VieuxChat wrote:
Heroes have been infused by dust. They are not really from their faction anymore.

Yes, I can see that "Dust Did It!" is going to end up being the way a lot of things are hand-waved away, in this game.



It's still asking a ton of suspension-of-disbelief from the player. We have to assume a Sower can still function while being separated from the group mind, that a Craver commanding one of your fleets isn't going to eat the crew, and on, and on.



There are some nice ideas in the design of the various alien races in the game, and it all goes in the dumpster when they become infused with Dust and become generic Heroes. At that point, you might as well just use race icons from your own faction, because there is no effective difference.



Anyway, I'd be happy if the game just had an option to avoid hiring alien Heroes until you actually met their faction in First Contact. We can hand-wave all the other stuff away, but starting the game with aliens at the top level of your command structure is just too immersion-breaking, in my opinion.

There was another thread somewhere talking about heroes, and I posted my idea in there. Figured it should be dropped in here too.



I agree with a lotta people that at the start there shouldn't be foreign heroes available right off the bat. I think that they should only become available after First Contact or something similar -but- I think that there is an interesting game mechanic available here.



It would be cool to have more heroes become available whenever you sign open borders with another faction. Not only would it make sense (the open borders increase the available pool of heroes from which to hire because you can now hire from two empires), but it also adds an incentive to actually be at peace with others, rather than constant warfare. This makes the game more balanced, and adds more to peaceful relations, rather than just the tech trades that are once off or the trade routes that only generate money. The ability to hire more heroes might move people to actually establish relationships with foreign factions.

josasa wrote:
The ability to hire more heroes might move people to actually establish relationships with foreign factions.

My problem tends to be that the foreign factions don't want to establish relationships with me



Also with regards to the 'How would the UE and Horatio make First Contact if they stem from the same origin?' question:



There's an even better question, namely how would the UE make First Contact with itself if two players are both playing UE?

The answer is likely that the UE isn't as United as it's name suggests. The Universe is very strange and the Endless have made it even weirder. With all the anomalies, Endless tech and Dust-enhanced stuff lying around the place, there's bound to be all sorts of lost colonies, mysteriously disappeared fleets, displaced populations and forgotten splinter factions all over the galaxy.



Which is also, probably, why there are (and should be) Alien heroes available from the start. Because you're not making First Contact with a species, you're making first contact with a dominant Faction of said species. Heroes who are (or used to be, before becoming Dust Enhanced) members of that species might be just as surprised as you that there's another Faction of their own species out there aside from the one they originated in.



However, I do think that heroes of your own species should be (a lot) more common for you until you make first contact with another Faction. Since even if they are mercenaries, people who end up Dust Enhanced are a lot more likely to end up working for the species/Faction they grew up in than one they didn't even know existed.

Okay, here's a question for those who think it's a good idea to have alien Heroes available right from the start of the game, before any First Contact:



If you have aliens who are trusted enough, and loyal enough, to serve as System Adminstrators and Fleet Commanders... then why don't they open the map and show you where their home systems are?



Providing that kind of intelligence is no less traitorous than working as Fleet Commander in combat against their own faction. That's just one of several reasons why it doesn't make sense to me. Why do we have aliens working for us, if they won't tell us something about the galaxy?

That could be an interesting idea.

but take it the other way : you have a craver hero, but no craver faction in the galaxy. He just is a remnant of another faction that may have died.

Also, remember that there's several Anomalies that planets can have like 'Friendly Natives' that basically indicate that some planets are already inhabited before you colonise them.



Alien heroes might, therefore, if asked about their 'homeworld' simply point at one of the planets you've already discovered and/or colonised and go 'Well, that's where I grew up. Don't have a clue about where the other lost colonies of my people are, though.'

Defeats the whole purpose of first contact doesnt it. Xenophobic races would not want another races hero looking over and managing whole systems now would they, they could be spies hmm..

Admiral_Tolwyn wrote:
Defeats the whole purpose of first contact doesnt it. Xenophobic races would not want another races hero looking over and managing whole systems now would they, they could be spies hmm..

