus, they are their creation (since they evolved by/with the Dust). They are bipedal humanoids with 2 arms and 2 legs, their face resembles squids, with short & multiple tentacles (facial hair?) and they have yellowish & light brownish skintones. Their ships and such looks like living space "animals", and research wise, they make extensive use of biology/organic stuff, while have nearly no interest in complex technologies like AI and such. They have access to special Dust related researches, where they can apply it extensively to their ship platings, weapons and such. They are mostly primitive compared to other races; however their unique and extensive Dust knowledge & applications brings them to the same level with others.



The problem is, I don't have the alpha yet. So, I don't know what Dust is used for, and how much do you get, compared to other resources, a la food. Just trying to come up with a special race, being played completely differently

/#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13437-suggestion-new-race-the-observers-guild



Something like this maybe? Just put this up today as a new race idea.

I would like to see a race that either are great builders (food, industry, science, dust) but not great at combat/military, or a race that gains a bonus to empire happiness and expansion (so food/industry).

I dont know whether it was written before but will we get the option to say: "My race has got the ships of the sophons but has traits like the cravers."? I mean will we choose the factiondesign of one of the mainraces.

Wotan wrote:
I dont know whether it was written before but will we get the option to say: "My race has got the ships of the sophons but has traits like the cravers."? I mean will we choose the factiondesign of one of the mainraces.

As far as I understood you'll be able to do a lot more than that, hence if you can design your own ships you should be able to put them into the game as well. Trait customization is possible to a certain degree but I don't know how far the devs will take that.

Man that would be amazing! But i would habe to mod it right? :/

My modding skills arent the best if i can design ships myself easily endless space will become an endless joy for me.

Yes you would have to mod it, but I can imagine there will be some systems to make custom race modding easier.

That will be amazing.

Making my own Race.

But wich Ship design do the get?

Can I choose ?

I like this idea to create your own civilization. Lets me the game the way I want to.

Virus wrote:
That will be amazing.

Making my own Race.

But wich Ship design do the get?

Can I choose ?

You'll be able to select one of the preset factions' visual styles to represent your race, which includes ship designs.

Hm...can i choose the race portrait myself? Or do i have to choose them from the presets?