There doesn't seem to be a single xenophobic race in the game, yet.

Hissho slice xenos, Cravers eat xenos, Sophons study xenos, United Empire converts xenos to labor and Horatio replace Xenos with "better looking replacement clones".

Nosferatiel wrote:
There doesn't seem to be a single xenophobic race in the game, yet.

Hissho slice xenos, Cravers eat xenos, Sophons study xenos, United Empire converts xenos to labor and Horatio replace Xenos with "better looking replacement clones".

Lol, I like this. I just might had to quote that into my (so far non-existent) signature.

Zenicetus wrote:
Okay, here's a question for those who think it's a good idea to have alien Heroes available right from the start of the game, before any First Contact:



If you have aliens who are trusted enough, and loyal enough, to serve as System Adminstrators and Fleet Commanders... then why don't they open the map and show you where their home systems are?



Providing that kind of intelligence is no less traitorous than working as Fleet Commander in combat against their own faction. That's just one of several reasons why it doesn't make sense to me. Why do we have aliens working for us, if they won't tell us something about the galaxy?

This was something I've been thinking as well. It just doesn't make any sense, in any way I've read or can think of, for alien (as in, not of your faction's race) heroes to be present in the beginning.

Nosferatiel wrote:
There doesn't seem to be a single xenophobic race in the game, yet.

Hissho slice xenos, Cravers eat xenos, Sophons study xenos, United Empire converts xenos to labor and Horatio replace Xenos with "better looking replacement clones".

Well, there is now, with the new Sowers. Not exactly xenophobic, but close enough (quoting from the new race description here):

Needs of other peoples and local populations are not necessarily taken into account; the Sowers do not question the Calling and will not tolerate any entities that try to interfere with it.

So, some of these Sowers are going to give up the Calling to work for you? Why?



It's a serious conflict with the way the race is being described in the game, not to mention the question of why any member of an alien race would act as a traitor to their own species. They don't mind commanding ships that kill their own people? That aspect isn't addressed at all.



Every new race they add to the game just makes this idea of alien heroes more ridiculous. It's an idea inspired by MOO2, I guess, but that was a game that didn't take itself as seriously as this one does.

Zenicetus wrote:
Well, there is now, with the new Sowers. Not exactly xenophobic, but close enough (quoting from the new race description here):

I don't think disregarding or outright ignoring everything alien is the same as fearing it. I mean the Cravers are not very diplomatic in their xenovore habits and you'd still not call them xenophobic.

Zenicetus wrote:
Well, there is now, with the new Sowers. Not exactly xenophobic, but close enough (quoting from the new race description here):







So, some of these Sowers are going to give up the Calling to work for you? Why?



It's a serious conflict with the way the race is being described in the game, not to mention the question of why any member of an alien race would act as a traitor to their own species. They don't mind commanding ships that kill their own people? That aspect isn't addressed at all.



Every new race they add to the game just makes this idea of alien heroes more ridiculous. It's an idea inspired by MOO2, I guess, but that was a game that didn't take itself as seriously as this one does.

Heroes have been infused by dust. They are not really from their faction anymore.

Zenicetus wrote:
So, some of these Sowers are going to give up the Calling to work for you? Why?



It's a serious conflict with the way the race is being described in the game, not to mention the question of why any member of an alien race would act as a traitor to their own species. They don't mind commanding ships that kill their own people? That aspect isn't addressed at all.



Every new race they add to the game just makes this idea of alien heroes more ridiculous. It's an idea inspired by MOO2, I guess, but that was a game that didn't take itself as seriously as this one does.

I think any Sower Heroes are altered by the Dust in such a way that they no longer follow the Calling. Perhaps it gives them true intelligence or sentience, allowing them to make their own decisions outside of their...hive-mind, or collective, whatever it is called.

FinalStrigon wrote:
I think any Sower Heroes are altered by the Dust in such a way that they no longer follow the Calling. Perhaps it gives them true intelligence or sentience, allowing them to make their own decisions outside of their...hive-mind, or collective, whatever it is called.

This. That's how the devs explain why heroes are more mercenaries than citizen of their faction. They could even be considered as a faction by themselves.

Why not make it an option which you can turn on from the advanced options of map generation for an example?



Obviously this is going to be in a modification since so many agrees that having aliens strolling around before even reaching the stars feels utterly wrong in every possible way. So.. so why not make it as an option?

One thing that could get rid of the suspension-of-disbelief is altered artworks. So the heroes really look different from their kind. And the way they are called. "Hero" isn't really a well-suited name for them.

Altered art for the icons would help, yes.

Zenicetus wrote:
Yes, I can see that "Dust Did It!" is going to end up being the way a lot of things are hand-waved away, in this game.



It's still asking a ton of suspension-of-disbelief from the player. We have to assume a Sower can still function while being separated from the group mind, that a Craver commanding one of your fleets isn't going to eat the crew, and on, and on.



There are some nice ideas in the design of the various alien races in the game, and it all goes in the dumpster when they become infused with Dust and become generic Heroes. At that point, you might as well just use race icons from your own faction, because there is no effective difference.



Anyway, I'd be happy if the game just had an option to avoid hiring alien Heroes until you actually met their faction in First Contact. We can hand-wave all the other stuff away, but starting the game with aliens at the top level of your command structure is just too immersion-breaking, in my opinion.

Dust = Space Magic? Hmm...



But I wouldn't say it requires a ton of suspension-of-disbelief. If a Sower has become a true A.I., has achieved true sentience and the ability to distinguish itself as something separate, why wouldn't they be able to exist from the group mind? Or a Craver being "enlightened" (someone please supply me with a better word) and able to, again, rationally think and control their impulses?



I wouldn't call them generic Heroes. Hmm, I'm not even sure how to define a "generic Hero," unless you mean they all share the same basic abilities and classes? Well, in that case, it's simply a game mechanic. The devs had to do something to classify these altered super-beings, if I can call them that, to show how they are now better than the rest of their race. Some being extraordinary tacticians and strategists, others become prodigies or savants with science or industry, or obtain such an awareness for the natural world or economics that they can greatly influence these sectors. Take Albert Einstein as an example: He had such a grasp of his subject matter that physicists and the such today still use and follow his theories and equations.



Anyway, all that aside, I agree (again) that alien Heroes do need to stay out of the Academy until you made First Contact with their race.

FinalStrigon wrote:
I wouldn't call them generic Heroes. Hmm, I'm not even sure how to define a "generic Hero," unless you mean they all share the same basic abilities and classes?

I mean they've all been stripped of what makes them unique as aliens, and different from your own faction.



They can't open the map and show you their home systems. They don't give you any of their unique techs. They don't provide any advantage in trade or combat with their own race. And somehow, they can serve as system administrators and fleet captains without your own people caring about shoving aliens in charge, even if you might be at war with their original faction.



Does anyone here pay any attention to which race a Hero is, when deciding which one to hire next? Or do you just look at the stats and ignore the portrait? They're so stripped-down that there is no reason to care if your system administrator is a Sophon or a Horatio. It doesn't matter. So why make them aliens at all? Might as well replace them with portrait icons that look like your own race. That's what I meant by generic.



Altering the portraits with glowing auras to show that they're Dusty might help a little, but it won't change this basic dynamic -- that they're just a Hero wearing an alien mask.

Maybe make them have race specific bonuses for example Sophon heroes boost tech greater then other races heroes do but still it is odd that you have races heroes before first contact some explanations of this are better then others a good one is that all empires are offshoots of larger multigalactic empires and you are just a governor however some of the events indicate this isn't the case. The problem with the space mercenary argument is that it makes it seem like dust immediately makes all heroes forget X years of social indoctrination and become traitors to their people witch sometime seem to go against their bios why would a loyal peacful Sophon work for Cravers it doesn't make sense.